Lockerbie: London Origin Theory

[Buncrana]

I've been thinking that perhaps the reason the suitcases seen by Bedford, both of these with their handles facing the inner of the container, was because the brown Samsonite on the left, had no security band attached? Fortunately whoever placed the bags in the container, this loading method of handles facing inside the container also matched Bedford's usual practice when loading that kind of luggage to avoid luggage tipping out when opened at the aircrafts destination.

I also agree that the method of introduction of the bomb suitcase was either by someone entering the Interline shed while Bedford was on his break and Kamboj was elsewhere or simply inattentive, or perhaps the suitcase was hidden in the Interline shed and someone was just waiting for the opportune moment when the container wasn't being watched.

Therefore, by either method, when Bedford had returned from his break and spotted the two additional suitcases, Kamboj not wanting to be seen as failing in his responsibility to secure the container while Bedford was away, initially claimed he had put them into 4041 - as he admitted was occasionally done by some Alert employees helping out their Pan Am colleagues when they were on a break or at the toilet. To admit to Bedford that he knew nothing of the suitcases now laid on the floor of 4041, may well have been viewed as a serious lapse in his duties.

However, when news of the disaster came through, I could imagine Kamboj breaking out in a cold sweat, and subsequently didn't directly deny that Bedford had seen the cases on returning from his break, but did deny that he had put them there. Well, he could have been accused of either not x-raying them properly and spotting any bomb and most importantly who had given the bags to him or he allowed that person to put them into AVE4041. Either way, potentially not good for his future job prospects.

So, Kamboj now 'doesn't remember' saying what Bedford alleges he told him is the best way for him to pass responsibility.

 

[Rolfe]

That's a possibility I hadn't considered. My theory was similar. My theory was that Bedford saw the cases and registered that he hadn't put them there, that's a bit odd, but didn't actually do anything or say anything to anyone about it. Then later, after the explosion, he realised he should have said something. He feels he has to describe the cases, to help the investigation, but doesn't want to be labelled as the man who could have stopped the Lockerbie bomb but didn't say anything. So he invents a tale of having mentioned the cases to Kamboj, and Kamboj saying he'd put them there, to deflect blame.

Rolfe.

 

[Buncrana]

Interesting point of note arises from a private case for compensation claimed from Pan Am in 1994 in Pagnucco V. Pan American .

111 B. Detective Constable Henderson's Testimony

112
Scottish Detective Constable Derek Henderson provided deposition testimony as to his work in the Flight 103 investigation. He was assigned responsibility for matching certain bags--the ones that might have been placed in the flight container that was determined to have held the bag with the bomb--with passengers on the aircraft. Henderson prepared his report largely through compiling computerized records of bags. These computerized records had been set up to amass reports from passengers' and crew members' friends and relatives, and from evidence obtained at the scene of the crash.

113
Appellants object to the admission of the detective's testimony and his report. Based on his analysis of passenger records and information obtained from passengers' and crew members' friends and relatives, Henderson determined that the Samsonite bag containing the bomb was an unaccompanied bag from the Frankfurt flight. Defendants moved to exclude his reports as based on multiple layers of hearsay; Henderson had compiled his reports based upon other officers' reports of interviews they had conducted in this necessarily lengthy and involved investigation.

Pagnucco v Pan American


My emphasis in the above as I think this particular point was certainly not what Henderson had determined. He had determined that no passenger whom had luggage contained within AVE4041 on 103 were in possession of a Brown Samonite suitcase which was the colour of the Samsonite forensics had concluded the bomb was within.

And in particular, because the luggage now known to be in AVE4041 was not explicitly from Frankfurt, and there was indeed some baggage originating from Heathrow in that container, his investigation had also taken consideration of the passenger baggage loaded in 4041 before the Frankfurt flight had arrived. It's evident there's an absolute determination to find this bomb had not originated at Heathrow ensuring blame lay elsewhere - specifically Pan Am's baggage x-rayers at Frankfurt.

All of which of course appears to completely omit the evidence given by Bedford very early into the investigation of an unknown brown Samonsite suitcase already in the container which housed the explosion before the Frankfurt flight had arrived! Which was the scenario illustrated and accepted at the Fatal Accident Enquiry in 1991, but that enquiry had decided that it simply had been another Brown samonsite coming from Frankfurt, in addition to Bedford's suitcase which had simply vanished, that contained the bomb.

There also appears to be no reference whatsoever to the stunning emergence from the BKA of the highly relevant Erac printout either throughout these proceedings. Which is also very strange and curious.

 

[Rolfe]

I see what you're saying. I agree Henderson didn't determine what he was said there to have determined, at all. The FAI findings seem conclusive on that point.

This decision is 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. Although at one stage in cross examination he appeared to accept that the conclusion that the bag was unaccompanied was speculative, he later claimed that it was not speculative.

According to this, Henderson's inquiries weren't confined to the presumed owners of the luggage that might have been in AVE4041, but covered the entire passenger list. But even if he did only look at the Frankfurt transfers and the "first fifteen", then the point stands.

It sounds, in general, as if this is the same reasoning as was presented to the FAI, though if it was presented in 1994 then that's disingenuous as the report placing the Coyle suitcase under the bomb bag was dated late 1991 I believe. That placement completely overturns the FAI findings (February 1991).

I'm not sure about Bogomira in this context. I have seen at least one transcript of evidence she gave to a civil action against Pan Am, I think the main action that was taken in 1993 if I 've got this right. She gave evidence anonymously as "Madame X" for some bizarre reason, but she was certainly there and telling her story. So how an action in 1994 could have omitted her I can't quite understand.

This makes me even more interested in having a read at Henderson's actual evidence to the FAI? Airdrie?

Rolfe.

 

[Buncrana]

It really does appear as though each of the conclusions turn on which way Henderson's evidence was interpreted. Except at Zeist obviously where it was simply dropped from the evidence presented.

Where Bedford's evidence was accepted, his samosonite was either dropped entirely from the narrative and when that won't wash, the bag must've been moved to some remote corner never to be found again.

Where Bedford's evidence is absent, Henderson's investigation is used to show that no one had a brown samsonite and it somehow (later using tray B8849) made it's way unaccompanied from Malta.

Henderson's fully testimony would not only be fascinating, but absolutely crucial to how each conclusion appear to use it - or not...

The records held in Airdrie sound well worth an examination over some strong coffee?

 

[Rolfe]

The story told to the FAI doesn't seem to make a lick of sense anyway.

They are assuming that the bomb bag came off the conveyor from the 727 and was laid on top of the Bedford bag, with none of the luggage Bedford described as being in the container when he last saw it having been moved. That puts Heathrow interline luggage below the bomb bag (the Bedford bag, in that version), and behind it (the row of cases placed on their spines, and diagonally to the right (the other mystery case). McKee's case was blast-damaged, and he was a Heathrow interline passenger. So the only scope for Frankfurt luggage to be up close and personal with the bomb bag would be on top of it, and directly to the right.

And yet we're told that the vast bulk of the luggage that was blast-damaged was Frankfurt luggage, and moreover luggage which had been interlined into Frankfurt. Doesn't make sense, as common sense tells us that 50% of what was immediately surrounding that case was assumed to have been Heathrow interline luggage.

Then again, the idea was that the Frankfurt interline luggage was somehow segregaged so that it was preferentially placed close to the bomb bag. How is that supposed to have worked? OK, apparently the interline luggage was selected out at the gate at Frankfurt so that Maier could x-ray it, but after that, what possible reason is there for believing it was kept segregated? And even if it wasn't randomly mixed by the loading into the 727, if it was all together that would imply a horizontal stratum in the container, not a clustering round the corner where the bomb bag ended up.

Also, how many such items were there? Maier only x-rayed 12 pieces, excluding the case of wine. And not all of these would have been transferred to the 747 - probably only a minority. We know most of the feeder flight luggage in general was claimed at Heathrow by passengers not headed to NY. We do know about four items, the single Colye case and three smaller bags belonging to her friend Karen Noonan, that all came together from Vienna. That's four of the 12. Were there any more? How exactly did the 25 blast-damaged items break down anyway?

Very strong coffee, I think.

Rolfe.

 

[Bunntamas]

We know most of the feeder flight luggage in general was claimed at Heathrow by passengers not headed to NY. We do know about four items, the single Colye case and three smaller bags belonging to her friend Karen Noonan, that all came together from Vienna. That's four of the 12. Were there any more?

Is there more to this? Perhaps. Sharing of my info with you? Keep dreaming CTers.

 

[Rolfe]

Hi Bunntamas, nice to hear from you again. I hope you are well.

I think there is more to it than this. I have heard Bollier pontificating, but as usual with Bollier I don't take much notice because he makes stuff up as he goes along. However, yesterday I was reading a new Lockerbie book which just came out (it's rubbish by the way), and noted that the author said the following.

Eighty passengers had checked in at the Pan Am counter at Frankfurt Terminal B. Forty-eight passengers had flown in from other airports, all passing through the transfer lounge, going to departure gate 44B. Seventy-nine passengers had booked to fly only as far as London Heathrow. The remaining forty-nine passengers were booked to continue to fly to New York.

Booth is wildly inaccurate in many of his facts, so I'm not trusting that 100%, but it chimes with what I recall reading elsewhere. He says 48 interline passengers boarding PA103A at Frankfurt. Even granted that some might have had cabin baggage only, 13 items is far too small a number of bags for that number of passengers. Especially as we know Karen had three bags.

Maier can't have x-rayed all the interline baggage. I recall reading that elsewhere, but since I didn't see it in the transcript in relation to Maier's statement, I thought it must be wrong. But it must be right. I don't see how 48 people only had 13 items.

If you want to persuade us to your point of view, and you have information that would help in that, I would recommend sharing it, actually. Up to you though.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Maybe this needs to go back to the Frankfurt thread, but I've found more clarification of the Frankfurt security procedures in David Johnston's book.

Johnston says that only the luggage of the passengers identified by "profiling" as suspect was x-rayed. This excluded everyone with German or US passports, and probably people with UK passports too. Whether the 13 items Maier x-rayed were all the "profiled" luggage from the entire feeder flight, or just from the interline transfer baggage, is not clear.

Now, I'm going to finish this post in the Frankfurt thread.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Ah, I'm back full circle. Maier x-rayed 13 items. Maier x-rayed all the interline luggage. Maier, because of the Autumn Leaves warning which he was aware of, would have considered any radio seen in passenger luggage to be suspicious, and would have called his supervisor. Maier did not call his supervisor and considered that proved there was no radio in any of these 13 items. A radio would have been easy to see on his monitor, even if determining it was an IED might have been more difficult. Maier was first interviewed about this on 25th December 1988, and remembered enough about the batch for PA103A to remember the cardboard box with the bottles in it.

Maier was hand-waved away at the 1992 hearing, partly because of difficulties translating his colloquial German, but mainly because the authorities at that time were determined to throw Pan Am under the bus.

Maier himself was thrown under the bus at Zeist. He may well have been yet another innocent whose life was wrecked by the dishonest investigation into the Lockerbie bombing.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I wondered if someone else was going to come in on this.... New article by David Wolchover, who did the Masking Justice with 'Mercy' article a couple of months ago. This time he's majoring on the Heathrow introduction theory and goes into quite a bit of detail.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60771596/WolchoverPt1
http://www.scribd.com/doc/60771614/WolchoverPt2

Still on the same subject, I've been belatedly reading Leppard, and it turns out it was a good idea to read him late. His book, explicitly the "inside story" taken from police informants, is absolutely riddled with gross errors and internal contradictions. However, his treatment of the investigation into the Bedford suitcase is the most detailed I've seen anywhere, and highly revealing.

Leppard, writing in early 1991, describes Bedford's evidence exactly, mystery brown Samsonite and disputed conversation with Kamboj and all. This is the only place I've seen that referred to, before Foot and others picked up on it at Zeist. But there is was in Leppard all along! Leppard seems to have been getting all that directly from the police - there are strong indications he never went near the FAI at Dumfries.

The $64,000 question is, why did the investigators not investigate that item until its pips squeaked? The answer seems to lie in a series of forensic tests carried out at Indian Head in April 1989 which were designed to discover whether or not the bomb suitcase had been on the bottom layer. There were only five repetitions, and the positioning of the device and the exact amount of Semtex were different every time.

I can't see that the results of a series of five tests, all different, can be conclusive as to the exact positining of the Lockerbie device. They became convinced that the bomb bag couldn't have been "flat on the floor", even though (or perhaps because) that test was actually a bit of a bust. They never tested the angled positions shown in Caustic Logic's diagrams, of course.

Nevertheless, this is what Baz keeps banging on about, the section on p. 141 ending

The test results from Indian Head proved all-important to the Lockerbie investigators. They already knew from interviews with baggage handlers at Heathrow that only the first row of suitcases from the IED luggage pallet had been loaded at Heathrow. The remainder had been loaded at Frankfurt. The tests also meant that the mysterious brown Samsonite reported by the Heathrow luggage handler as being loaded on to the bottom layer could be ruled out: it was not the bomb bag. Kamboj was in the clear.

In other words, it was not Kamboj who had x-rayed the bomb suitcase, it was Maier. Poor Maier, he never stood a chance.

The whole basis of that conclusion rests on the unquestioned assumption that the Frankfurt luggage was simply loaded on top of the Heathrow interline stuff, by Sidhu and Sandhu. Same as the FAI assumed. Nobody has even contemplated the possibility that the Heathrow loaders might have "moved the cases around in the base of the container to create a better fit - a bit of re-jigging." It's absolutely certain, we insist that the Bedford suitcase was not moved, and therefore it could not have been the bomb.

Mary, Joseph and all the saints protect us, that is one hell of an assumption.

So for God's sake, at what point did these forensic genuises decide that Patricia's case had actually been in the position where Bedford saw the mystery Samsonite, with the bomb on top of it? They spent weeks at Indian Head doing these tests all based on the assumption that the thing wasn't moved, and then they decide (over two years later, we think) that it was moved all along?



And it never occurs to anyone to re-think the earlier assumptions, and consider that if they're right about that, the Bedford suitcase could simply have been placed on top of Patricia's? I mean, if you're going there at all, as regards Patricia's case being on the bottom layer, it's surely the most obvious conclusion.

There was a very good reason for not going there, nearly three years after Lockerbie, though. Page 145 of Leppard.

As the Kamboj episode showed, there had always been the outside chance that a bag had been smuggled into the container at Heathrow. That possibility aside, Orr had effectively ruled out Heathrow within three weeks of the bombing. Much to the relief of British security chiefs, the Met's Special Branch had long since stopped investigating the Heathrow theory.

This passage relates to the BKA's insistence, in May 1989, that the bomb must have been loaded at Heathrow. This was after the discovery of the other Khreesat devices and the death of Hans Sonntag, and the Germans had figured out that a Khreesat bomb would inevitably have detonated on the first leg of the flight if it had been loaded at Frankfurt. It appears, from Leppard, that the Brits just hand-waved this away by saying it was perfectly obvious that a Khreesat device might malfunction on the first leg, a bit of dirt in the contacts maybe, but after a bit more handling, go off OK on the second leg.



But that seems to have been it. Orr decides in the first few weeks that because there was nothing from the Heathrow check-in desks in AVE4041, that "ruled out Heathrow". They accept that the Bedford bag is "an outside possibility", but then do these tests in April 1989 to show that the Bedford bag was not in the precise position of the bomb - always in the absolutely firm belief that the Bedford bag couldn't and wouldn't have been moved at all. OK that's it, not Heathrow. We stopped seriously contemplating that "long since", anyway. This, writing of the state of play in May 1989.

Then in late 1991, we decide that the blue American Tourister from Vienna was underneath the bomb bag.

I think I have to go and lie down in a darkened room now.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Something else I noticed in Leppard that's been bugging me for a while. Remember there was a time when we were all assuming the blue Tourister was Karen's? This was because lots of other people were assuming it was Karen's. It was only when I read the Zeist evidence in detail I realised it was Patricia's.

There's a reason for this. It wasn't Patricia who was really suspected of being the mule, it was Karen. And that wasn't because of her Jordanian friend, so much as the finding of a bunch of her undies and things in close association with the explosion.

RARDE had identified a second category of bomb-damaged clothes. None of the clothing showed traces of the radio bomb or the Samsonite suitcase. But the damage was so intense that the clothes must have been inside or at least very close to the bomb suitcase. It was this second list which led the Lockerbie team to their most likely suspect 'mule'.

In the second category were: a pair of white jogging trousers or longjohns; a multi-coloured headscarf; a purple sweatshirt; a tartan-pattern grey jacket; a white singlet; a white bra; and part of a green slip-on tennis shoe.

Most revealing of all was a pair of cream jogging trousers. Attached to part of the torn fabric was a clearly discernible label, hand-written in ink. The name on the label read 'Noonan'. [....]

The significance of this find did not escape Hayes. "We are therefore able to conclude," he wrote, "that all of the above clothing, much of which could be regarded as a lady's clothing, could have originated from within the prime suitcase and, in the case of the first listing above, in all probability did originate from within the prime suitcase."

Photographs obtained from Noonan's family and friends showed her wearing a white singlet similar to that in Hayes's first list which had been almost certainly linked to the Samsonite bomb suitcase.

Once again, Leppard is wrong in the detail. The singlet is in the second list, not the first. The first list is, in effect, the Maltese/Gauci clothes. Nevertheless, it's Karen's stuff that seems to have been in very close proximity to the bomb, not Patricia's.

But it was Patricia's blue canvas suitcase which was blasted to bits by the bomb bag being right next to it.

I don't entirely get this. Why didn't they identify any of Patricia's undies in that case? Is it possible some of that stuff was Patricia's, even if the singlet and the jogging trousers were Karen's? Could Karen have been using Patricia's suitcase?

Further compounding the puzzle is the additional information that Karen had three items of checked-in luggage, which were relatively small - described as holdalls. And only one of these, as far as I gather, was in AVE4041. The other two must have been among the extra items that wouldn't fit in the container and were "loose-loaded into the belly of the aircraft".

[As an aside, that's one more nail in the coffin of the "Frankfurt-interlined luggage last-on-first-off, so all lying on top of the Heathrow stuff" theory.]

I need to look more closely at the transcript and see what sort of condition the holdall that was in the container was recovered in. If these items in the list above were Karen's, and the only bag of Karen's that was in that container was one of the three holdalls, then that must have been very close indeed to the bomb for its contents to have been recovered in that state.

One of my suggestions as regards the "re-jigging" was that the left-hand Bedford suitcase had been shoved aside to accommodate a smaller item between it and the right-hand one. That was what Taylor suggested, only he suggested the heavy metal photographer's case for the small item. I see no description of that metal case having been recovered with explosion damage though, and nobody asked Sandhu exactly where he and Sidhu put it, when he described lifting it up into the container. (I seem to remember a suggestion that the metal case was also Patricia's, but I can't find the reference again.)

I wonder if the smaller item was Karen's holdall, which would have put it right alongside the bomb, and explain the finding of her clothes in that state? Either that, or she had put some of her stuff in Patricia's case, I think.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Ashton's book has a photo of a mock-up of the tilted-up suitcase. The trouble is, he's done it by making the suitcase very large [ETA: Actually, it's the right-hand case which is especially big], so that it protrudes into the overhang section because of its size. The bomb suitcase wasn't all that big, if 26-inch means the width. Sidhu pushing it to the left (remember, it wasn't a heavy case) to get something small like Karen's holdall in between it and the other flat case seems more likely.

There is a mention of a statement given by Sidhu, confirming the layout of the cases are Bedford describes - though I think he said he sort of thought the flat cases were black (of course Bedford was the one who thought these cases were anomalous, so is more likely to have the descriptions right). Another baggage handler also confirmed the positioning. There's nothing about Sidhu being asked about whether he did or might have moved anything or lifted any of these cases out of the container.

There is clarification about the number of cases along the back, and more reconciliation.

There were eleven Heathrow interline bags on Flight 103, but only six of these would have been loaded into AVE4041, as the others arrived after it had been taken from the interline shed, so were instead placed in the cargo hold. In his police statements Bedford consistently said there were more than six cases in the container when he took it from the shed prior to going off duty at around 17.00. His colleagues were less consistent in their recollections and Kamboj initially put the figure at four or five; however since it was he who had taken the container out of the shed he would have seen it for longer than the others. Furthermore, Bedford and fellow loaders Amarjit Singh Sidhu and Tarlochan Singh Sahota each said the base of the container was covered when Bedford took it from the shed.

On 9 January, at the request of the police, he loaded a luggage container in the way AVE4041 had been loaded on 21 December. He placed five suitcases along the back and two flat at front. Sidhu and Sahota undertook a similar exercise, with each also loading seven cases. It was clear from these trial loadings that six suitcases would probably not have covered the container's floor.

So, maybe the first fifteen weren't all interline passengers, if there were only eleven interline cases in total. Or maybe they were, but they turned out to have collected and re-checked their luggage and so it was nowhere near the bomb along with the Heathrow check-in stuff. There is some mention of some of the first fifteen, and when they got in and where their cases were, but I'll have to go back to that. If there were only six in the container, and two were McKee's, it might be possible to figure who belonged to the other four. Carlsson, for one, possibly.

It's looking as if there was only one extra case. Which rather supports my suggestion that the terrorist only brought one case in, and then pulled a second one from the row at the back and placed it to the right of the bomb bag, to try to stop it from being moved inboard.

It does look as if there was an extra case though.

Rolfe.

 

[commandlinegamer]

Just been reading David Wolchover's monograph, mentioned today on Robert Black's blog. Good summation of the evidence, for anyone who isn't familiar with the case. Makes thepoint that even if there were another suitcase it's not necessarily problematic for the London Origin theory.

http://www.davidwolchover.co.uk/docs/Culprits of Lockerbie.doc

 

[pete2]

Posted by "Aku" on Prof Black's blog:

Aku said...

It is entirely probable that the "Bedford" suitcase ended up on the second level of bags in the container, even if it started off on the base of the container. Some baggage handlers will always try to avoid having a hardshell suitcase on the floor of the container. This is bacause a hardshell tends to slide around on the aluminium base of the container, especially if, like the Samsonite in question, its sides are slightly convex. When laying cases on their sides many handlers prefer to place softsided cases (such as an American Tourister)on the botton of the container as these models offer much more friction and therefore remain in place and allow easier loading of baggs on top. I have personally witnessed hundreds of containers being loaded in this way. As a student in the 1970s I worked for two summer vacations as an Operations Research Assistant at for BAA at Heathrow and one of my jobs was to observe and report on baggage handling systems on Boeing 747 aircraft. While working airside at Heathrow I also on at least two occasions picked up suitcases which seemed to have fallen from loading trucks or off conveyor belts, and placed them where their luggage tag suggested they should go. It was, and remains, very easy for airside staff to move bags around the baggage system and to insert them into the system without any record being made.

17 March, 2012

 

[Rolfe]

I just tried to reply to that, and my computer ate it. I'm going to try again.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

YES I KNOW IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY NIGHT.

I've got Sidhu's statement. He says he didn't move any of the luggage that was already in the container when he was loading the stuff from Frankfurt. He says he didn't need to because it was packed enough that nothing was going to move.

That explodes Zeist in one fell swoop.

He also says that although he originally described the two suitcases at the front as "black", he should really have said dark-coloured, because he really didn't notice the colour. He doesn't remember any box of wine, though he said there might have been one. He doesn't remember the heavy metal box Sandhu described, but cheerfully agrees that if Sandhu said that happened it probably did. (Though I note that Sandhu doesn't mention that until his last statement which was quite a bit later so I have my doubts.)

Actually Sidhu gave a whole string of statements starting on 30th December 1988, and the second one (10th January) says simply that he and Sandhu heaved case-about and loaded the container on top of the Heathrow items. Then later the relevant re-interview says that he's sure he didn't move any of the original items.

Sandhu says he didn't notice that there were any cases in the container when Sidhu brought it out, so he can't say if anything was repositioned. Well I wonder why they chose Sandhu to trot up at Zeist and not Sidhu, I really can't imagine.

So there is no possible way Patricia's suitcase could have been on the bottom layer.

Also note that it's possible the left-hand case was already partly in the overhang when Bedford loaded it. I haven't checked his statement yet, but the only mock-up I have seen has the equivalent item sticking into the overhang.

Rolfe. Waiting for the crickets.

 

[Rolfe]

This is utterly bizarre. Didn't the defence realise that the evidence to disprove the judgement was right there in that statement? Didn't they realise the prosecution were going to allege the luggage had been moved? Or that the judges would take that and run with it? Did nobody think of calling Sidhu for the defence?

Was his statement ineligible for the appeal because it had been available all along? I don't really know how this works. But it's absolutely batsqueak crazy.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Oh well, I wasn't really expecting a reply. Maybe later. I'll just go on talking to myself.

Thinking about it, I can see why the defence may have decided not to call Sidhu. He said quite clearly that he didn't move the existing items at all, because everything was already fitted in so that it wouldn't slide about. This doesn't just knock the prosecution contention that Patricia's case had been substituted for the Bedford case on the head, it also cans the suggestion that the Bedford case had been shoved up and to the left to get something else in between the two cases on the floor. Which was my favoured explanation.

Having looked at the diagrams of the position of the explosion, and pictures of the trial loading of a container, I think the explosion was in the case on the bottom layer. However, does anyone want to discuss the new information.

Rolfe.

 

[CTB]

YES I KNOW IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY NIGHT.

I've got Sidhu's statement. He says he didn't move any of the luggage that was already in the container when he was loading the stuff from Frankfurt. He says he didn't need to because it was packed enough that nothing was going to move.

That explodes Zeist in one fell swoop.

He also says that although he originally described the two suitcases at the front as "black", he should really have said dark-coloured, because he really didn't notice the colour. He doesn't remember any box of wine, though he said there might have been one. He doesn't remember the heavy metal box Sandhu described, but cheerfully agrees that if Sandhu said that happened it probably did. (Though I note that Sandhu doesn't mention that until his last statement which was quite a bit later so I have my doubts.)

Actually Sidhu gave a whole string of statements starting on 30th December 1988, and the second one (10th January) says simply that he and Sandhu heaved case-about and loaded the container on top of the Heathrow items. Then later the relevant re-interview says that he's sure he didn't move any of the original items.

Sandhu says he didn't notice that there were any cases in the container when Sidhu brought it out, so he can't say if anything was repositioned. Well I wonder why they chose Sandhu to trot up at Zeist and not Sidhu, I really can't imagine.

So there is no possible way Patricia's suitcase could have been on the bottom layer.

Also note that it's possible the left-hand case was already partly in the overhang when Bedford loaded it. I haven't checked his statement yet, but the only mock-up I have seen has the equivalent item sticking into the overhang.

Rolfe. Waiting for the crickets.

Are you being serious? That's incredible. The defence lawyers knew this?