Where in the world is "Abu Elias?"

[Rolfe]

This is making a lot of sense. But given that the investigation had that information, why would they have discounted it?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I think where I'm conflicted on this is the split between the simple conclusion of "they got the wrong guy", and the actual conspiracy theory.

It's perfectly possible they got the wrong guy simply because of a coincidence of facts - principally the Erac printout appearing to implicate KM180, while Megrahi really was at Luqa airport when KM180 left. And that this coincidence weighed very heavily with investigators who hadn't been able to pin anything on Jibril's crowd despite their best efforts. Marquise certainly seems to come across quite sincere in that department, if a bit blinkered.

If that's what happened, none of this really belongs in Conspiracy Theories. Cops get the wrong guy all the time. It's called wrongful conviction or miscarriage of justice, and it doesn't need a conspiracy. However, we can't get away from the persistent implication and indeed accusations that Megrahi was actually fitted up.

That, I suppose, would make it a conspiracy one way or another. But even then, there are degrees. Was it just a question of taking advantage of that coincidence to get a conviction, any conviction, and avoid looking like a bunch of prize chumps in connection with one of the highest-profile terrorist atrocities of all time? Or was this a deliberate avoiding of the PFLP-GC for some reason, even though they could have made a case against them? That's the political theory, that Iran was essentially untouchable on the subject because of wider middle-east political issues, and Libya made a handy scapegoat. Or was there indeed an element of CIA involvement in the affair? Possibly an operation that went massively wrong?

I don't subscribe to the notion that there can be no such thing as a conspiracy. Just because Oswald was indeed a lone gunman, and a bunch of Arab suicide terrorists really did hijack planes and fly them into buildings on 9/11, and Armstrong & Co. really did set foot on the moon, doesn't mean it's a logical impossibility for there to have been any underhand dealings over Pan Am 103. And I don't really know which way to jump.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

This is making a lot of sense. But given that the investigation had that information, why would they have discounted it?

Rolfe.

I'm not sure which information you mean, so can't really offer a thought. And as far as what the investigation, ca. 1988-1991, Marshman's report is all I know that they had on this character. I doubt the name Basel Bushnaq existed yet.

But in general, why they didn't follow up on whatever they had, I'll answer that question mark with: anything leading to the truth was, by some point anyway, rejected reflexively. Abu Elias is actually blahblah means nothing, after all, when so much *amazing* evidence all but proves Megrahi dunnit, right?

You touch on this in the next post:

... But even then, there are degrees. Was it just a question of taking advantage of that coincidence to get a conviction, any conviction, and avoid looking like a bunch of prize chumps in connection with one of the highest-profile terrorist atrocities of all time? Or was this a deliberate avoiding of the PFLP-GC for some reason, even though they could have made a case against them? That's the political theory, that Iran was essentially untouchable on the subject because of wider middle-east political issues, and Libya made a handy scapegoat. Or was there indeed an element of CIA involvement in the affair? Possibly an operation that went massively wrong?

I can only say it was clearly a frame-up. Impossible evidence pointing to Libya doesn't just appear by accident. I could try to be more 'level-heaaded,' if someone gave me a good reason, but otherwise...

There's much debate about THE reason for the investigation going off the true path. Gulf War politics doesn't cut it for me - too late to explain the worst of the 'wrong turns' and weird evidence, and lacking in other ways as a good enough cause for such duplicity. Iran being too big to tackle isn't enough either - the U.S. has always found some way to show its displeasure there, and could just do more of the same. OTH no grudge against Libya, by itself, could have de-blamed Abu Elias and co. if Washington otherwise wanted to go after them.

Embarrassment over the IA655 incident causing this blowback is a compelling reason IMO, but not obvious enough it was discounted immediately anyway (like London ingestion was). Media and investigators took as FACT that the "Vincennes accident" was the cause for years. It was acceptable enough, for a while anyway.

The embarrassment that a Jordanian agent sent to stop the plot had actually built the bomb might be a good reason, but they could have dug into Marshman's report and noted the Khreesat didn't actually build THE bomb. Abu Elias did (sez Khreesat). Sure it's embarrassing how the agent was played, or how unclear it was just what the hell really did happen, but we know that anyway (it just 'doesn't matter' now).

Now each of these reasons kept popping up along the way. Pliable witnesses like Gauci, Gauci, Giaka, and Bollier were surely noted too as they appeared. As we've seen, there's no one clear moment the gears shifted, and I say no one precise reason. But taken together, these factors plus others were plenty cause for the investigation to shift, mostly by repetition I would guess, wearing down logical resistance into 1991 until enough consensus was reached to proceed with indictments, etc. So somewhere in there, based on the evidence they believed, as it appeared, and within each investigator's own mental context. I would suspect it's a more complex system even than the weather and harder yet to predict.

Thing is, we're looking back here, not predicting, and we know the outcome. It's really not that tricky, folks.

Also, I made it sound more random than it probably was - that would be the backdrop into which certain select actors would consciously order lines of inquiry cut off, witnesses secreted away, fragments planted... those who read and follow the winds sail well and see it through and defend the route they steered to this day.

Sorry went off a bit.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Another bump. No skeptics here have even really tried to debunk any of this material. Not even an attempted duh-bunking yet on this thread.

I admit that even with such hard and precise clues, I haven't personally cracked the case yet. Would you? It's enough for me to have helped bring others up to the holding position where the truth copter is hovering.

If that's too abstract, sorry. This Abu Elias thread makes a little more nervous and a little less clear than usual.

Anyway, some tidbits I don't think we've covered yet, from Express again. Link it's giving me, with title repeated 9 times
fixed so normal, does that work? (weird)
Anyway:

A document submitted to the appeal court by Megrahi’s lawyers states: “The FBI had apparently investigated ‘X’ and knew he was the nephew of Ahmed Jibril.
“‘X’ had met with FBI special agents [an appointment was in his diary for August 1988] but neither ‘X’ nor the Department of Justice would disclose who the agents were or the precise purpose of the recorded meeting. ‘X’ admitted the meeting had taken place. It is inconceivable that he did not produce his Syrian passport for examination. Only extracts from his US passport were revealed.
“Once again, the hand of the US government appeared to be guiding matters behind the scenes.”

Four months later we learned what those funds were for.

Can anyone illustrate that this person X cannot be the same one that Christine Grahame says is now called Bushnaq? That would be comforting, thanks.

 

[SnidelyW]

Another bump. No skeptics here have even really tried to debunk any of this material. Not even an attempted duh-bunking yet on this thread.

I admit that even with such hard and precise clues, I haven't personally cracked the case yet. Would you? It's enough for me to have helped bring others up to the holding position where the truth copter is hovering.

If that's too abstract, sorry. This Abu Elias thread makes a little more nervous and a little less clear than usual.

Anyway, some tidbits I don't think we've covered yet, from Express again. Link it's giving me, with title repeated 9 times
fixed so normal, does that work? (weird)
Anyway:

Four months later we learned what those funds were for.

Can anyone illustrate that this person X cannot be the same one that Christine Grahame says is now called Bushnaq? That would be comforting, thanks.

The problem with 'de-bunking' this is that the 'de-bunk' angle, is a confused mess in its own right. Here's an example;

"More damaging still, an unnamed senior British police officer – known to be a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS), which implies that his rank is assistant chief constable or higher – has testfied to al-Megrahi’s defence team that crucial evidence at the trial was fabricated."^{1http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/hugh-miles/inconvenient-truths}
So, it becomes difficult to de-bunk when the Occam's Razor version is as convoluted as the alternatives.

 

[SnidelyW]

I think that Dr. Richard Fuisz is one person who can shed a great deal of light on the situation.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20000528/ai_n13949725/?tag=content;col1

 

[Caustic Logic]

The problem with 'de-bunking' this is that the 'de-bunk' angle, is a confused mess in its own right. Here's an example;

"More damaging still, an unnamed senior British police officer – known to be a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS), which implies that his rank is assistant chief constable or higher – has testfied to al-Megrahi’s defence team that crucial evidence at the trial was fabricated."^{1http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/hugh-miles/inconvenient-truths}
So, it becomes difficult to de-bunk when the Occam's Razor version is as convoluted as the alternatives.

I'm not sure what you're getting at there. This is "the Golfer," right? Another slice I'm not as familiar with, but it could mean the "simple," non-CT official story is so full of allegations, impropriety, contradictions, etc... If so, then I say indeed. The "alternative" lacks only in legal standing. The wacky official story should by rights be the convoluted and dismissed conspiracy theory.

However, to complicate the Golfer angle, I Just saw someone (Marquise?) insist this parson was someone low-level:
"The second point to which you took issue was the identification of the Scottish police officer. Just because the officer was identified in the "press" as high ranking does not make it so. The man's testimony has already been discredited and I can assure you--he is not a chief, deputy chief, Chief Supt, Supt etc. He is a man who had little knowledge of the inner workings of the investigation and not at all a high ranking official. I would be hesitant to use the media as the definitive source for everything."
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opin...ttack-is-not-as-solved-as-we-think/comments/2
If that's the same person, something tells me (Marquise?) might be right. I dunno.

On Dr. Fuisz, I just did a pan of his contributions:
http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/2010/05/refusing-fuisz.html
It might be off-base, but if he had something amazing to share, I really wish he'd just said it before that separate gag order (over his knowledge of weapons transfers to Iraq) went into effect. Now I doubt he'll be able to, and we'll have to do without one way or another. I could agree that it's probably amazing stuff we're missing, if that avoids a useless squabble. Also, check the comments from Susan Lindauer there and at part three (linked at bottom and in comments)

Such an iconoclastic loner I am...

 

[SnidelyW]

I am really wary of Lindauer, as she turns up in the most interesting of places, and she has too many vowels in her surname for my liking.

 

[SnidelyW]

I think Marquise came into things a bit late, and was the guy hired to wrap things into whatever package fit.

 

[Rolfe]

Another bump. No skeptics here have even really tried to debunk any of this material. Not even an attempted duh-bunking yet on this thread.

Debunking, within this subsection, tends to mean supporting and substantiating the Official Version. I don't think it can be done.

I was tempted to start a thread looking specifically at evidence for Megrahi's guilt, and I may still do. There's not a lot there. The thing is though, that Megrahi's guilt is essential for the Malta -> Frankfurt -> Heathrow route of introduction to stand. If that doesn't, then you can still try to blame Libya if you like, but you're back at square one as regards who, where and how.

I don't know how this works. Do other posters still believe Megrahi did it? If so, why not come and explain the reasoning behind that! Or have people mostly accepted that the Official Story is a pile of dingoes kidneys, and they just don't care very much either what really happened, or how come Megrahi came to be convicted?

It does raise the point that this section is all about defending the Official Version of whatever is under discussion, and "debunking" alternative theories. Come a situation where it seems likely there was a genuine conspiracy, and nobody wants to play.

Anyway, some tidbits I don't think we've covered yet, from Express again. Link it's giving me, with title repeated 9 times
fixed so normal, does that work? (weird)
Anyway:

Four months later we learned what those funds were for.

If there's one thing guaranteed to make me think maybe Megrahi was involved in the bombing after all (even if he didn't himself put the bomb on the plane), it's his claiming to know who actually did it. I think it's just the fruits of his own and his lawyers' research into the affair, but honestly, he'd do better to keep his mouth shut (which he has been doing recently, to be fair, though maybe that's just a function of being on palliative care).

Can anyone illustrate that this person X cannot be the same one that Christine Grahame says is now called Bushnaq? That would be comforting, thanks.

Christine can be a bit ditzy, and I'm not convinced she's that au fait with all this. She has an aide/researcher who might be the brains behind it all though.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

The problem with 'de-bunking' this is that the 'de-bunk' angle, is a confused mess in its own right. Here's an example;

"More damaging still, an unnamed senior British police officer – known to be a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS), which implies that his rank is assistant chief constable or higher – has testfied to al-Megrahi’s defence team that crucial evidence at the trial was fabricated."^{1http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/hugh-miles/inconvenient-truths}
So, it becomes difficult to de-bunk when the Occam's Razor version is as convoluted as the alternatives.

The Golfer, right? I'm with you as regards Marquise, who really lacks insight into a lot of what he says. However, The Golfer was said to have given evidence to the SCCRC and to have repeatedly contradicted himself. They apparently were not impressed.

It's possible the SCCRC's intention was to pass the evidence that Gauci's identification was unreliable and essentially allow the appeal on that ground, so that anything else embarrassing could be glossed over. On the other hand there were two allowed grounds of appeal that were never made public.

Whichever way you take it, it seems The Golfer didn't manage to convince the SCCRC of anything much.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I think that Dr. Richard Fuisz is one person who can shed a great deal of light on the situation.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20000528/ai_n13949725/?tag=content;col1

If all the people who have told someone they know exactly what happened and who bombed that plane were placed end to end, they'd stretch from Heathrow to JFK.

We can't of course discount that one or more of them might know exactly that, but we can't tell who, and it is slightly odd that nothing has come out in the past ten years on this. The gagging order was supposed to be 1994, and that article dates from 2000, before the Camp Zeist trial.

The possibility that the US government kows exactly what happened and are extremely anxious not to tell is always present of course. That's what Martin Cadman says he was told. I don't know how we find this out though.

Rolfe.

 

[SnidelyW]

The issue with the 'official' version of events, that the bomb began its passage in Malta, cannot be sustained, plus we have two different versions of events propogated by the Americans.

On the 'official version' we have VINCENT CANNISTRARO (Former CIA Head of Counter Terrorism), arguing that BECAUSE all the documentation was in order in Malta, the entire Maltese baggage handling system was 'suborned' by Megrahi and Fhimah.

"DENIS PHIPPS (Former Head of Security British Airways): It is my personal opinion that the bomb which destroyed Pan Am 103 did not originate from the airport at Malta.

SHELLEY: While it might have been expected that security at a small airport on a holiday island like Malta would not rival that of a large international airport like Frankfurt, Denis Phipps discovered that quite the opposite was true.

DENIS PHIPPS: At Luqa there was a complete set of records of what had occurred, and that from those records and from questioning the staff involved, that there had been a complete chain of supervision and care over the baggage from the point it was checked in to when it was loaded. Now if we try to follow the same trail at Frankfurt what was not available were records of who had been responsible for looking after those same bags once they arrived at Frankfurt, or indeed how many bags had arrived and been handled and where they'd gone and what happened to them. Did the bag containing the bomb go on during this period of time.

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 loaded 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?

MICHAEL MANSFIELD QC: Well it's an extraordinary argument that Cannistraro is putting forward. If on the one hand you show by documentation, by interviewing baggage handlers, which I understood happened here, by examining the person who was supervising the whole of the baggage handlers….you're able to show it's a watertight case, then they say 'oh, it could have been suborned'. If you on the other hand have no documentation, and you aren't able to show what cases went on….they say 'ah, ah, very suspicious, why haven't you got the documentation?', so it seems on the CIA approach to life, you can't win unless you've got a particular hypothesis which is theirs, namely the Libyans did it therefore everything else flows from it.

And I think one has to be extremely careful about this, because if essentially on that thesis it would mean that the documents in Malta have all had to have been forged, it would also mean that the chief supervisor obviously has been paid off and so on, and they have no evidence, it's all very well to say all this, what are they saying, that the head supervisor of Air Malta is in the Libyan pocket, is being paid, there's no evidence of this at all. These are accusations it seems to be without any foundation at all."¹
So, here we have the version where the 'Libyans did it through Malta' being completely castrated through the official records, interviews and such.

I think a responsible person owes it to themselves, let alone the innocent victims, to question the official version of events.

1. http://plane-truth.com/Aoude/geocities/silence.html

 

[Rolfe]

There's a couple more problems with the Malta-was-suborned theory.

First, Fhimah wasn't working as station manager for LAA at the time of the bombing. He'd changed jobs. He still had his airside pass and could have gone airside, which is how he was alleged to have done the deed at Camp Zeist. But he could scarcely have orchestrated this baggage leger-de-main after he'd left that employment and when he wasn't even there. I think Giaka may not have realised Fhimah had changed jobs when he started making up these taradiddles.

And that's another problem they have. Fhimah didn't go to the airport that morning. Of course the accusation was that Megrahi had taken the bag to the airport, then Fhimah had given it the VIP treatment he quite often gave to high officials bags' and whisked it through security on the fast track - but instead of putting it on Megrahi's flight, he'd put it on KM180 with fake tags. However, they couldn't produce a single person who saw Fhimah at the airport that morning - and he was well-known among all the staff. There was supposed to be some route (through the Ladies toilets?) to get airside without passing security, but no evidence that Fhimah was even there, never mind actually took that route. Megrahi didn't go airside at all, so how was the thing done, even if the bag-counting wasn't so airtight?

Then again, how many different baggage handlers would have had to have been in on the plot? Are we supposed to believe that the entire Maltese baggage staff were in on this and covered it up, even knowing that an atrocity had resulted? The prosecution absolutely bust a gut trying to find evidence the baggage crew had been suborned, and found nothing. All they did was annoy the staff, who got in a bit of a paddy because they realised their private telephone calls were being bugged. You know, this is the sort of conspiracy theory that usually gets sneered at in this forum, but this time it's being advanced (apparently in all seriousness) as part of the Official Story.

And finally, Malta is a Christian country, and the Maltese, by and large, devout Catholics. They're not that fond of Moslems on the whole. Gauci said quite a few anti-Libyan things. We're supposed to believe that the entire baggage crew, as I said, was prepared to cover something like this up, for ten years and more, in the face of a terrible atrocity? Did they just go to confession and the priests never said anything, or what?

Cannistraro is an embarrassment.

Rolfe.

 

[SnidelyW]

So, again, this leads us to severely doubt the 'official' explanation. In addition, the PFLP-GC were the prime suspects for the first two years, until American political expediency caused Prime Minister Thatcher to roll over like a good pal, and all of a sudden, the integrity of getting the truth out for the families evaporates.

Thatcher is an embarrassment.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Excellent passage above from Frontline Scotland. I'd love to find a copy of that video. I've quoted Vince's stupid line before. It is embarrassing to come out and say something so preposterous when everyone else knows you just quietly imply it and then move on. Mansfield is awesome there.

They have nothing, found nothin, at all from the Malta end. A weird-ass piece of paper seems to point that way is all. Aside from there being Libyans there, at one point with a brown Samsonite and such... This is another excellent angle.

So, again, this leads us to severely doubt the 'official' explanation. In addition, the PFLP-GC were the prime suspects for the first two years, until American political expediency caused Prime Minister Thatcher to roll over like a good pal, and all of a sudden, the integrity of getting the truth out for the families evaporates.

Thatcher is an embarrassment.

Yes, in substance. However, she's got a certain grace to it I can respect. She's the anti-Vince! She keep quiet and not such an embarrassing yakker!

“December 21 - Lockerbie bombing” The entire reference to the event in Thatcher’s 914-page memoir The Downing Street Years (1995).
"We wish to add nothing to the text". Her response when asked, by a British PA103 relatives' group, about the book’s silence. (source)
"'Because I didn't know what happened and I don't write about things that I don't know about." - Response when asked by Tam Dalyell. (source)

 

[Rolfe]

So, again, this leads us to severely doubt the 'official' explanation. In addition, the PFLP-GC were the prime suspects for the first two years, until American political expediency caused Prime Minister Thatcher to roll over like a good pal, and all of a sudden, the integrity of getting the truth out for the families evaporates.

Thatcher is an embarrassment.

Maggie Thatcher is a wicked, vicious woman, who no longer knows what day of the week it is, so not much point getting annoyed with her at this stage.

However, your timing is a bit off. The date of Thatcher calling off the dogs on the PFLP-GC is mid-March 1989. Indeed, they remained the prime suspects for most of the press (except the Sunday Times seems to be in on some of this because it changed its stance quite early I think), and even as far as the rank and file investigators are concerned. However, in March 1989 there was a phone call between Thatcher and Bush where it is alleged they agreed to back off on the PFLP-GC for political reasons.

What were those political reasons? It was politically expedient not to cause an incident with Iran, essentially. Realpolitik in the middle east was such that fingering Jibril would have thrown a serious spanner in the works. Hostages, Terry Waite and John McCarthy and Brian Keenan, other considerations.

And that's completely ignoring the possibility that the atrocity was actually an American operation that went badly wrong. That Khreesat (who was a CIA asset) made the bomb and it was all being monitored, but then somehow the tails were thrown off the scent and the sabotage actually happened. If that's the case, oh dear, we really don't want to bring these guys to court.

March 1989 fits quite well with the case against the Libyans having been put together over the summer of 1989, as it seems to have been. The Erac printout shows up in August, and Feraday starts getting excited about this little bit of green circuit board in September.

This all seems to have been fairly low key though, and nobody made any real attempt to stop the press writing stories about how it was Abu Talb wot done it. The Scottish investigators who first interviewed Gauci were trying to get him to identify Abu Talb at first. The rank and file still seemed fairly certain the PFLP-GC would be indicted for the atrocity in due course.

It took at least a year for the investigation as a whole to swing round to Libya, and Gauci wasn't questioned about Megrahi until February 1991. This of course coincided with Desert Storm and it was all terribly convenient. But the brakes went on to the PFLP-GC investigation less than three months after the crash, and the case against Libya was being laid only a few months after that.

Rolfe.

 

[Caustic Logic]

It's time to bump this weird old thread. I've added two more blog posts, probably the last, to my Abu Elias / Basel Bushnaq series.

http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/2010/10/abu-elias-guarded-by-power.html

http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/2010/10/basel-to-basil-kubaissi-link.html

The first focuses on online commentary, the "Bush" in his name issue, and especially his first reaction to being named as "alias Abu Elias" - he joins a site called "MePeace," posts a photo of US naval power, and the caption "peace must be guarded by power."

How in the hell can I not find that eyebrow raising?

The second covers the name-based possibility that the alleged PFLP-GC terrorist, who took the name Basel Bushnaq around 2001, around the same time married the daughter of PFLP terrorist named Basil Kubaissi. I try to debunk that one as I go, but...

I've gotten hardly any comment from this thread, my posts, or elsewhere, on the whole angle. Dr. Swire showed a little interest. But the silence is driving me nuts. Is it too spooky to comment on? Too potentially legal? Or too nuts to say anything other than "dude, that's nuts?" Either way, I'd rather hear some feedback.

 

[Caustic Logic]

holy crap again. Just scanning the above, the Salinger part I'd forgotten about. Says he got papers about "Abu Elias" from the Yugoslav authorities. So he was down there at some point, perhaps when fighting was going on in Bosnia, like in May 1992 when the Hadji-Ahmed aga Lakisic Mosque in Mostar was damaged.

So this can't be our Basel, as he's only Bosnian by ancestry, never having been there himself. But he has roots in the Lakisic clan, and a grandfather whose mosque is a famous landmark down there in Mostar.

Can anybody else see these holographic patterns popping out with alarming density?

(ETA: That is, after first taking a look at the source material, which I don't know if anyone else has yet, but I think all the links are here on this page somewhere)

 

[Buncrana]

Sorry for not much comment, but I am following you, I think, and yes, the apparent coincidences, just like on first appearences, can be deceptive. It is a murky world, and if I'm following you correctly, then the at first seemingly coincidences, when tied with what is known on Autumn Leaves, does imply something more substantial...

I would also think that for a MSP to take what could be reasonably viewed as a relatively unrestrained by usual conventions or propriety, and make such an accusation of an individual whilst also naming them, (although probably exempt from prosecution by parliamentary privilege - legal immunity) would have to supported by some pretty strong and damning evidence. And most likely information not in the public domain. Have you emailed her?