[Merged] al Megrahi and the Lockerbie bombing [Archive] - Page 3

Rolfe

25th February 2011, 08:22 AM

If you and/or CT would have bothered to look into the Gaddafi / Sennusi / Megrahi relationship (instead of hand waving it when I brought it up eons ago when I first joined JREF) in your "research" you might have noticed the issues and complicities here. But no, you're so hell bent on Megrahi's innocence, you accuse others of ignoring the facts and yet you ignore them yourselves. [....]

Megrahi was, is and forever will be a terrorist, aligned with Gaddaffi, via the same family tribe as Sennussi, who is in the same family as Gaddafi. Blood seems to be thick in the Libyan tribes and Megrahi's blood is intertwined with Gaddaffi's via his tribe being the same as Sennusi's.

That's all very well, Bunntamas, but it doesn't bear to the point at issue, which is whether the Lockerbie bomb travelled on KM180 that morning as unaccompanied baggage. If it did, then all that is relevant. If it didn't, then Megrahi was a thousand miles away from the scene of the crime when the crime happened.

I do not know whether Megrahi personally was involved in nothing more reprehensible than sanctions-busting and smuggling, with his worst crime being that he knew (and is related to) some serious bad guys, or whether he had a past that would shock Ivan the Terrible. I officially DO NOT CARE.

There are many bad guys in the world. Just being a bad guy, even being a very bad guy indeed, is not proof that an individual committed a particular crime. Look into the pasts of some of the other people who have been linked to the Lockerbie bombing. All a bunch if innocents? No I don't think so.

First, establish that there is specific evidence connecting the bad guy to the crime in question, before claiming that the mere fact that he is (or may be) a bad guy is relevant to the discussion.

If the bomb did not travel on KM180 that morning, Megrahi could not have committed the crime. There is no evidence AT ALL that the bomb travelled on KM180 that morning, and "considerable and quite compelling evidence" (that's a quote from one of the Zeist judges by the way) that it did not.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

25th February 2011, 08:32 AM

I know it has been said that we shouldn't care if Megrahi was wrongly convicted because he was a bad guy anyway. That is such an affront to justice I don't know where to start.

Rolfe.

Bunntamas

25th February 2011, 08:13 PM

Oh, "enlightened" CTers with your all knowingness about "evidence", do tell about your knowledge of "evidence" or lack thereof, surrounding Abdeljalil. And how this relates to your "arguments".

~B.

zooterkin

26th February 2011, 12:43 AM

Caustic Logic

26th February 2011, 12:43 AM

Oh, "enlightened" CTers with your all knowingness about "evidence", do tell about your knowledge of "evidence" or lack thereof, surrounding Abdeljalil. And how this relates to your "arguments".

~B.

Hmm... haven't we been trying to do just that for however many months now, only to get silence and drivel about clan affiliations?

Look, I'm not up for wasting time these days, but since you asked so nicely, I will briefly entertain your (sincere?) request to hear it again. But only in trade. You owe me an answer to Buncrana's post above. How do you support your inconsistent acceptance of Scottish legal decisions? You embrace without question or critical though the guilty verdict, and seem completely unaware of the official finding that the former might well have been a miscarriage of justice. Seems a bit FISHY, y'know. And consistently so.

I won't even wait for your half to come through, in good faith. Unfortunately, I don't know how to answer this:
knowledge of "evidence" or lack thereof, surrounding Abdeljalil
All I can say is I had never heard of him until the other day, and haven't had the time to learn anything aside from what we've discussed here. Justice Minister of Gaddafi's regime for some time until the protest/war thing, and then he suddenly came out with resigning in protest and this absurd claim of proof for a case that otherwise doesn't even have any credible evidence.

As for
how this relates to your "arguments"
I'm still not sure exactly what the "this" you refer to is, and I don't have any "arguments," only arguments.

As you know, we have many lines of qestioning, covered here in the last couple of years, with you here for some of it. Essentially, how this relates is about what I bolded above - it doesn't seem that Megrahi bombed that plane, so any claim of an order to do so is dubious at best. Is that so hard to grasp?

You're still having a hard part with "no credible evidence." Keeping it simple and to one point, and without re-explaining what we've already been over repeatedly, let's just look at one of the more central parts, the one the SCCRC focused on , the "identification" of Megrahi as the clothes buyer. As you're surely aware, Tony Gauci never identified Megrahi. Someone else did it for him, pretty much ignoring his testimony along the way.

As I recall, all you've said about Tony's contribution to the case was in reference to his 2000 testimony, where he contradicted himself in numerous ways to be less discrepant with Megrahi. As I recall, you praised his memory there as remarkably good for such a long time after the event. But still no word on how his memory improved so much, or why his recall of Megrahi visiting on December 7 came out so muddled in his 1989-91 police statements as to seem very much like a different man on a different day.

And you can't chalk it all up to bizarre memory problems. The umbrella testifying to the rain that was totally absent on December 7 was found in blasted bits across Scotland.

Rather than explain each of the points above for you, why not point out what you disagree with or need to see the work for, and I will provide that as time allows. So long as you hold up your end and let us know one good reason to simply ignore the SCCRC's findings as you have chosen to.

Rolfe

26th February 2011, 03:33 AM

How do you support your inconsistent acceptance of Scottish legal decisions? You embrace without question or critical though the guilty verdict, and seem completely unaware of the official finding that the former might well have been a miscarriage of justice. Seems a bit FISHY, y'know. And consistently so.

Could I second that? Bear in mind that Fhimah was ACQUITTED by the Zeist court. And it was a "not guilty" too, not even a "not proven". (I bitterly oppose that dual verdict, but given that it exists, we can draw certain conclusions from that.) And yet Bunntamas repeatedly posts accusations that Fhimah was involved in bombing the plane.

How's that for selective application of the evidence?

And also, as you say, the SCCRC findings. Most accused would be ecstatically happy with one ground of appeal to be identified by the Commission. Megrahi had six. Here's a sample.

the Commission formed the view that there is no reasonable basis in the trial court’s judgement for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary’s House, took place on 7 December 1988.

In the Commission’s view, [....] the purchase of the items took place prior to 6 December 1988 [....] at a time when there was no evidence at trial that the applicant was in Malta.

four days prior to the identification parade at which Mr Gauci picked out the applicant, he saw a photograph of the applicant in a
magazine article linking him to the bombing. In the Commission’s view evidence of Mr Gauci’s exposure to this photograph in such close proximity to the parade undermines the reliability of his identification of the applicant at that time and at the trial itself.

This report is the result of a four-year intensive inquiry into the evidence. The commission tasked with reporting on the safety of the conviction has concluded that it does not appear to be safe.

Anyone debating in good faith on the legal position has to acknowledge this. Bunntamas, are you prepared to take the SCCRC findings on board?

If we're going to return to the unreliability of Tony Gauci's identification, I think we should go back to the thread in question. But make no mistake, it's crucial. Tony never identified Megrahi as the buyer of the clothes. His original descriptions of the buyer are nothing like Megrahi. The photo he picked out of Megrahi is one which isn't actually recognisable as being a photo of Megrahi. By the time he got to Zeist, he had learned very well what the man n custody looked like, whom he was supposed to be identifying. The identity parade was a farce, with Megrahi being forced to wear red shoes while all the other men were wearing trainers. And even then all Tony could say was that Megrahi wasn't the buyer but resembled him.

It's important because if the identification falls, so does the rest of the case. There is no evidence Megrahi did anything out of the ordinary at Malta that morning - he didn't have a suitcase with him and he didn't go airside. There is no evidence there was any unaccompanied luggage on KM180, and "considerable and quite compelling evidence" that there wasn't. The x-ray operator at Frankfurt didn't see anything suspicious among the luggage transferred to PA103A at Frankfurt. There is literally not a shred of evidence to show that the bomb travelled on the route it is said to have travelled.

The only reason the judges decided that must have happened, despite the "considerable and quite compelling evidence" that it didn't, is that the man they had decoded bought the clothes from Tony Gauci was at the airport at Malta that morning.

If the identification falls, and in my opinion it should never have stood in the first place, the entire case falls.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

26th February 2011, 03:08 PM

The above post was moved out of context from a different thread. I'm moving this one from the same thread because of course the question keeps coming up but we've been forbidden from talking about it there.

This is for Wildcat, and he might also like to read the post above. If it had stayed where it was originally posted he might not have had so many questions.

And so what if it was? How does that rule out Megrahi's involvement? Was this the one brick in the case which if removed the whole case comes crumbling down?

I'll try it this way. There was no evidence at all that the bomb was ever anywhere near Malta, or travelled on KM180 from Malta to Frankfurt. On the contrary, intensive and prolonged investigation ruled it out. Despite this, the court chose to decide that had actually happened, because they believed Megrahi (who had been at the airport catching another flight when KM180 left) was the man who had purchased the clothes identified as being in the suitcase with the bomb. This relied on identification evidence given by the shopkeeper who sold the clothes. Here's how that worked.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=6920925

In addition, the date he appeared to be describing was a day on which Megrahi wasn't on Malta at all. This is one of the bits of circular reasoning. They first decide that the less likely day is the day when the clothes were bought, for no readily apparent reason, but in fact because that is the day that will allow them to find that the purchaser was Megrahi. They then decide that the shopkeeper's non-identification of Megrahi as the purchaser (he only said Megrahi resembled the purchaser) was a positive identification - because Megrahi had been on the island on the day in question, and because he had been at the airport when the bomb was undetectably smuggled on the plane.

Then they decided the bomb must have been on that plane even though there was no evidence to that effect, plenty evidence it wasn't, and plenty evidence it had been introduced at Heathrow - because the man who bought the clothes was at the airport when that flight left!

I'm not making this up, I wish I was.

There's a lot more, proven stuff about bribing witnesses and suppressing evidence, and suspected but unprovable fabrication of evidence. But really, if Megrahi didn't buy the clothes he didn't do it. It's that simple. And this is the what the official Scottish legal body which spent nearly four years looking into that (http://www.sccrc.org.uk/ViewFile.aspx?id=293) said.

The Commission formed the view that there is no reasonable basis in the trial court’s judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary’s House, took place on 7 December 1988.
The purchase of the items took place prior to 6 December 1988. In other words, it indicates that the purchase took place at a time when there was no evidence at trial that the applicant was in Malta.
Mr Gauci’s exposure to this photograph in such close proximity to the parade undermines the reliability of his identification of the applicant at that time and at the trial itself.

He didn't buy these clothes, and he was nowhere near when the bomb was introduced into the baggage container at London. There was no other evidence linking him to the bombing. All that can be appreciated by reading the Opinion of the Court (http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf). Which is why Damien Evans said that the evidence presented in the trial showed he couldn't have done it.

Rolfe.

Bunntamas

26th February 2011, 06:41 PM

Look, I'm not up for wasting time these days, For not being up for wasting time, you sure do waste a lot of it here, on R. Black's and your blog with your CTs.

but since you asked so nicely, I will briefly entertain your (sincere?) request to hear it again. But only in trade. You owe me an answer Edited for civility. Speaking of pictures, following is what the rest of the world (beyond CTers) are thinking about Libya and what you and yours view as the "innocent" arguments of Gaddaffi's clan and his henchmen, including Megrahi. I must say, a much better cartoon than yours.

http://www.bokbluster.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/110224boklores.jpg

Oh, the irony. If he doesn't croak first, it may just become a reality that Megrahi once again resides in a prison cell, where he belongs. along with his fellow terrorist bosses; Senussi and Gaddaffi (if Gaddafi doesn't first off himself on those drugs that he alleges were supplied by al qaeda, resulting in the Libyan uprising; the idea of which, (al qaeda suppliying drugs to Libyans, that is) uncannily resembles the CTing that has gone on here, for years on end, hence the relegation of all of these comments to the CT forum, much to Rolfe's chagrin, yet nontheless, as appropriate as Megrahi, et al, belonging in prison).

Cheers,
~B

Caustic Logic

26th February 2011, 07:38 PM

[deleted]

You are so on ignore now. Ta-ta.

little grey rabbit

27th February 2011, 12:22 AM

Timers for Libya

In week 7 of the trial, Meister testified that Mebo had supplied Libya with 20 MST-13 timing devices, and identified one of the two accused (Abdelbaset al-Megrahi) as a former business contact. The defence asked Meister, under cross-examination, to explain the purpose of his visit to Syria in 1984. Meister's partner, Edwin Bollier, was questioned in week 8. Bollier said Mebo made a range of products including briefcases equipped to radio-detonate IEDs. He agreed that Mebo had sold 20 MST-13 timers to Libya in 1985, which were later tested by Libyan special forces at their base at Sabha. Bollier said: "I was present when two such timers were included in bomb cylinders". In court, Bollier was shown a number of printed circuit board fragments which he identified as coming from the Mebo MST-13 timer, but he claimed that these timer fragments appeared to have been modified.
[edit] Timers for East Germany

Joachim Wenzel, an employee of the Stasi, the former East German intelligence agency, testified behind screens in week 9. Wenzel claimed to have been Bollier's handler in the years 1982-85 and testified that Mebo had supplied the Stasi with timers.[5]
[edit] Criminal complaint

During week 11 of the trial, Mebo lawyer Dieter Neupert filed an official criminal complaint against the Crown over what he alleged was a 'forged fragment of MST-13 timer'.[6]
[edit] False testimony

Former Mebo employee, Ulrich Lumpert, told the Scottish Court in the Netherlands that as an electronics engineer he had produced all of the firm's MST-13 timers. Lumpert agreed that the fragments shown to him in court "could be" from that timer and was asked to confirm his signature on a letter concerning a technical fault with the prototype MST-13 timer.

Seven years later, on 18 July 2007, Lumpert claimed he had lied at the trial.[7] In a sworn affidavit before a Zurich notary, Lumpert stated that he had stolen a prototype MST-13 timer PC-board from Mebo and that he had given it on 22 June 1989, to "an official person investigating the Lockerbie case".[8] Dr Hans Köchler, UN observer at the Lockerbie trial, was sent a copy of Lumpert's affidavit and issued a report on the matter.[9] Dr Köchler told the Glasgow Herald:

"The Scottish authorities are now obliged to investigate this situation. Not only has Mr Lumpert admitted to stealing a sample of the timer, but to the fact he gave it to an official and then lied in court".

So if the detonator isn't genuine (and if I recall correctly it was found very late and wrapted up in Tony's famous shirt) then we don't have a clue what brought down the plane.

We don't even know if it was a bomb.

Caustic Logic

27th February 2011, 02:27 AM

So if the detonator isn't genuine (and if I recall correctly it was found very late and wrapted up in Tony's famous shirt) then we don't have a clue what brought down the plane.

We don't even know if it was a bomb.

Yeah, we do, barring an insane no-planer-level conspiracy. The physical science is around, photos, etc. You should find little if anything amiss with it.

The detonation time happens to match perfectly with a Khreesat bomb loaded at London, commissioned by the Iranians, with one missing and no Iranian revenge for IR 655 unless that was it. London's security was severely breached, of all days, on Dec 21 1988. And a case of the bomb style was reported in the same corner of the luggage container blown outward by the bomb. The time it was seen clarifies this something other than the Libyan brown Samsonite, which magiically replaced the "Bedford suitcase" and did the bombing, with inexplcable timing (http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/2010/12/but-flight-103-was-behind-schedule.html) from a non-Khreesat-bomb perspective.

So yeah, there is good reason to speculate just the type of bomb used and it didn't have a MST-13 in it. And as such, didnt't have those disinfo jabberjaws at Mebo attached, until the planted evidence brought them in. Don't buy anything they say. Bollier was the first one to suggest the CIA should frame Libya and pay for his help doing so. The Mebo files. (http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/2010/07/mebo-files.html)

little grey rabbit

27th February 2011, 02:45 AM

If true he should go to jail also. Although to be honest I find it doubtful he could have initiated such a plan, all he could do was assist once requested.

But at least his evidence is consistant. All Bollier can tell us is what didn't happen. If he didn't supply the timer and the timer used in evidence was fabricated by his employees at the request of the British police that is the information he can usefully provide.

You provide no reasonable motive about why Britain should wish to protect Iran (and no oil is not a reasonable motive)

Rolfe

27th February 2011, 03:24 AM

Ever heard of the "special relationship"?

Though at bottom, I don't think the UK cared who got the blame so long as there was no finding that the bomb had been introduced at Heathrow airport.

Rolfe.

Bunntamas

27th February 2011, 10:04 AM

[deleted]

You are so on ignore now. Ta-ta.

Finally!

Bunntamas

27th February 2011, 10:07 AM

Ever heard of the "special relationship"?

A whole lot of "special relashioships" are being revealed, now that Gaddaffi's grip has been removed from the Libyans' throats.

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/231536/Revealed-The-truth-behind-Pan-Am-103/

Rolfe

27th February 2011, 10:14 AM

Old news rewarmed.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-90663341.html
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-55546460.html

The Scottish prosecutors' office on Friday dismissed a published report that Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist found dead in Iraq this week, was behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, for which a Libyan has been convicted.

"We deal, and have dealt with, evidence not rumor or speculation, especially about allegedly dead terrorists," a Scottish Crown Office spokeswoman said on customary condition of anonymity.

The Arabic newspaper al-Hayat on Friday published an interview with Atef Abu Bakr, a former spokesman for Fatah-Revolutionary Council, the radical group headed by Abu Nidal, saying Abu Nidal told a meeting of the group's council …

That was nine years ago.

Rolfe.

Bunntamas

27th February 2011, 10:37 AM

Old news rewarmed.
Rolfe.

Hey if you can regurgitate the same old CTs for years, what's your problem with an article that may have been "rewarmed"?

~B

Rolfe

27th February 2011, 10:40 AM

It's irrelevant and a distraction. It's playing politics in a volatile situation where individuals are manoeuvring for advantage and currying favour any way they think will work.

Megrahi still didn't buy those clothes, and there was still no bomb on KM180.

Rolfe.

Bunntamas

27th February 2011, 10:54 AM

It's irrelevant

Beg to differ with you on that one. It's quite relevent to the discussion.

and a distraction.
Perhaps you're correct there. I can see how it may be a distraction from your CTs.

It's playing politics in a volatile situation where individuals are manoeuvring for advantage and currying favour any way they think will work.

I can see how you would come to that conclusion as well, considering that's your M.O.

Megrahi still didn't buy those clothes, and there was still no bomb on KM180.

Sigh. How many times are YOU going to repeat THAT?

Rolfe

27th February 2011, 10:56 AM

As many times as need be to remind you what the issue is. The issue of a court decision that stuff happened which in fact did not happen.

Rolfe.

Bunntamas

27th February 2011, 11:03 AM

As many times as need be to remind you what the issue is. The issue of a court decision that stuff happened which in fact did not happen.

Rolfe.

ZZZZZzzzzzzzz.....

Bunntamas

27th February 2011, 11:11 AM

It was echoed by the former terror chief Atef Abu Bakr, who claimed last night in a separate interview that Megrahi was ordered by Col Gaddafi to help plan the attack as one of the dictator’s former spies.

So much for "old news rewarmed".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8350306/Megrahi-threatened-to-reveal-Gaddafis-role-in-Lockerbie-bombing-unless-he-was-released-it-is-claimed.html

Rolfe

27th February 2011, 11:15 AM

Yes. Like I said, re-warmed. He's said it before and got the cold shoulder. He's trying it again with a little added spice.

You know, for someone who said,

Though I do I find Rolfe to be a "good" researcher - albeit sourced from nothing but rag media

You're remarkably keen on the gutter press yourself.

Rolfe.

Bunntamas

27th February 2011, 11:39 AM

Yes. Like I said, re-warmed. He's said it before and got the cold shoulder. He's trying it again with a little added spice.

You know, for someone who said,

You're remarkably keen on the gutter press yourself.

Rolfe.

Well, that first story I posted, I originally noticed on your pal and fellow JFM committee member, R. Black's blog. So apparently he (and by close association you?) is rather keen on what you deem "gutter press" as well.

Rolfe

1st March 2011, 03:52 AM

So much for "old news rewarmed".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8350306/Megrahi-threatened-to-reveal-Gaddafis-role-in-Lockerbie-bombing-unless-he-was-released-it-is-claimed.html

I think this, and the substantially different Jalil story, need examining in more detail now that the initial flurry of hysterical reporting has passed. Fortunately Ian Bell, who is one of the top investigative journalists in Scotland, has written an excellent article on the issues.

Lockerbie, Guilt and Gadaffi (http://prosperoinc.blogspot.com/2011/02/lockerbie-guilt-gaddafi.html)

In 2002, just after the Zeist proceedings concluded, Abu Bakr came forward with his story that the Abu Nidal group was responsible for Lockerbie. In that version, Abu Nidal had claimed responsibility on his deathbed.

As the Guardian had it at the time: “Nidal had said: ‘I will tell you something very important and serious. The reports which link the Lockerbie act to others are false reports. We are behind what happened.’ According to Bakr, Nidal then threatened anyone who leaked what he said with death.”

Bakr's line at that point was that the Zeist trial had got it entirely wrong, and that a completely different group was responsible. As I pointed out above, the Scottish authorities specifically rejected these allegations at the time.

Now, in 2011, Bakr is trying to position himself favourably in the post-Gadaffi world he can see coming. He chooses to regurgitate his previous story, but with an extra twist.

“I can assure you categorically that the two processes [making the bomb and destroying the plane] were the outcome of a partnership between the Abu Nidal group and the security of the Libyan Jamahiriya,” says Bakr.

Megrahi “may have played only a minor part” in the bombing.

For the first time, Megrahi is now implicated, but in a minor behind-the-scenes role. Which allows Bakr to declare that he knows Gadaffi ordered Megrahi to carry out the bombing. Which is what he knows the west wants to hear. Funny he left that bit out in 2002, when he was so busy declaring that actually, Megrahi didn't do it.

He's still saying Megrahi didn't do it, in fact - where "it" is what he was convicted of doing, being involved in the front-line operation of putting the bomb on the plane.

Jalil is actually telling a significantly different story. By his way of it the attack was a Libyan operation, and Abu Nidal doesn't rate a mention.

Al-Megrahi “was not the man who carried out the planning and execution of the bombing, but he was ‘nevertheless involved in facilitating things for those who did’”.

Again, he confirms that Megrahi didn't do what he was convicted of doing, but assigns him some sort of back-office role. On this he builds a preposterous house of cards concerning Megahi blackmailing Gadaffi to get him to arrange for his repatriation to Libya, none of which actually fits with the facts of the case as they have become pretty widely known over the past four years.

I would like to quote part of an excellent post by Robert Forrester, Secretary to the Justice for Megrahi group, made on Robert Black's blog this morning.

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2011/02/service-interruption.html?showComment=1298945170679#c91994 59519465241931

It is our contention that Mr al-Megrahi was convicted of the crime he was charged with by a standard which did not conform to that of beyond reasonable doubt. In other words, we believe that, based on the evidence presented by the crown, no reasonable court could have convicted him since the rationale employed was not in keeping with what a cross section of 15 lay jurors would perceive to be a credible conclusion to reach. It is as pure and as simple as that.

[This is] a matter which lies at the very core of our society and one which puts us apart from the law of the jungle and the lynch mob. If we decide to ignore it for the sake of political expediency, the preservation of reputations, the saving of money, or for whatever other reasons that are unconnected with the facts surrounding what took place at Zeist, we are inviting a return to the likes of the show trial. This is not a legacy which we wish to leave to our children and future generations. Our justice system symbolises our identity as a people. We neglect it at our peril.

This, in my opinion, gets to the very heart of the matter. If we say, oh well it doesn't matter that Megrahi was convicted on entirely spurious grounds of carrying out acts he did not in fact carry out, because rumour has it he was connected to the atrocity in some behind-the-scenes role, we undermine everything justice stands for.

If we lean towards the view that perhaps the reason for the Zeist judges' inexplicable torturing of logic and reason to bring in that conviction was that they had been told in private that Megrahi was believed to have been involved in a back-room capacity, then it gets even worse. We are endorsing a show trial, which as Robert says, leads to the law of the jungle and the lynch mob.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

1st March 2011, 04:24 AM

The other question is, how credible are these stories now emerging of Megrahi being involved behind the scenes, even though he didn't buy the clothes and the bomb didn't travel on KM180?

First, we have to accept that there is precisely zero evidence for this. All we have is the unsupported word of a couple of Gadaffi's ex-goons trying to ingratiate themselves with the west in the post-Gafaffi world they see coming - and telling wildly different stories as it happens. Why, we might even imagine that they'd been given the nod that an allegation that Gadaffi ordered Megrahi to carry out the bombing would be just what the doctor ordered, and they proceeded to invent quite different stories to that effect, based on their existing knowledge or theories about the case.

But is it likely? Megrahi was probably a Libyan security official (never proved, but probably), and bombing planes is the sort of thing Libya did, let's face it.

My view on this hinges on the way the police investigation unfolded. If there had been reason to suspect Megrahi of involvement in the bombing for decent but unproveable reasons, and his presence at Malta airport that morning had been discovered, and then the bizarre fairy-tale of the bomb that was routed as unaccompanied luggage through three airports in the dead of winter, circumventing all security checks and escaping delay, misrouting or being lost, only to explode as planned quite ridiculously early in a 7½ hour flight, was concocted to frame him - yes, I could see the logic.

But that's not what happened. The investigation became convinced the bomb had been loaded at Malta and negotiated this ridiculous route only nine months after the disaster, a full year before any suspicion alighted on Megrahi. The reason this theory appealled to them so much is simple - it allowed them to ignore the possibility that the bomb had actually been smuggled through the shockingly lax security at Heathrow airport, which would have had appalling implications for the UK airline industry. It appealled to the Frankfurt authorities for much the same reasons, with a bit more besides.

At this stage, nobody was thinking about Megrahi at all. The investigators wasted a full year on Malta trying to prove that various Palestinian-associated individuals had done the dirty, and all they managed to do was prove that the dirty hadn't actually been done there at all, by anyone. That didn't stop them though.

A year later, in the autumn of 1990, the direction of the investigation was switched to Libya, for reasons that have been exhaustively discussed elsewhere. Then it was discovered that a suspicious-looking Libyan had been passing through the airport at Malta at the relevant time. There was no evidence at all that he'd done anything but catch his plane for Tripoli, and he didn't even have any checked-in luggage with him, but he became the prime suspect. The next year was spent fitting him and one of his buddies up for the crime.

However, the Malta loading of the device was dreamed up entirely separately from the culpability of Megrahi. He came under suspicion because he was in the right place to fit with the already-existing Malta ingestion theory, not the other way round.

So what's the chances that the investigators, looking for someone handy to fit up in respect of the already-decided Malta loading theory, just happened to alight on someone who was actually connected in a peripheral way to the plot - to put a bomb into the baggage container sitting at Heathrow before it was loaded onto the transatlantic leg of the flight directly?

There's no doubt that the Lockerbie affair attracts coincidences like jam attracts wasps. But this one is going a bit far for me.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 02:26 AM

So if the detonator isn't genuine (and if I recall correctly it was found very late and wrapted up in Tony's famous shirt) then we don't have a clue what brought down the plane.

We don't even know if it was a bomb.

Since it's all gone a bit quiet, it might be worth expanding on this a bit.

There are separate threads on the "not-a-bomb" theories, and on the provenance of the timer (detonator) fragment, but they're long and convoluted. Some reasonable conclusions have been arrived at, however.

We know it was a bomb not because of the timer fragment (which as you say wasn't identified until very late in the proceedings) but because of the nature of the damage to the luggage container and the luggage inside it. This was picked up very early indeed, within the first week or two of the crash. The position of the explosion was pinpointed pretty accurately without any necessity for finding any part of the actual IED.

Various people have tried to cast doubt on this. Some propose a completely different explosion elsewhere in the aircraft, either as an alternative to the one in the luggage container, or in addition to it. One theory blames the crash on the failure of the cargo compartment door, but even he has to explain the state of the luggage container and the suitcases in proximity to the explosion as having been damaged by a "rather large shotgun" which was being illegally carried in someone's suitcase, loaded, and going off as a result of the decompression.

None of these ideas stands up to any scrutiny of the evidence, which was found by scores of perfectly honest ordinary Scottish coppers, mountain rescue teams and farmers in the days following the crash. You don't need to find any part of the IED to know approximately what went bang, and where it was located.

Others have suggested that the explosion would have vaporised the suitcase containing the bomb and everything in it, and thus the so-called "clues" are either plants or items in adjacent luggage which has been misinterpreted. Again, this doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. That's not to say that there couldn't have been any hanky-panky with what was found, it's likely there was, but the basics of the bomb being in some sort of radio, packed in a brown Samsonite suitcase along with some clothes, appear to be sound.

I'll do this in bits to reduce the "wall of text" accusations!

Rolfe.

little grey rabbit

2nd March 2011, 03:00 AM

If we have a deliberately planted detonator, which was fabricated by Mebo industries on the direct request of people acting for the British government and which we have both the manager of the firm and the employee who fabricated have sworn affidavits before a judge to that effect, we also have clothing that is miraculously traced to a store in Malta where the owner gives absurdly unbelievable testimony and is generally held by the Maltese as a liar, finally we have a toshiba cassette player manual which your "perfectly honest ordinary Scottish coppers, mountain rescue teams and farmers" have clearly, explicitly, repeatedly and with absolute confidence was found in an almost completely undamaged state and was subsequently singed and torn AFTER being handed over to police.......then you have 3 independent pointers to a culture of corruption in the British investigative agencies.

It would be difficult to contemplate what further evidence you would need to know the detonater-Libyan link was a lie. Every single piece in the chain collapses under the slightest examination.

Then your priority is to first isolate and stamp out this corruption. Starting with the people (ie police) who found the individual pieces of detonator, the people who interviewed the shop owner and the police who had custody of the toshiba manual. These are the criminals, although probably only the little fish.

It is pointless to play amateur detective on the web and gullibly spew out alternative scenarios. The only story of any interest is the corruption in the police force, its structure, its motives and who or what it protects.

Another good starting point of investigation would be these who claim to be seeking "Lockerbie Truth." In my personal experience of other such scenarios that such people are so infiltrated by informers etc, there are probably more snoops than genuine sceptics among them - and generally the loudest and most active among them are the most two-faced.

Excellent candidates for water-boarding in my opinion.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 03:11 AM

little grey rabbit

2nd March 2011, 03:29 AM

While I rather agree with the general thrust of what you're saying here, you have several specifics wrong, and you're putting rather a lot of trust in the MEBO personnel whom I'm afraid have been shown time and time again to be lying in their teeth.
Yes, but the police have been shown to be lying in their teeth as well - and through multiple sources.

MEBO have given a credible account of why they wrote their original letter - they were approached by the CIA - again this is a very credible explanation as the CIA were manipulating other evidence as well. Perhaps they weren't doing it in bad faith? Perhaps they were told "we know the Libyans did it but we need some solid physical evidence. Can you help us by cheating a little to make sure the true crooks go to jail." Then when all the other bits fell apart MEBO realised they had been duped.

Since the detonator was found so late and such a cloud of suspicion, that makes the affidavits sworn by MEBO directors and employees very credible. And then every other piece of evidence independent of MEBO is found flawed as well.

Just take this one step at a time, OK?

Rolfe.

But I am not interested in who brought down the plane. To me the issue of cynical police or intelligence deceit is the only story of interest. If it is not tackled we will just keep getting more and more terrorism. I assume either the CIA or MI5 ran the opeartion, but that will automatically be revealed if or when the corruption that planted false evidence in the first place is indentified and brought to justice. You just play the little fish against the big fish.

Oh and a generous use of waterboarding would be a good idea.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 04:02 AM

Indeed, certain members of the investigating teams have been shown to have been lying in their teeth, including some Scottish policemen. However, perhaps you haven't met Edwin Bollier? The rest of us have, and frankly it's completely impossible to tell when he's telling the truth and when he's lying. Which is a pity, because he probably does have some good information. However, a lot of it can be seen to be absolute porkies, especially a lot of what he says about the provenance of that timer fragment.

I'm not completely uninterested in who brought down that plane, but I agree, the story of police and intelligence deceit has to be teased out before any speculations can be advanced in that direction. The CIA ran the operation, in conjunction with the FBI. The Scottish police and the English forensics teams did as they were told, with the Scottish police priding themselves that they were in charge, and showing these ignorant colonials how it was done. I haven't heard of any direct involvement by MI5 or MI6, though it wouldn't actually surprise me in the slightest.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 04:03 AM

Back to that brown Samsonite suitcase, which is the key to the whole thing. It seems that this wasn't identified as being the bomb bag until about two months after the crash, however.

The first discovery was that the damaged container was the one which had been used to load luggage flown in on a feeder flight from Frankfurt. All other luggage had been security-screened at Heathrow, but not the Frankfurt stuff. This was because there was only a very short time between the feeder flight landing and the transatlantic flight taking off. Normal procedure was to park the two planes on adjacent stands, and simply run the luggage across the tarmac from one to the other. (On 21st December 1988 the feeder flight was 45 minutes late, and the transfer was done in a big hurry in only 15 minutes, but even if it had been on time the luggage would not have been screened.) Thus the responsibility for the security of the luggage in that container rested not with Heathrow airport but with Frankfurt.

Identifying this container as the location of the explosion led the UK authorities to announce on 30th December 1988 that the suitcase containing the bomb had not originated at Heathrow. They were very very keen on this conclusion, and stuck to it through thick and thin, in the teeth of accumulating evidence suggesting they were flat wrong about this.

On 3rd January 1989 the Heathrow loader responsible for that container was interviewed by the police. It transpired that the container hadn't been transferred ready-loaded from the feeder flight, but had been loaded on the tarmac with luggage that had been loose-loaded at Frankfurt. And that in fact it had been sent out on to the tarmac with some bags (probably about ten) already in it - luggage belonging to passengers transferring to PA103 from flights that had landed at Heathrow earlier in the day. Luggage it was Heathrow's responsibility to screen.

Oops.

The baggage handler (a Mr. John Bedford) gave detailed evidence about the luggage already in the container. He said he had loaded about eight bags across the back of the container, then had left it unattended to go on his tea break. When he came back there were two more bags lying flat at the front of the container, which he hadn't put there. The left-hand one was "a maroony-brown hardshell, the type Samsonite make". He asked his colleague the x-ray operator (a young chap called Sulkash Kamboj), and Kamboj told him he'd put the cases there after x-raying them.

Except - when Kamboj was interviewed, he denied all knowledge of this and said he hadn't put any cases into the container.

Nevertheless, at this stage the "brown Samsonite" description didn't mean anything to anybody, as the litter-picking exercise going on 400 miles to the north still hadn't brought in enough bits of the bomb bag to identify it. The assumption seems to have been that Bedford was telling the truth and Kamboj had just forgotten all about it.

The discovery that there had been some Heathrow-origin luggage in the container as well was a bit awkward, but the investigation managed to handwave that away. The Air Accident Investigation Board inspector studied the position of the explosion and put it at ten inches from the floor of the container, and about two inches to the left of the flat floor section of the container, into the overhang section shaped to fit into the curved plane fuselage. Strictly speaking, there was no suitcase in that position when Bedford last saw the container. Suitcases are on average about 9 or 10 inches deep, so ten inches was just about fudgeable to fit a suitcase on the second layer. Also, if Bedford's suitcases were flat on the floor, then the explosion was two or three inches to the left of the case he described.

It was therefore decided that the explosion must have been in a case laid on top of Bedford's "maroony-brown hardshell", thus, one of the cases unloaded from the feeder flight. This all seems to have been decided before the forensics people had identified the suitcase containing the bomb as - a brown Samsonite hardshell. As far as I can make out, the description of the case Bedford saw was forgotten about, dropped from the narrative, and not picked up on even when the bomb bag was identified as being something with an essentially identical description.

At this stage, probably late February and into March, the cops started trying to find out of the bomb bag had been checked in as legitimate passenger luggage. They started investigating the passengers to discover if anyone had such a case, and drew a blank. We have three separate statements from different members of the investigating team to the effect that none of the passengers owned or was carrying a brown Samsonite.

This was interpreted to mean that the bomb had been smuggled on as unaccompanied luggage. Fair enough. However, it didn't explain the bag Bedford saw, which was a brown Samsonite, which everyone was busy assuming was legitimate baggage belonging to one of the 15 passengers who had transferred to PA103 at Heathrow from earlier flights. Worse still, no other brown Samsonite was recovered on the ground at Lockerbie, other than the one blown to bits by the bomb inside it.

It was decided that Bedford's suitcase couldn't have been pushed 2 or 3 inches to the left and up, so it couldn't have been the bomb bag, and must have been underneath the bomb bag. Except no trace of it was found.

Well, that was the initial story, and the one that was told to the court in 1991. Somehow it flew, but mainly because that court hearing was minutely stage-managed, and the sheriff was essentially told, "we know the bomb came off the Frankfurt flight although we will not be showing you the evidence for that, so please just come to that conclusion, 'K?"

Ten years later, the story had changed completely - in fact it seems to have been changed within months of Sheriff Mowatt coming to the conclusion he'd been told to come to. The conclusion that the case Bedford saw had been under the bomb bag was revised, and instead one of the Frankfurt bags was allocated that position. Oddly, the only bag described as having been in actual face-to-face contact with the bomb bag. Which is a bit odd if the bomb bag was on the second layer.

Never mind that, the case which was in the position where Bedford saw his brown Samsonite was actually a navy blue Tourister from the Frankfurt flight. So, Bedford's case must have been moved when the Frankfurt luggage was being loaded!

Now you might think and I might think and anyone with half a brain might think fine, the obvious explanation is that Bedford's case was replaced directly on top of the blue Tourister, and slightly to the left, into the overhang section. And went bang 75 minutes later.

This is the case that was made by Megrahi's defence team at Zeist. It was rejected by the judges.

Crucially, the vital piece of evidence that was not presented to the Zeist court was that none of the passengers, and especially none of the 15 passengers from connecting flights whose luggage might have been loaded into that container at Heathrow, had a brown Samsonite. The policeman (Derek Henderson) who had reconciled the luggage and given evidence in 1991 was not called in 2000.

The judges decided, for no reason anyone could see, that Bedford's brown Samsonite had been legitimate luggage belonging to one of these 15 people (none of whom had such a suitcase), and had been moved "to some far corner of the container" during the tarmac loading (which was a mega-rush job done in 15 minutes which doesn't make massive shuffling of the cases very likely but never mind), and then was one of the few cases which were simply not recovered on the ground.

Thus leaving the way clear for the ridiculous Malta-Frankfurt-Heathrow unaccompanied suitcase theory, which is what the investigators wanted to prove (as it let Frankfurt and Heathrow airports off the hook), and which was necessary in order to convict Megrahi.

I'm not making this up you know. I wish I was.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 04:29 AM

Of course, Frankfurt wasn't happy about this at all. As soon as the British investigators started saying the bomb must have come from Frankfurt, they started saying no it bloody didn't, it was loaded at Heathrow. Proving it hadn't come from Frankfurt was a bit tricky though, since all the Frankfurt airport baggage records had vanished within days of the crash, from right under the noses of the German police who had already started their investigation. Oddly enough this has never been explained at all. Nobody has been held accountable and the police seemed oddly laid-back about the whole thing.

Relations between the two police forces were poisonous for months, and a complete stalemate. The Brits weren't investigating Heathrow because they knew the bomb had come in from Frankfurt, and the Germans were stonewalling. This went on until late August 1989, when the German police suddenly produced a small extract of the missing records, which they said they'd had since February, which seemed to show two items of luggage heading for the feeder flight PA103A, which could not be reconciled to passengers booked on that flight. One of these appeared to have come from Warsaw and the other from Malta.

Or maybe they hadn't at all. The Frankfurt system was so chaotic and poorly documented that it was just as likely they were stray cases from anywhere at all that had been slipped into the system at the same time as the luggage from Warsaw and Malta was being coded. And the full set of records that might have allowed investigators to make better sense of this was of course missing and was never found.

We have no idea what these items of luggage were. Nobody recorded that. Certainly, there's no sighting of a brown Samsonite at Frankfurt. And as I said, they could have come from anywhere really, and they could have been legitimate passenger luggage that was simply entered into the system in the "wrong" place because it had gone astray, and no separate note was made of that.

Never mind that, the cops decided that the entry for an item apparently having come from Malta must have been the bomb. They completely ignored the item which appeared to have come from Warsaw, and no more is heard of that.

This was a bit odd, because whatever that item was (and we certainly don't know that it was a brown Samsonite), it was x-rayed by the security operator at Frankfurt, a man called Kurt Maier, who was "a careful and conscientious operator", who had specifically been made aware of the possibility that someone might try to smuggle a bomb on board a US flight, disguised as a radio-cassette player, and he didn't spot anything.

But this was all highly convenient, because not only did it let Heathrow completely off the hook, it let Frankfurt airport off the hook as well. Maier wasn't a Frankfurt airport employee, he (like Kamboj) was empoyed by Alert Security, a subsidiary of Pan Am, who were entirely responsible for the screening of luggage going on to Pan Am flights.

The reason they were all so keen on the Malta theory is perfectly obvious. Responsibility for the bombing lay with whichever airport the bomb had started its journey at, and thereafter Pan Am (Kamboj or Maier). Blaming Malta was a really popular idea. And Malta seemed like a perfect choice because clothes manufactured on Malta had been found blast-damaged and apparently inside the suitcase with the bomb.

Rolfe.

chillzero

2nd March 2011, 04:30 AM

But really, if Megrahi didn't buy the clothes he didn't do it. It's that simple.
I don't understand why this is necessarily true.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 05:04 AM

Oh crikey, I was on a completely different train of thought here.

There was NO other evidence presented to link Megrahi to the bombing. Absolutely none.

There was strong evidence that the bomb suitcase was smuggled into the baggage container at Heathrow while John Bedford was on his tea break, as discussed above. The evidence that any item of unaccompanied luggage came through Frankfurt from Malta was gossamer-thin, again as discussed above. It depends entirely on the interpretation of that extract of the Frankfurt baggage records the German police produced nine months after the event, and which even if completely genuine in no way proved anything had made that journey.

This interpretation was flatly contradicted by the evidence from Malta. The airport there turned out to have a very good security set-up, unlike Heathrow, and all the baggage records were preserved as they should have been, unlike Frankfurt. These records showed that no unaccompanied luggage had travelled on KM180, the flight in question. The cops spent a year and more trying to break that "alibi", and completely failed.

In addition, although Megrahi was at Malta airport when KM180 departed, all he did was catch his flight for Tripoli, which left at about the same time. He was suspected because he was believed to be a Libyan security officer (probably true IMO, but never proved), and because he was using a "coded" diplomatic passport which had been issued to him in a false name.

What happened was that the court decided that since he was the man who bought the clothes, then everything else flowed from that. Since the man who bought the clothes was at Malta airport that morning, they concluded that the coding anomaly at Frankfurt airport was in fact an unaccompanied bag which had been carried on KM180 - even though there was cast-iron evidence that there was no unaccompanied luggge on KM180. They then concluded that even though there was no evidence as to what had been in that tray, and whatever it was had passed through the x-ray screening unremarked, it must have been the brown Samsonite with the bomb in it.

They then decided that this was so certain, they could hand-wave away the suitcase Bedford saw at Heathrow, as being some innocent piece of luggage belonging to a passenger which just by coincidence had occupied almost the position of the identical bomb bag when the container was first loaded, but which had been moved well away and then lost, to be replaced by this completely different brown Samsonite nobody ever saw at either Malta or Frankfurt.

This entire chain of reasoning is entirely dependent on Megrahi having been the man who bought the clothes. If he wasn't, then the entire house of cards falls apart. The Bedford suitcase becomes the obvious candidae for the bomb bag. That was smuggled into the luggage container at Heathrow, about four o'clock in the afternoon, when Megrahi was verifiably in Tripoli.

Rolfe.

chillzero

2nd March 2011, 05:15 AM

This entire chain of reasoning is entirely dependent on Megrahi having been the man who bought the clothes. If he wasn't, then the entire house of cards falls apart. The Bedford suitcase becomes the obvious candidae for the bomb bag. That was smuggled into the luggage container at Heathrow, about four o'clock in the afternoon, when Megrahi was verifiably in Tripoli.

Rolfe.
I don't believe this answers my question.
How does it definitively exclude other scenarios, where, for example, the clothing was bought by someone else who had contact with (stayed at same address, perhaps as) the person who - later - put it in the suitcase, and onto the plane?

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 05:24 AM

But really, if Megrahi didn't buy the clothes he didn't do it. It's that simple.

I don't understand why this is necessarily true.

I don't believe this answers my question.
How does it definitively exclude other scenarios, where, for example, the clothing was bought by someone else who had contact with (stayed at same address, perhaps as) the person who - later - put it in the suitcase, and onto the plane?

Sorry, I'm not following you. Who are these somebodies, and who stayed at what address along with who, and so on? You've completely lost me. What does this have to do with the evidence against Megrahi?

Megrahi was accused of being involved in the Lockerbie bombing by virute of having been the man who bought the clothes, and having been at the airport at about the time the bomb was determined to have been smuggled on to KM180.

However, the determination that the bomb was smuggled on to KM180 depended absolutely on the prior assumption that the man who bought the clothes was at the airport at the time.

So if he didn't buy the clothes, not only is that connection to the bombing a no-no, but it also makes the other connection disappear as well. If the man who bought the clothes was not at the airport at Malta that morning, there is no reason to conclude that the bomb travelled on KM180.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 05:58 AM

Actually, the starting point for all the circular reasoning is the assumption that the clothes were bought on 7th December 1988.

Tony Gauci didn't remember the date he sold those clothes, but they tried to narrow it down. Three important features were that his brother was watching football at the time, probably the UEFA cup, and that it was raining sufficiently heavily for the customer to have bought an umbrella, and that the Christmas lights were not yet lit.

The two likely dates for the football match in question were 23rd November and 7th December, with 23rd November perhaps slightly more likely because that was an evening match and the purchase took place about 7pm.

Meterological records showed light rain at around 7pm on 23rd November but no rain at all on 7th December.

The Christmas lights were lit in that part of town on 6th December.

The judges decided the purchase had taken place on 7th December.

No date was signficant for me at the time. Ultimately it was the applicant's [Megrahi's] presence on the island on 7th December 1988 that persuaded me that the purchase took place on that date.

The Commission formed the view that there is no reasonable basis in the trial court’s judgment for its conclusion that the purchase of the items from Mary’s House, took place on 7 December 1988.

Bell indulged in circular reasoning, deciding the purchase happened on 7th December because Megrahi was around that day, and then deciding that Megrahi was the purchaser because the purchase had happened on 7th December when he was around.

The court didn't actually do that. They appeared to pluck 7th December out for no readily apparent reason, when 23rd November looked a lot more likely on a number of counts. They then looked at Gauci's extremely shaky, tentative and contradictory evidence that Megrahi wasn't the purchaser but resembled him, and decided that since the purchase had happened on 7th December, and Megrahi was around that day, and anyway who could expect Tony still to remember what the purchaser looked like 12 years later, this all added up to a positive identification "beyond reasonable doubt".

They seem to have been assuming all the way through this that the bomb did indeed travel on KM180, so was loaded when Megrahi was at the airport, and so he was already a suspicious character in this respect. But then when they came to look at whether the bomb had actually travelled on KM180 (despite "considerable and quite compelling evidence that that could not have happened"), they used the "fact" that the man who bought the clothes was at the airport to come to the conclusion that it had.

I wish I was making this up but I'm not.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 06:54 AM

Getting back to where I was, I suppose the clothes are the next thing. It was these clothes that were the cause of the investigation focussing on Malta, and in the end concluding that the bomb had been loaded there.

That last conclusion is beyond tenuous though, and always was. The purchase of the clothes preceded the bombing by weeks. The terrorists could have acquired the stuff in Malta and taken it pretty much anywhere else in that time. In addition, the smuggling of the bomb on to KM180, if it happened, was so well-concealed that the method was never discovered. In fact, to any normal standards of evidence, it was proved that it didn't happen. If you have a plan that allows you to get a bomb on a plane without leaving any trace at all, are you going to pack it round with brand new, locally-manufactured, eminently traceable clothes you bought in a remarkably conspicuous manner in a small shop only three miles from the airport?

But still, those clothes. Ten items listed as being in the bomb suitcase, and when the cops first call on Tony Gauci nine months later he remembers a particular purchaser buying seven of these items, one evening a few weeks before the disaster. Just like that. 100% specificity and 70% sensitivity. He's either a natural at Kim's game, or there's some hanky-panky here.

I don't know what I think about that. There are some heavy rumours that the evidence was tampered with retrospectively so as to fit Tony's list of purchases. But that was never proved, and it's a bit difficult to get my head round that possibility. Maybe he was just good at Kim's game.

But how much do the clothes matter, really? They would matter if we could trace them to a particular person, but we can't. It quite obviously wasn't Megrahi who bought whatever items were bought that rainy evening Tony remembered. Abu Talb had a load of Maltese-manufactured clothes too, but he probably didn't buy them from Tony Gauci either. Maybe the bomb clothes were part of Abu Talb's clothes collection, and Tony just happened to stock similar items, and the rest was manipulation.

I have no freaking idea. Find the person who owned these clothes and you've found a member of the terrorist gang, I agree, but I see no reasonable prospect of identifying that person. So whether the purchase from Tony Gauci really was a terrorist stocking up for the operation, or whether it was some random unrelated memory massaged to appear significant, doesn't really matter so much. Whether the clothes came from Tony's shop, or from elsewhere, we don't know who bought them.

What they don't prove is that the bomb was loaded at Malta.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 07:51 AM

LGR was talking about the timer fragment. This is an extraordinarily interesting item, first because its presence is anomalous per se, in relation to the timing of the explosion.

PA103 was scheduled to depart Heathrow at 18.00 GMT, and to atrrive at JFK at 1.40 GMT, a flight time of 7½ hours or so. First, bear in mind that the scheduled departure time of a flight is not the time it takes off. In evidence, it was stated that it would take between 15 and 25 minutes for a plane to get its wheels off the runway after pushing off from the gate, at Heathrow. (In fact the flight pushed off from the gate at 18.03, so keen to depart on time they left a passenger behind who was actually running to the gate, and its wheels left the runway at 18.25.)

Transatlantic routes vary from crossing Cornwall and skirting the south coast of Ireland, to the route PA103 took right up the length of England and Scotland and out over the Outer Hebrides. Most flights cross Ireland in fact, but there was nasty weather over Ireland that evening, so the more northerly route was being operated. This was nothing particularly unusual.

The point is that it would be over an hour's flying time before the flight could be expected to have left land behind and be over the open ocean, pretty much regardless of the route (which the terrorists almost certainly could not have predicted anyway). There are other bits of water of course, the Irish Sea and the Minch, but to be reasonably sure of missing land, you'd have to leave up to 25 minutes from the scheduled departure time to take-off, and then at least another hour's flying time. Probably an hour and a half if the most northerly route was in operation.

But that's hardly a problem, because after that you've got over three full hours, at least, of clear Atlantic before coming over land again on the other side. Again it's the most northerly route which covers most land at the other end, crossing Labrador and coming into NY from the north. But even then, with a flight up to time, it would have been about 23.30 GMT before the Canadian coast would have been crossed.

So, you have an electronic timer, and you can set it for any time you like. When do you choose? Me, I'd go for 22.00 to 23.00. There's no way the plane is going to be early enough to be over land at that time. But the important bit is, it gives the best possible insurance against it being late.

The digital timer would set the bomb off at the selected time no matter where it happened to be. If it happened to be still on the ground, not a lot would have happened. A bang, a hole in the side of the 747, some damaged luggage, and that would have been about it. No fatalities, probably no injuries.

This was Heathrow, in December. What were the chances of this plane being late? Fog, ice, snow, congestion, it all happens. In fact, the plane nearly missed its slot, twice. First because the feeder flight, which it was obliged to wait for, was 45 minutes late. As it was they rushed the passengers and their luggage across, but if it had been another 10 or 15 minutes late the slot would have been gone. Second, because of the inebriated Mr. Basuta, the luckiest man in known space. They got all the Frankfurt passengers on, and this bloody man still hadn't appeared. So they departed anyway. Without him, but with his luggage. (Which caused an almighty uproar when the plane fell out of the sky an hour later.)

But hey, this is airport departures we're talking about. What were the chances that plane could still have been sitting on the tarmac at Heathrow at 19.03 (which is when the bomb went off). Distinctly non-negligible, that's what.

On the other hand the chances of it still being on the ground at 22.00 or 23.00 are very low indeed - that's not late, that's a cancelled plane, which is a lot less common. While if the flight is up to time it's still right out over the ocean, some considerable way even from the desolate Canadian coastline.

So if you have a snazzy digital timer, why did you set it for 19.03, again?

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 08:24 AM

So what's the alternative explanation for the 19.03 detonation?

That timing fits pretty exactly with a different sort of device, colloquially known as an ice-cube timer. They work on capacitance, and they can't be set to a particular time by the operator. The neato trick however is that these things were connected to a barometer or altimeter, measuring air pressure, and set so that they would never go off while the device was on land.

The way it worked was that the device would be set, and safe forever at sea level. However, as soon as air presure fell below a certain point, the ice-cube capacitor would start to charge. This air pressure would be reached inside a plane's pressurised cargo hold about seven minutes after take-off (because aircraft are never pressurised to sea level, rather to the equivalent of about 8,000 feet altitude).

The length of time which would then pass depended on the exact model of the capacitor, but 30 minutes (give or take) was a common setting. During that time, the capacitor would be charging from the battery it was connected to. When full capacitance was reached, the capacitor would discharge, closing the circuits and detonating the bomb.

PA103 blew apart exactly 38 minutes after its wheels left the runway at Heathrow, pretty much on the nail for an ice-cube barometric timer.

In this scenario the early detonation doesn't matter (although it does possibly mean there's going to be a lot of evidence lying around unless you're lucky enough to hit the Irish Sea), because it is impossible for the explosion to happen harmlessly on the tarmac, no matter how late the plane is.

However, there is one crucial restriction on this sort of device. They can't be flown in unaccompanied on a feeder flight, in the armed state. Try that, and the thing will simply blow up when the feeder flight reaches the right altitude and time. If such a device was used, it must have been loaded or at least armed at Heathrow itself.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 08:35 AM

That's why the fragment of the electronic timer is anomalous. In the first instance, it has nothing to do with who planted the bomb. Even though most of these devices were sold to Libya, that was in 1986, and the things turned up in several different places during the following couple of years. Libya was arming half the world's terrorist groups at the time. And some of them went from MEBO to the East German Stasi.

The anomaly is that if you have an MST-13 timer, no matter who you are, you don't set it for 19.03. You take advantage of that long ocean crossing to time your explosion so that the plane disappears over the Atlantic, and all the evidence with it.

Or if you're of a particularly nasty bent, and you want it to come down on land, you set it for even later. 01.00 would see the plane over US soil, near New York. And again, if the plane was very late (or come in on a very southerly course), at least you'd get the ocean disappearance, not the Heathrow tarmac damp squib.

The one thing you don't do is set it so early that the least weather trouble, or a lost passenger, or a later feeder flight, or a mechanical problem, will cause the whole thing to abort.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 09:44 AM

So is it just pure coincidence that the fragment of timer that was found has the most flaky provenance in the entire history of forensic science? I mean, so bad that if it isn't a plant, it would be a ruddy miracle?

The shirt collar was found in the big field behind Blinkbonny Farm on 13th January 1989, by DC Gilchrist. His evidence in court was described as "at best confusing, at worst evasive", and he gave the distinct impression he'd never seen the thing before. This came out because it was noticed in court that the label on the evidence bag had been altered, which was contrary to proper procedure, and he had no explanation for how that might have happened.

His team leader, who also signed the label, was a DC McColm, who was described by DC Crawford in his book as a lazy sod who liked his cosy office job and was hardly ever out looking for stuff, and also had a very cavalier attitude to the recording of the provenance of the finds coming in.

The collar was sent to RARDE in Kent, and next surfaces on 12th May, when Thomas Hayes examines it. He makes his notes on a loose-leaf page numbered 51, but pages following this, and indeed the sequence of dates on these pages, strongly suggest that this page 51 is a later interpolation.

He teases a surprisingly large number of pieces of debris from the cloth, including a "fragment of green circuit board", and takes a photograph of the collection. There is some reason to believe this photo may be a polaroid.

He then files the whole lot away and makes no further mention of it. Despite the fact that at this precise time at RARDE the forensics team were going mad trying to find more pieces of circuit board from the radio the bomb had been hidden in, to try to get a better identification on it. Much smaller and less distinctive circuit board fragments found at the same time are being hailed with cries of "Eureka!".

It vanishes again until 15th September, when it suddenly becomes the subject of a memo from Allan Feraday to the Scottish police, asking them if they can perhaps help trace the origin of this item. Oddly, despite the thing having been at RARDE since May, and having been photographed then, Feraday apologised for sending polaroid photos as "this is the best I can do in the time available".

This is odd behavious on Feraday's part, considering that when the Claiden circuit board chip was found earlier (the important piece of the radio) he personally visited electronics manufacturers in Germany and Japan in an effort to identify it.

DI Williamson sets to and tried to find out where the green fragment came from, and trails around many electronics manufacturers in his turn, to no avail. Which is slightly strange, because there is evidence of contact between the Lockerbie investigation and MEBO even before this time, but nobody seems to have suggested MEBO to Williamson.

Nothing happens for another nine months, until a meeting in June 1990 in the USA between the Scottish investigators and the FBI. At this meeting Tom Thurman of the FBI gets hold of a photo of the fragment and runs off to a mate in the CIA with it.

Thurman has given different accounts of what happened next. One account has him spending "literally months" hunting through a gadzillion files trying to find a match to the fragment. Except, we know from Marquise's account, and this is corroborated by Thurman on a different occasion, that it took less than 48 hours. In fact, Thurman and his pal Orkin (a pseudonym) seem to have known what it was immediately, but they nevertheless contacted another handful of electronics manufacturers "just to be sure" before fetching up at MEBO's door in September 1990.

Thomas Hayes was severely criticised by the May Inquiry into the Birmingham Six debacle for sexing-up and misrepresenting evidence that got these men falsely convicted as IRA terrorists. He left RARDE in the middle of the Lockerbie investigation just as this was coming out and re-trained as a chiropodist. He gave evidence at Zeist which is quite baffling in its evasiveness.

Allan Feraday kept his job, but was the subject of scathing criticism in court in relation to other cases, again in relation to over-stating the significance of evidence to get innocent defendants convicted, and for having no qualifications for the work he was doing. He was barred from giving evidence in explosives cases as an expert witness. He was not called to give evidence at Zeist.

Tom Thurman was also the subject of severe criticism in relation to fabricating evidence to secure convictions, and left the FBI as part of a bit of a clear-out of bad apples, as far as can be ascertained. He went into teaching. His degree was in policital science, not electronics. He was not called to give evidence at Zeist.

We have no conclusive evidence that the timer fragment was fabricated. The SCCRC say they looked into it, and don't think it was fabricated, but don't say what led them to that conclusion. On the other hand, what a dubious crew of chancers were involved in that part of the investigation!

If one was suspecting a fabrication, the evidence suggests this happened some time in the summer of 1989, which fits as far as time-scale goes with political developments and the cross-Atlantic traffic of the investigators. The suggestion would be that a sample circuit board was acquired, then broken up, scorched, whatever, and the shirt collar (which is also suspect being apparently the wrong size to fit with the rest of the evidence as far as I know) prepared with its inserts and put into the chain of the evidence some time before 15th September. Hayes then fabricated the paperwork to insert into the notes from May to make it look as if it had been found earlier, at a plausible stage in the investigation.

There's a lot of what comes out of MEBO that I don't believe. For example the stuff about the fragment being substituted during the inquiry is rubbish as can be seen by examining the various photos of it, and Lumpert's tale about scratching an M on the board also sounds like a fairy-story. On the other hand I take note that Lumpert's date of 22nd June 1989 for handing over a sample timer is bang on the nail for the time frame we would expect, if the fragment were indeed a plant.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 10:13 AM

Oh, and the radio manual wasn't found by an official searcher at all. It was picked up along with a couple of bags of stuff by a lady who lived in Morpeth, responding to a general appeal to the public to bring in anything people could find.

Yes, at Zeist the lady who found it did not identify the item shown in court as being what she had found. She remembered an almost-intact sheet of paper, "just a bit tatty round the edges". What was presented in court was in rags, almost torn through in several places, and with only just enough remaining for the exact make and model number of the radio to be legible.

Oddly enough, Feraday went to Japan to try to identify the radio, and it was there he found that radios of a particular model had been sold in bulk to a Libyan company. He returned with samples of that radio, and its manual. It was only after that that Mrs. Horton's page was identified and examined at RARDE. If it was her page, that is.

And we're supposed to believe that this piece of paper was within an inch or two of a brisant Semtex explosion, that vaporised much of what was around it and tore a child's Babygro wrapped round the box into unrecognisable shreds. And yet is wasn't burnt to a cinder but instead survived a fall from 31,000 feet in a force 9 gale, being blown over 60 miles across country, to land in Mrs. Horton's field for her to retrieve.

And exactly the part of the page remained, so that the make and model number could be read.

This was the only definite evidence that pinpointed the radio as the model sold in bulk to Libya.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 10:14 AM

Sorry, too many walls of text. I just felt like summarising the actual evidence, as an antidote to all the rubbish we've been subjected to recently, in the hope that some new people might be reading this thread.

Rolfe.

chillzero

2nd March 2011, 10:21 AM

And we're supposed to believe that this piece of paper was within an inch or two of a brisant Semtex explosion, that vaporised much of what was around it and tore a child's Babygro wrapped round the box into unrecognisable shreds. And yet is wasn't burnt to a cinder but instead survived a fall from 31,000 feet in a force 9 gale, being blown over 60 miles across country, to land in Mrs. Horton's field for her to retrieve.

And exactly the part of the page remained, so that the make and model number could be read.

This was the only definite evidence that pinpointed the radio as the model sold in bulk to Libya.

Rolfe.
Sounds similar to the passport found at Ground Zero in NY.

zooterkin

2nd March 2011, 10:22 AM

Well, I'm convinced that, at the very least, the conviction was unsound.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 01:56 PM

Well, I'm convinced that, at the very least, the conviction was unsound.

That's about the size of it, and is exactly the position of Justice for Megrahi. Uniquely, because of the absence of a jury, we have a written record of the reasoning which led the judges to bring in a guilty verdict.

Opinion of the Court (http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf)

I have never in my life (OK, outside the witterings of homoeopaths) seen such a perverse and irrational document. Unsubstantiated inferences, implausible explanations that support guilt preferred to probable explanations that support innocence, and circular reasoning that would give a dervish vertigo. Rather than approaching the evidence disinterestedly, or (perish the thought) from the position of "innocent until proven guilty", every paragraph seems to have been written from the standpoint of "how can we possibly bring in a guilty verdict against this guy?"

A very senior Scottish advocate has said of this exercise (http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/825/Online_exclusive%3A_a_broken_chain.html),

I could not and still cannot understand how the Court could hold, on the evidence of Gauci, that Megrahi made the purchase of the clothing. Without Gauci's evidence, which at its height was that Megrahi resembled the purchaser, there was no case.
Their finding that the purchase was made on 7 December bordered upon the perverse.
Their finding about the unaccompanied baggage fell within the same category.

Let me quote from Dickson on The Law of Evidence at Section 98. In speaking of inferences to be drawn in cases of circumstantial evidence he says: "It is not enough that his guilt [the accused] be a rational and probable inference as well as the most probable of several inferences from the circumstances. It must also be the only rational hypothesis which they will bear."

If that is still the law then how on earth could the Court have drawn so many adverse inferences against the accused when there were other explanations and explanations that were just as likely?

There's a story in legal circles that the "unanimous" verdict was a fudge. One judge wanted to acquit both men, and another wanted to convict both (I don't know about the third). The decision to acquit one of the "conspirators" and convict the other, even though it was completely impossible to see how the convicted man could have done it on his own, is thus said to be a trade-off, to get the unanimous verdict the political situation demanded.

Considering that there was zero evidence against Fhimah (once the invented evidence of the CIA stooge who was bribed to lie in court was excluded), I really, really want to know what the judge who wanted to convict him was smoking. He makes Lord Denning look like a bleeding-heart liberal.

Then there's the first appeal.

Opinion of the Appeal Court (http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/lockerbie/docs/lockerbieappealjudgement.pdf)

Legal experts agree that Megrahi's advocate screwed up and brought the appeal on the wrong grounds. Thus, on strict legal terms, it was bound to fail. However, the appeal judges scale even greater heights of sophistry than the trial judges in their attempt to support the original verdict. It is known that they had serious doubts about the situation, and enquired if it was possible to order a retrial, but the reply was that the peculiar circumstances of the Zeist set-up made that impossible.

So, they swallowed their obvious reservations, and basically said, it's not for us to substitute our opinion for that of the trial court on these matters. Now if you'd appealled on different grounds that might all have been so different, but you didn't, so tough.

The problem is, this perverse conviction stands in the way of any attempt to find out what the hell happened. Any request for an investigation or an inquiry runs slap into the declaration that we know how it was done and who did it because the guy was found guilty and jailed.

Meanwhile, I fear, the guys who really did it are laughing themselves sick over all the international hoo-hah about "the Lockerbie bomber".

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 02:35 PM

Sounds similar to the passport found at Ground Zero in NY.

Chillzero, I simply cannot understand why you chose to quote, selectively, that tiny part of what I posted.

That post wasn't part of my reply to you. It was directed to LGR, who brought up the question of the radio manual page, but had several of the details of its finding wrong.

I did try to reply to your original question, and then again to your follow-up comment, even though that didn't make any sense to me. Perhaps it would help if you looked at the quote above from Len Murray, because he makes exactly the same points.

I know about the passport found at Ground Zero. Are you trying to imply that the Horton manual page is no less plausible than that? Seriously? Including the strange happenings in the Zeist court-room, where Mrs. Horton was asked to identify the fragment as the item she found in her garden, and in effect said no, she didn't recognise it as it was presented to her? The discrepancies were never resolved and everyone just carried on as if she'd said yes, she was absolutely sure it was the same item.

However, this is rather missing the point. As I said, I don't understand why you chose that particular matter to focus on. While it's an oddity, and something worth looking at if one has any suspicions about the probity of the investigation (and I have plenty), it's in no way central to the doubts about the conviction of Megrahi.

I can do no better than to quote Len Murray again.

I could not and still cannot understand how the Court could hold, on the evidence of Gauci, that Megrahi made the purchase of the clothing. Without Gauci's evidence, which at its height was that Megrahi resembled the purchaser, there was no case.
Their finding that the purchase was made on 7 December bordered upon the perverse.
Their finding about the unaccompanied baggage fell within the same category.

Megrahi didn't buy these clothes. It is perverse in the extreme to imagine he did. Gauci's original description of the purchaser was of someone completely different - taller, older, darker-skinned and more heavily built. Even after the most shameless prompting and heavy hints about eyewatering amounts of money (the Gauci brothers were given $3 million after Megrahi was convicted), the best Tony could manage was to say Megrahi wasn't the man in the shop but "resembled him a lot".

The evidence in relation to the rain and the Christmas lights essentially excluded 7th December, which was the only day Megrahi could possibly have been in Tony Gauci's shop. This shifts the possibility of Megrahi being the purchaser out of "highly unlikely" and into "impossible".

And there was no evidence there was any unaccompanied baggage on the Malta-Frankfurt flight, and very very good evidence to say there wasn't, so Megrahi wasn't even present when the bomb was smuggled into the airport baggage system.

That's it. There was no other evidence connecting Megrahi to the bombing (again once the perjured evidence of the paid CIA stooge who was given US citizenship and a new identity in California to lie about Megrahi and Fhimah to the court was excluded).

After taking that on board, it is instructive to realise that there is evidence to suggest that prosecution misconduct didn't stop at bribing witnesses, but may have extended to fabricating evidence. However, even if the Horton manual fragment, and the MST-13 timer fragment, the Erac printout and the Maltese clothes are completely on the level, there is still no case against Megrahi.

Rolfe.

Kevin_Lowe

2nd March 2011, 02:55 PM

Sounds similar to the passport found at Ground Zero in NY.

Several difference leap immediately to mind.

A passport is made of strong, heavy paper, with a heavy cover, as opposed to being made entirely with regular, flimsy paper of the sort appliance manuals are made of.

The 9/11 passport in all likelihood was in the pocket of a hijacker in the front of one of the planes that hit the WTC towers and would thus have been amongst the first bits of debris to be ejected out the far side of the tower in advance of the fuel explosion. It was not strapped to the plane's fuel tank, or inside a case with high explosive.

The 9/11 passport was discovered and catalogued promptly.

The 9/11 passport was not vital to any theory of the days's events. If it had not been found, we'd have exactly the same conclusions today as to what occurred.

There are no apparent contradictions between the statements of the people who found the passport and its current state. The people who found it did not claim to have found a slightly damaged passport, only to see it turn up in court torn and burned almost beyond recognition.

MarkCorrigan

2nd March 2011, 03:10 PM

Ok, I'm going to write a summary of what, from my totally virgin reading of this thread with no previous interest in Lockerbie CT's, seems to be the basics.

Megrahi was in the Maltese airport one day.

He (possibly) looked like some guy who bought clothes from a store.

The rest of the evidence given by the clothing store owner described rain and christmas lights, neither of which were present when Megrahi was on Malta.

That was ignored by prosecutors who insisted it must have been Megrahi who bought the clothes.

There was no evidence any unaccompanied luggage left Malta, and Maltese security protocol makes it a virtual impossibility.

There was an anomaly at Frankfurt which was assumed to be an unattended from Malta.

There was a suitcase spotted in Heathrow that looked like and was in the same place as the bomb.

This was ignored by investigators.

Megrahi was nowhere near Frankfurt or Heathrow when Pan Am 103 left.

That about sum it up?

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 03:15 PM

Mark, I'm tempted to nominate that post.

Yes, that's about it.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

2nd March 2011, 04:27 PM

Actually, I missed out my favourite bit of non-reasoning from the Opinion of the Court.

The evidence in regard to what happened at Frankfurt Airport, although of crucial importance, is only part of the evidence in the case and has to be considered along with all the other evidence before a conclusion can be reached as to where the primary suitcase originated and how it reached PA103.

It can, however, be said at this stage that if the Frankfurt evidence is considered entirely by itself and without reference to any other evidence, none of the points made by the defence seems to us to cast doubt on the inference from the documents and other evidence that an unaccompanied bag from KM180 was transferred to and loaded onto PA103A.

So, first we point out that the Frankfurt evidence has to be considered in the light of all the other evidence when trying to decide where the bomb suitcase got on the plane. Not arguing with that, Sherlock.

Presumably, that means you consider the extremely ambiguous and questionable nature of the Erac printout, which (if it's legit at all, remember this is another piece of evidence with extraordinarily flaky provenance) might just reflect a coding anomaly, of which there were admitted to be plenty at Frankfurt.

Then you consider it in the context of the evidence from Malta itself, where there is "considerable and quite convincing evidence that [an unaccompanied suitcase getting on board KM180] could not have happened."

And you consider it in the context of the evidence from Heathrow, which records a suitcase answering to the description of the bomb bag, which was shown not to belong to any legitimate passenger, in almost the position of the bomb bag, before the Frankfurt flight had landed. And you think about the appalling security standards at Heathrow, and Bedford's tea break, and the 38-minute explosion matching the timing expected of a barometric device that would have had to be loaded at Heathrow, and the fact that only at Heathrow could the terrorist have had any chance of influencing the position of the case in the container - and the case was in pretty much the worst possible position as regards damaging the plane with that amount of Semtex.

But hey, we don't do any of that. We reverse smartly and decide to consider the Frankfurt evidence in isolation after all, even though we just said we couldn't really do that.

So we consider the Frankfurt evidence in isolation. And we say, hey, it's more likely that any given tray as recorded is what it appears to be, rather than a coding anomaly. Well, no kidding Sherlock. You reckon that coding anomalies account for a relatively small minority of all luggage recorded in the Frankfurt system.

It is therefore decided, like that, that the entry in question MUST have been something that came off the Malta flight. Therefore it was unaccompanied baggage. And because there was no evidence of any unaccompanied luggage at the other end, it must have been a really criminal plot. And there was a suspicious Libyan there at the time and we've decided this guy bought the clothes in the bomb bag. So obviously, that was the bomb bag.

That really is it. That quoted paragraph is the reasoning they used to determine the Frankfurt records showed an unaccompanied bag from Malta. Well, that and (when challenged about the Warsaw bag) the observation that the man who bought the clothes from Tony Gauci was at Malta when the flight in question departed. And once they'd decided that, this allowed them to say, well, it doesn't matter there was no evidence of an unaccompanied bag at the Malta end and a lot of evidence there was no such thing, we already decided it was there. And it allowed them to say, well bugger me we have no idea what the hell it was Bedford saw, but we've already decided the bomb came in from the Frankfurt flight, so I guess the case he saw just vanished somewhere.

Look, I'm honestly not making this up. This really is the chain of "logic" employed. I think this is why I'm so aerated about it all. It's an offence against reason itself.

Rolfe.

MarkCorrigan

2nd March 2011, 05:33 PM

Mark, I'm tempted to nominate that post.

Yes, that's about it.

Rolfe.

Holy crap that's one poorly done investigation.

I'm assuming this was more down to desperately wanting to find someone guilty rather than actual malice against Megrahi/Libya?

(Nom away, always happy to get one :D )

Rolfe

3rd March 2011, 03:05 AM

Well, that's a whole other can of worms. Above a certain level in the investigation, there seems to have been more interest in not getting the "wrong" (that is, embarrassing) result than actually solving the crime.

The UK side was extremely keen that the bomb should not have originated at Heathrow. They thought, on day 9, that the baggage container involved ruled out Heathrow, and rushed out a statement to that effect. They then held that line with some quite surreal mental back-flips, even as more and more evidence trickled in suggesting it could well have been a suitcase smuggled into Heathrow.

The Frankfurt side seems to have been hiding something quite substantial. The evidence suggests that all the baggage records were removed and "lost" within a few days of the disaster, either by the police themselves or with the connivance of the police. This may have been related to the fact that the US DEA were running a controlled drugs delivery operation through Frankfurt airport to Detroit, and one of their known couriers was on PA103. It may also be related to the fact that a Frankfurt terrorist cell was known to be building bombs with barometric detonators, to bring down aircraft. That cell had been infiltrated by US assets, but was still engaged in some pretty lethal operations. Or maybe not. Frankfurt is a black hole of cover-up, and the only thing that ever emerged from it was the Erac printout which very conveniently allowed the attention of the investigators to move to Malta.

The US side seems to have at first hoped it might be a Libyan operation, but then as more and more evidence emerged about the Palestinian group in Frankfurt and what they were up to, that hope became a lot fainter. There is evidence however that in March 1989 there was an agreement between Bush and Thatcher to call the dogs off the Palestinian suspects, with various reasons being advanced that probably aren't the whole story.

If there was any fabrication of evidence to point to Libya, it seems to have happened between April 1989 and September the same year. However, this evidence wasn't brought out at that time, but was allowed to sit in the background waiting for someone to put two and two together.

The actual investigation was ostensibly pursuing the Palestinian group right through until early autumn 1990. However, the early months were hindered by the Heathrow-Frankfurt stalemate. The recovery and forensics operations were going full steam ahead, but the detectives were at war - the Brits said the bomb had come from Frankfurt and the Germans said it had been introduced at Heathrow. The Brits weren't investigating Heathrow because they believed Frankfurt was the key, and the Germans weren't investigating Frankfurt because - well, all the baggage records had been lost, for a start.

This changed in August 1989 when the Frankfurt police produced the Erac printout with the line suggesting a possible unaccompanied item from Malta heading for PA103A. This coincided with the forensics people identifying most of the blast-damaged clothing as being of Maltese manufacture. So everybody heaved a sigh of relief and started investigating Malta.

They spent a year trying to prove that the bomb had been smuggled on to KM180 from Malta to Frankfurt, and could find no evidence. They also tried very hard to get the clothes seller to identify one of the Palestinian gang as the clothes purchaser, which he did, in rather more definite terms than he later identified Megrahi. (Still probably wasn't him either though!) That year on Malta seems to have been fruitless - well, if the bomb was actually smuggled on board at Heathrow, that's not all that surprising.

Then in June 1990 the fragment of timer circuit board was identified and traced as an item (mostly) sold to Libya. Soon after that the first Gulf War was cooking up, when it was expedient to consign Libya to the Outer Darkness (and in any case some leverage against them was wanted to stop them supplying munitions to the IRA), but at the same time it was desirable to have Iran (who probably paid the Palestinian group to attack the airliner) on-side and allied.

This caused a sudden volte-face in which the investigators were instructed to stop looking at the Palestinians and go after Libya. Same (ridiculous) modus operandi, different perpetrator. It was discovered that a suspicious-looking Libyan (Megrahi) had been catching a flight for Tripoli at Malta at the same time KM180 departed. (This isn't all that unlikely, as Malta was Libya's gateway to the outer world and the place was crawling with Libyans. If it hadn't been Megrahi that day it would have been someone else.)

He, in common with probably 50% of the adult male population, vaguely resembled the description of the clothes purchaser (well, clean-shaven and with dark frizzy hair - not age, build, height or skin colour). The investigators changed tack and started trying to get an identification of Megrahi. That little lot is detailed elsewhere. It was never a confident identification though, and they couldn't have relied on it alone.

They spent some time trying to cook up a theory involving a mate of Megrahi's as well, and a travel agency the pair of them were setting up, and all of that disappeared in court for lack of evidence.

There would never have been enough evidence there to issue indictments, if it had not been for what the CIA did next, in July 1991. They had a Libyan informer on their books, a lowlife called Abdulmajid Giaka, who had been taking their money and producing nothing much in return for three years. When asked about Lockerbie he had been uninformative. They got hold of him and told him they'd cut him off without a penny (strand him in Malta in fact) unless he told them what they wanted to hear about Megrahi and his mate Fhimah, and the Lockerbie bomb. If he did that, they'd get him (and his pregnant wife) into the US witness protection programme and US citizenship.

Giaka obliged, coming out with a whole lot of stuff about seeing Megrahi and Fhimah at Malta airport with a brown Samsonite suitcase the day before the bombing. One has to ask, how did he know to talk about a brown Samsonite suitcase? (Look at Vincent Vassallo's evidence for a clue. He was specifically asked - by a Scottish cop - if he had seen either man with a brown Samsonite suitcase, and given heavy hints about life-changing amounts of money if he had. He refused indignantly and went to the Maltese cops about it.) From knowing nothing about Lockerbie at all, Giaka's evidence got more and more detailed and more and more incriminating. He was taken to the USA, given US citizenship, and a new identity.

That was what allowed the indictments to be issued. The US authorities "had a witness". On the basis of this, the UN was induced to impose punitive sanctions on Libya which lasted for eight years and allegedly caused thousands of deaths. Finally, a deal was brokered to bring the two accused to trial, and they surrendered voluntarily. (I have heard a claim that what tipped the balance at that point was an undertaking only to go after the two accused and not to try to implicate Gadaffi. It that's true, it has some interesting connotations for current events.)

However, the whole sordid tale of the bribery of Giaka came out in court. Although the prosecution tried to conceal this evidence, the court ordered it to be revealed, and that was the end of his evidence. The judges threw it out. Everybody expected two acquittals after that, because the evidence that remained was ridiculous.

However, the judges then bent over backwards to choose the most incriminating interpretation possible of all the remaining circumstantial evidence, even when these interpretations were quite fanciful, and reject the obvious interpretations, such as the bomb having gone into the container at Heathrow. All of this was based on the acceptance that Tony Gauci's confused and contradictory non-identification of Megrahi as the purchaser of the clothes was "beyond reasonable doubt". Tony Gauci and his brother then got $3 million and a new life in Australia.

And that's why this is in Conspiracy Theories, and from that point of view, rightly so.

Rolfe.

little grey rabbit

3rd March 2011, 03:32 AM

Did this police chief ever get identified or expand on this statement?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14908

A former Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.

The retired officer - of assistant chief constable rank or higher - has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.

The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, gave the statement to lawyers representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, currently serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison.

Note that this affidavit fully backs up the statement of the Mebo director and employee - despite the dedicated efforts Rolfe and Caustic Logic have spent on the internet stalking, abusing and harrassing these two individuals.

Rolfe

3rd March 2011, 05:28 AM

Hmmm, the Golfer.

Interesting wrinkle. It would be nice if what he said could be substantiated, because it fits very very well with a lot of the suspicions arising for other reasons. But he has never come forward in public, and he was a Detective Sergeant, which isn't all that senior a position.

Here's what the SCCRC had to say about him.

In the initial application to the Commission, reference was made to a former police officer who, it was alleged, worked at a senior level in the police investigation and could provide “sensitive” information about the case. A number of the allegations made on behalf of the applicant were based on information apparently provided by this witness. The true identity of the witness was not disclosed in the application; instead, a pseudonym, “the Golfer”, was used. The Commission’s enquiry team interviewed the Golfer, a former detective sergeant, on three separate occasions during which he made a number of allegations concerning the conduct of the police investigation. As a result of its enquiries the Commission is satisfied that the Golfer was involved in the police investigation into the bombing of PA103. However, there was a vast array of inconsistencies and contradictions between, and sometimes within, his statements to the Commission. There were also inconsistencies between what he told the Commission and what the submissions alleged he had told the applicant’s former legal representatives. In addition the Commission considered some of his allegations to be implausible when considered alongside other evidence in the case, and unsupported or refuted when viewed in the context of the Commission’s other findings (see below). In light of this the Commission has serious misgivings as to the credibility and reliability of this witness and was not prepared to accept his allegations.

Well, I don't necessarily believe something is unfounded just because the SCCRC says so, or not without a look at the 800+ page report and 13 volumes of appendices that we never got to see. (Now if someone would just hand that over to Wikileaks, it would be good.) On the other hand, it doesn't get us any further.

And no, the Golfer never backed up Edwin Bollier or Ulrich Lumpert. Yes, he said the MST-13 timer fragment was planted by the CIA, but we can all work that one out without benefit of Edwin.

I don't know why you're so keen on Edwin anyway. Ex-Stasi agent, suspected CIA asset playing a double game, and the guy who was responsible for telling the cops that Megrahi was at the airport on 21st December 1988 under a false name and they should go after him.

There's a school of thought that says Edwin publishes such blatant falsehoods about the timer fragment specifically to cause interested parties to dismiss the whole thing as conspiracy theorising.

Rolfe.

Ambrosia

5th March 2011, 11:43 AM

Holy crap that's one poorly done investigation.

Ding!

I'm assuming this was more down to desperately wanting to find someone guilty rather than actual malice against Megrahi/Libya?

I've been mulling over the Lockerbie case recently, especially in light of recent events in Libya.

The theory that looks the most credible and was the one the investigation first followed before it got all political was it was Jibril and the PFLP-GC what done it, as a revenge attack for the USS Vincennes disaster, on the orders of Iran.

It remains a little known fact that at the time the PFLP-GC was HQed in Libya, so Libya is in fact connected to the whole thing, (if we assume that the PFLP-GC theory is correct) and seeing as Megrahi was at the time a member of the Libya Secret Service he could well have had "something" to do with it all.

There could well be intelligence somewhere that points to his slight involvement somehow that's never seen the light of day.

All that being said there isn't enough evidence to convict Megrahi of anything, a fact that the judges in their judgement actually point out, before convicting him anyway :confused:

The whole thing stinks. I would not be at all surprised if some statements are made after Ghadaffi is done and dusted to accept entirely the conclusions of the Zeist trial so the entire sorry story gets swept under the carpet forevermore.

Rolfe

5th March 2011, 02:42 PM

As I've been saying for a while, if you want to convict Megrahi of any involvement in the Lockerbie bombing, you'd have to come up with a completely different case, de novo.

The case as presented at Zeist was entirely based on two allegations. One, that Megrahi bought the clothes from Tony Gauci, and two, that the bomb was smuggled on to KM180 that morning by persons unknown, but with Megrahi somehow facilitating this by his presence at the airport.

He didn't buy the clothes, and the bomb wasn't on board KM180.

Now anyone is welcome to start again and try to construct a new case against Megrahi, but so far it hasn't been tried and we have no idea what it would consist of. In particular, if the bomb didn't travel on KM180 that morning, Megrahi was verifiably nowhere near the scene of the actual crime.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

8th March 2011, 12:14 PM

Was this the thread Bunntamas intended to bump? Or maybe she didn't want to address any of the recent points?

Chillzero? LGR, even?

Rolfe.

TheRedWorm

8th March 2011, 05:26 PM

I still favor the Chicago Cop Scenario: Someone is guilty: We just need to find who that is; damn the evidence.

Ambrosia

8th March 2011, 11:40 PM

I still favor the Chicago Cop Scenario: Someone is guilty: We just need to find who that is; damn the evidence.

I favoured that explanation on first read. The deeper you dig into the whole thing the less that seems to make sense.

I think that something very very shady was going on, either conducted by the US which the UK knew all about, or both governements together. I think the investigation started off on the right foot, but quickly got swamped by politcal stuff and the need to keep something unrelated quiet.

Once Megrahi and Fhima were indicted then there was some measure of "we need to find *someone* guily for this" cop syndrome, and now we are in "case closed, nothing to see here, move along please" territory.

chillzero

9th March 2011, 01:19 AM

Chillzero?
What?

Rolfe

9th March 2011, 02:26 AM

But really, if Megrahi didn't buy the clothes he didn't do it. It's that simple.

I don't understand why this is necessarily true.

Rolfe tries to explain why this is, in fact, necessarily true.

I don't believe this answers my question.
How does it definitively exclude other scenarios, where, for example, the clothing was bought by someone else who had contact with (stayed at same address, perhaps as) the person who - later - put it in the suitcase, and onto the plane?

Rolfe tries again, despite not really understanding what we're talking about here - who is this someone else, who was staying at what address, who put what on the plane where - because none of that appears in the evidence.

Sounds similar to the passport found at Ground Zero in NY.

This is a bit of a non-sequitur in context, referring as it does to an unrelated post about the "asbetos" radio manual. Nevertheless several posters try to explain why this is a bit more anomalous than the Ground Zero passport.

So I just wondered if you had ay further comment. Do you now understand why, if Megrahi didn't buy the clothes, the entire scenario of the Malta introduction falls apart?

Rolfe.

chillzero

9th March 2011, 02:58 AM

So I just wondered if you had ay further comment. Do you now understand why, if Megrahi didn't buy the clothes, the entire scenario of the Malta introduction falls apart?

Rolfe.
No, and no - not as you worded it initially.

Rolfe

9th March 2011, 03:01 AM

If I tried again, would you read it?

Rolfe.

Rolfe

9th March 2011, 03:27 AM

I favoured that explanation on first read. The deeper you dig into the whole thing the less that seems to make sense.

I think that something very very shady was going on, either conducted by the US which the UK knew all about, or both governements together. I think the investigation started off on the right foot, but quickly got swamped by politcal stuff and the need to keep something unrelated quiet.

Once Megrahi and Fhima were indicted then there was some measure of "we need to find *someone* guily for this" cop syndrome, and now we are in "case closed, nothing to see here, move along please" territory.

I'm inclined to go along with all that. I'm not entirely sure Richard Marquise is anything more than the "Chicago cop" figure, because why otherwise would he keep indulging in hit-and-run forum posts blindly insisting the verdict was correct? In contrast, Cannistraro never raises his head above the parapet.

But the more I look at it, the more a deliberate cover-up seems inescpable. Whether it's really of something unrelated, I'm not so sure. I don't know how seriously to take Susan Lindauer, but some of what she says about the planned PFLP-GC operation being triggered to hit PA103 precisely because of McKee and others being on it is interesting. It would require some pretty nifty footwork though, because I don't think that trip was planned more than a day or two in advance. (It's exactly what Lester Coleman has been alleging for years though.)

Rolfe.

Rolfe

10th March 2011, 03:09 AM

Chillzero is ill, and about to be incommunicado while on holiday. However, I'll link to a post I made in a different thread that explains in more detail how the finding that Megrahi bought the cloths is crucial to the entre case against him, and how that case evaporates completely if indeed he did not buy the clothes (which the SCCRC says he didn't).

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=6958794

Rolfe.

ricbritain

14th March 2011, 01:12 AM

As with most cover ups/conspiracy theory's I wonder just how many people would have to be involved in this one?

With Libya's history and the madness of Gaddafi I do not find it in the slightest hard to believe that the right man was convicted. I admit that my opinion is formed without spending hours and hours either reading the posts on here or researching.

Libyans also claim not to be responsible for the death of PC Yvonne Fletcher and the bombing of a German discos. Maybe they were set up there too.

I wonder if this falls into the category of 'always support the underdog/the big bad system can not be trusted'
I moved all the PC Fletcher material to its own thread. Please discuss it there. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=6972566#post6972566) Thanks.

Rolfe

14th March 2011, 02:25 AM

As with most cover ups/conspiracy theory's I wonder just how many people would have to be involved in this one?

We discussed that earlier. Five, certainly. Cannistraro, Orkin, Thurman, Hayes and Feraday. When you get beyond that, it's difficult to tell the difference between meaningful involvement in the conspiracy and what another poster called the "Chicago cop syndrome".

With Libya's history and the madness of Gaddafi I do not find it in the slightest hard to believe that the right man was convicted.

Well, of course it's easy to believe that someone connected with a terrorist regime was responsible for a terrorist act. Just as it's easy to believe that a known bank robber robbed a bank. However, just as there is more than one bank robber in the world, there is more than one gang of terrorist thugs in the world. In order to know whether a particular bank robber robbed a particular bank, or a particular gang of terrorist thugs carried out a particular atrocity, it is necessary to examine the actual evidence.

Even more so in this case, because Megrahi was not a bank robber or a terrorist thug. He was someone who moved in the same social circles as terrorist thugs, which is an important difference.

I admit that my opinion is formed without spending hours and hours either reading the posts on here or researching.

Well, there you go then. I could just as easily say I believed George Bush was responsible for 9/11, although "my opinion is formed without spending hours and hours either reading the posts on here or researching". It might be different if I actually looked into the evidence though.

Removed material split to new thread

I wonder if this falls into the category of 'always support the underdog/the big bad system can not be trusted'

And I wonder if your post falls into the category of "I have no clue what I'm talking about but I'll say something anyway"?

Rolfe.

Caustic Logic

14th March 2011, 02:25 AM

As with most cover ups/conspiracy theory's I wonder just how many people would have to be involved in this one?

Quite a few, at least in passive terms. The whole thing stinks and I have a hard time believing no one involved in the investigation noticed it at the time. As far as actually planting evidence and consciously promoting falsehoods, probably a much saller number, mostly at the CIA and the UK's now-defunct RARDE, with some questionable behavior at both FBI and Scottish police levels.

With Libya's history and the madness of Gaddafi I do not find it in the slightest hard to believe that the right man was convicted. I admit that my opinion is formed without spending hours and hours either reading the posts on here or researching.

Indeed, you're not alone in either regard.

Removed material split to new thread

I wonder if this falls into the category of 'always support the underdog/the big bad system can not be trusted'

That mindset can help one grasp the concept more readily, and however you get there, the realization of how totally flawed the case was should feed into the second. Trust in authority and process has, in this case anyway, left most of us unable to see the most likely actual truth of the attack. London. (http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/2010/01/london-origin-theory.html)

Hope that helps.

ricbritain

14th March 2011, 08:11 AM

Rolfe

14th March 2011, 08:23 AM

So, am I to believe that with all the oil wealth of Gaddafi he could not have hired a legal team at least as searching as Rolfe?? Have you not noticed the pull Gaddafi has at his disposal when he is upset? Why in the world would he not just hire a Rolfe type person to clear the apparent pattsie? If it is so obvious that folk on here can put together a water tight case why was it not done?

Good question. Go ask Bill Taylor why he took the line he did, and why he dropped the "special defence of incrimination", and why he only called two defence witnesses after citing a very large number originally.

You might also examine the Libyan influence over the legal team - the original Libyan defence lawyer being ousted by a Gadaffi placeman and then resigning. This was something specifically referred to by the UN observer. Not quite sure what that was all about.

However, the short version is that the evidence presented in court should never have led to a guilty verdict. The opinion of the court pretty much sets out how Megrahi didn't do it - or at least, that there's no evidence that he did - then suddenly announces the judges have determied there is a "clear and convincing pattern", so guilty.

The defence strategy, as devised by Bill Taylor, was to make the prosecution prove its case. He believed the prosecution hadn't done that, not by a metric mile (and he was factually correct in that belief). He therefore chose not to mount much of a defence. The main concern in all this is that the judges looked at a case that was at the very least absolutely heaving with shed-loads of extremely reasonable doubt, and brought in a guilty verdict anyway.

It's easy after the event to say, Bill Taylor should have said this or that, of course. And certainly as far as the appeal goes, he screwed up. But on the simple face of it, the prosecution did not have a case, but the judges convicted anyway.

As for five people being involved: that has to be wrong. Did five people do all the investigation work, including forensics, and taking all witness statements? Did five people convince all involved not to go after the actual real perpetrators be they Iranian, Syrian etc? I am sure there will have been dozens and dozens of people involved in researching this in the early days trying to find any lead, not just five. And you are saying that at each point one of those people found a clue to Iran or where ever they were just shut down?

You said you haven't read any of the threads, or the background material. I think you need to do that.

My reference to the Yvonne Fletcher and disco bomb were supposed to be sarcastic. I didn't actually expect someone to come back and refute them. Do you not realize that to Arabs Mosad it responsible for everything that ever goes wrong, including most terrorist attacks perpetrated by Arabs. According to Libyans it is mossad that continues to kill civilians in Iraq,

Also, as I remember it Libya pulled their people out of the embassy before anyone had chance to interview them. The British government had it's hands tied as there was a threat of the possibility of British people coming to harm in Libya.

Not treating the references to Yvonne Fletcher or the disco bombing as sarcastic. I'm aware of the connections, but not an expert in either of these cases. I have seen rational people question the responsibility for the Fletcher murder, but I don't know how well their case stands up to scrutiny.

If I go to JFK threads or Moon landing threads am I likely to find you guys busy there too?

No.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

14th March 2011, 04:46 PM

I'm porting this back from the split thread because it belongs here.

So, am I to believe that with all the oil wealth of Gaddafi he could not have hired a legal team at least as searching as Rolfe?? Have you not noticed the pull Gaddafi has at his disposal when he is upset? Why in the world would he not just hire a Rolfe type person to clear the apparent pattsie? If it is so obvious that folk on here can put together a water tight case why was it not done?

Gaddafi is not entirely rational so trying to model his behaviour is kinda tricky.

A few things you have to remember. Handing over the suspects was part of Gaddafi's ticket to rehabilitation. No point in spoiling that by throwing in a bunch of fancy lawyers in with them. Secondly Gaddafi would assume that we would rig the trial (after all he would). Thirdly Gaddafi is paranoid (not unreasonably). Would you really expect him to trust a scotish lawyer (scotish law is non standard enough that you would need a specialist) not to side with the establishment?

It's all a bit complicated. The defendants engaged their own Libyan lawyers well before the trial started - at the time of the indictments I think. Then of course they needed a Scottish law team for the actual trial. Only Scots lawyers have right of audience in a Scottish court.

Then Gadaffi insisted on appointing his own Libyan law team, and the original Libyan lawyer removed himself from the case due to irreconcilable differences. The defendants had no say in this at all. Im a bit hazy about what it was all about, though the UN observer to the trial was very critical. It may have had something to do with the abandoning of the special defence of incrimination, which was a big problem with the conduct of the defence.

And of course, we DID rig the trial. What else can you call that judgement? Although nobody has been able to offer an adequate explanation for why the judges produced the perverse Opinion they produced, and they're not telling of course.

Rolfe.

Ambrosia

16th March 2011, 03:18 AM

As with most cover ups/conspiracy theory's I wonder just how many people would have to be involved in this one?

Probably a similar number of people that were involved with the Iran Contra debacle.

The handwaving away stuff because it's a CT and therefore must have involved some impossible number of conspirators is about as useful as believing someone is guilty just because they were convicted. Usually it's correct but not always.

There are two main schools of thought as to who was responsible for Lockerbie.

i) Iran did it via the PFLP-GC as revenge for the Vincennes shootdown of an Iranian passenger plane.

ii) Libya did it as revenge for the 1986 air raid, or to strike at the West for sanctions dating back to 1982.

It's entirely possible that both of the above are true. There is evidence to support both i) and ii)

Whoever is ultimately responsible for the actual bombing, it's plausible that there was similar to IranContra "arms/drugs for hostages" shenanigans going on that US/UK politicians have been furiously covering up ever since.

Caustic Logic

16th March 2011, 03:51 AM

Incidentally, Ambrosia, you've cited as evidence for Libyan involvement that they hosted the PFLP-GC at the relevant time. I haven't come across anything supporting that, not that I really looked. Can you explain how you found that out?

I just don't see a reason to suspect a Libyan role (aside maybe providing the Semtex or something way down the line) aside from:
1) The timer fragment and radio, with their insane connveninece-to-plausibility ratios
2) The "case" against Libyan agents Megrahi and Fhimah
3) A lot of people that presume any official story no matter how crooked must be somehow "based on a true story," or at least "inspired by true events." I don't see why.

Rolfe

16th March 2011, 04:16 AM

Probably a similar number of people that were involved with the Iran Contra debacle.

The handwaving away stuff because it's a CT and therefore must have involved some impossible number of conspirators is about as useful as believing someone is guilty just because they were convicted. Usually it's correct but not always.

Exactly. I prefer a reasoned debunking to "argument from incredulity". Unfortunately, most of the attempted debunking of the doubts about the Lockerbie Official have been nothing more than argument from incredulity.

There are two main schools of thought as to who was responsible for Lockerbie.

i) Iran did it via the PFLP-GC as revenge for the Vincennes shootdown of an Iranian passenger plane.

ii) Libya did it as revenge for the 1986 air raid, or to strike at the West for sanctions dating back to 1982.

It's entirely possible that both of the above are true. There is evidence to support both i) and ii)

That's why I concentrate on the evidence for Megrahi having carried out the bombing, because that's the seriously weak point. It's not that Libya couldn't have been involved, or that we know who actually did it. My problems are mainly with the tale that the bomb travelled on KM180 (for which there is no evidence at all) and that Megrahi bought these clothes (which the evidence shows he did not).

Although having said that, since I don't believe either the timer chip or the radio manual are genuine evidence, that does cut into the evidence pointing to Libya in general.

Whoever is ultimately responsible for the actual bombing, it's plausible that there was similar to IranContra "arms/drugs for hostages" shenanigans going on that US/UK politicians have been furiously covering up ever since.

My strong suspicions, but that's a very difficult aspect to investigate.

Rolfe.

Ambrosia

16th March 2011, 04:24 AM

Incidentally, Ambrosia, you've cited as evidence for Libyan involvement that they hosted the PFLP-GC at the relevant time. I haven't come across anything supporting that, not that I really looked. Can you explain how you found that out?

linky to a post from the MST-13 thread that explains it. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=5118671#post5118671)

source is:

"Profiles in terror:the guide to Middle East terrorist organizations" Aaron Mannes (2004) pp 324 [ linky (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lJwIhKrx0FAC&pg=PA324&lpg=PA324&dq=pflp-gc+hostage&source=bl&ots=s1Wb9tMuII&sig=F9Mvvgx7R62QT7hIEfHlbqzlXeI&hl=en&ei=fzyzSqifHs2g4gbomMh8&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=pflp-gc%20hostage&f=false) ]

I just don't see a reason to suspect a Libyan role

- Libya are under sanctions and the 1986 bombing would be a reasonable motive for wanting to down a US plane.
- Libya are a known "sponsor of terrorists" state

Thats plenty good enough to "suspect a Libyan role" afaik though there isn't any specific evidence anywhere that stands up to link specific Libyans to much.

In more recent times there are rumblings about Megrahi blackmailing Ghadaffi from jail, and that Megrahi was going to "reveal all" inferring that he was involved in some small part and that it was Ghadaffi that ordered the bombing. I certainly wouldn't be shocked if it emerged that Megrahi was involved and that it was Ghadaffis say so, I'm pretty convinced that Lockerbie was actually a PFLP-GC plot and that Jibril is responsible atm though.

Rolfe

16th March 2011, 05:09 AM

linky to a post from the MST-13 thread that explains it. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=5118671#post5118671)

source is:

"Profiles in terror:the guide to Middle East terrorist organizations" Aaron Mannes (2004) pp 324 [ linky (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lJwIhKrx0FAC&pg=PA324&lpg=PA324&dq=pflp-gc+hostage&source=bl&ots=s1Wb9tMuII&sig=F9Mvvgx7R62QT7hIEfHlbqzlXeI&hl=en&ei=fzyzSqifHs2g4gbomMh8&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=pflp-gc%20hostage&f=false) ]

- Libya are under sanctions and the 1986 bombing would be a reasonable motive for wanting to down a US plane.
- Libya are a known "sponsor of terrorists" state

Thats plenty good enough to "suspect a Libyan role" afaik though there isn't any specific evidence anywhere that stands up to link specific Libyans to much.

Indeed, it's good reason not to dismiss any concrete suspicions of Libya as unfounded, but I'm vanishingly short on actual evidence of involvement. Again, it seems that all we have is that this atrocity was carried out by some seriously bad guys, and these are some seriously bad guys.

In more recent times there are rumblings about Megrahi blackmailing Ghadaffi from jail, and that Megrahi was going to "reveal all" inferring that he was involved in some small part and that it was Ghadaffi that ordered the bombing. I certainly wouldn't be shocked if it emerged that Megrahi was involved and that it was Ghadaffis say so,

My own take on that is that it's a bunch of stuff invented by Libyan officials anxious to ingratiate themselves with the West by coming up with stories that provide welcome support for what the West wants to believe. Which is currently that Gadaffi ordered the Lockerbie bombing. It's on a par with some of the stuff that was being said in the 1990s when the US was trawling for evidence against Megrahi and Fhimah - sounded incriminating but didn't stand up to five minutes scrutiny. This sounds like stuff made up by people who know that a narrative that Megrahi was ordered to carry out the bombing by Gadaffi is likely to be well received. (As if it was ever likely that Megrahi would have carried out the bombing without Gadaffi having ordered it, if he had actually done it!)

This is the same. All that dreck about Megrahi blackmailing Gadaffi doesn't fit the observed facts of the case at all. Not least that fact that Megrahi has been in Libya for nearly 19 months and is still alive.

We have no evidence at all that Megrahi was involved in that bombing. He was fitted up because he happened to be catching LN147 that morning, with its unfortunate temporal connection to KM180. We have no evidence that he was involved in any other terrorist activity, and in particular he was never implicated in the bombing of UTA772. If there had been even the slightest shred of evidence for his involvement apart from the Gauci "identification" and his presence in the airport, you can bet your bottom dollar we'd know about it.

So while anything's possible, I suppose, what's the chances of the investigation just coincidentally happening to frame someone for the crime who was actually involved in a completely different role that was never discovered despite all the investigating that went on? Not high, in my opinion.

I'm pretty convinced that Lockerbie was actually a PFLP-GC plot and that Jibril is responsible atm though.

Well, yes. It has the fingerprints of Jibril, Khreesat, Dalkamoni and Elias all over it. However, they didn't do it for jollies. Someone was behind them, and at the moment Ayatollah Khomeini is the top suspect. Unless it is ever discovered who put that brown Samsonite suitcase in the baggage container at Heathrow while Bedford was on his tea break, I don't think we'll ever be able to tease out the deper ramifications and exactly who did what. Was Libya in there too? I don't think we can go beyond, who knows? In principle, it could well have been. Evidence for that is a lot harder to come by.

Rolfe.

Buncrana

16th March 2011, 06:40 AM

Of what is known as a result of the investigation and court case, there are limited, but more compelling elements of evidence, which certainly indicate the contract to bring down an American flagcarrier was carried out by the PFLP. I've always been of the view that Libya's involvement was, if at all, at worst as some form of third-hand support to the PFLP. Had there been more credible and reliable evidence than what was presented at Zeist (MST, the manual and of course Megrahi! ) of direct Libyan involvement, then I'm sure we'd all be only too aware of it.

As it is, there were numerous intelligence reports stating some possible reference to tenuous Libyan involvement, but again, aside from the usual portrayal of the pantomime-like "goodies & baddies" world by the US and UK investigators and government officials, plausible evidence is thin on the ground.

I've been meaning to set aside some time to get a proper post with regards to the possible, indeed probable, Palestinian involvement in the bombing - with financial support from Iran and some support from Syria. Whether you could also include Jordan, or it's agents, in this trio is a reasonable claim.

I'll need to have a look back over the Zeist transcripts, but I'm sure I read somewhere just recently about how Abu Talb had during the early 1980's relied on Libya as a place which had welcomed him and provided shelter and support in his activities with one, perhaps two, different Palestinian groups. However, this apparently abruptly changed in 1987/88, and Talb was no longer welcome in Libya.

This had presented a personal problem during 1988 for Talb, as his sister was in prison (or operating with another Palestinian group) in Egypt who were a country were Talb was not welcome. He was anxious to travel to Egypt so as to visit his sister and had planned to meet associates in Libya, or on the Libya Egypt border, who would aid him crossing over into Egypt. However, when Talb was in Rome looking to get the flight to Tripoli, the Libyans told him he wouldn't be allowed entry into Libya, and instead a furious Talb flew to Malta to meet other 'friends'.

All this is revealed in the cross examining of Talb at Zeist. I really need to have another read through his testimony to clarify a few details, but I don't for one second rule out my suspicion that Talb may well have had some reason to try to implicate Libya if he were planning, or was involved in providing some components for, the proposed bombing of 103.

Rolfe

16th March 2011, 07:20 AM

It's interesting to compare Reagan's reaction to the bombing of La Belle Disco, and his reaction to Lockerbie. When the disco bombing happened, he announced he had proof it was a Libyan operation, and shot off to bomb Tripoli and Benghazi. Such proof was never really forthcoming as far as I know, though I don't know of any proof it wasn't Libya either. (Interestingly, someone on the wiki talk page for the disco bombing seems to be suggesting Bollier might have been involved in faking evidence against Libya for that!)

Then when Lockerbie happened, Reagan's immediate reaction was the same. Bomb Libya. He was threatening to do it just seven days after the crash, although I don't think he said he had evidence, just that "terrorists need to be taught a lesson" or something like that. So far as I know he didn't actually carry out the threat on that occasion. Of course, the investigation had the PFLP-GC as the main suspects by day nine, so that may have cooled his ardour a bit.

Rolfe.

Ambrosia

16th March 2011, 08:10 AM

Indeed, it's good reason not to dismiss any concrete suspicions of Libya as unfounded, but I'm vanishingly short on actual evidence of involvement.

Agree totally. Libya is a convenient villain which is plausible enough for them to pin the whole thing on. Somehow people still believe that Libya did it despite the court proving that Megrahi didn't do it and convicting him anyway.

There is only evidence (and not a great deal of it) to suggest that Libya provided financing and arms, to the terrorist group that most likely were ultimately responsible and that they had a presence in Libya. (PFLP-GC)

All that dreck about Megrahi blackmailing Gadaffi doesn't fit the observed facts of the case at all. Not least that fact that Megrahi has been in Libya for nearly 19 months and is still alive.

I'm not up to speed on the blackmailing stories. Just mentioning it as it's part of the (very scant) evidence that Libya had anything to do with the bombing.

However, they didn't do it for jollies. Someone was behind them, and at the moment Ayatollah Khomeini is the top suspect.

Yup.

Iran claimed responsibility more than once for Lockerbie as well as far as I remember.

Ahmad Behbahani (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/777589.stm) was one such claimant.

Caustic Logic

18th March 2011, 01:53 AM

Thanks, Ambrosia. Sorry it took so long to respond. That does seem reasonable and plausible enough, and interesting. The PFLP-GC hosted in Libya as their plot to blow up PA 103 unfurled. I'd say it's a reason to suspect possible involvement, but I still don't see any necessity. The cell in Neuss was busted, and Abu Elias was apparently mobile, the Iranians may have taken back over once the bomb was done, etc. I suspect the actual operation needed no further support from Jibril or HQ at this point, wherever they were.

In the context where "evidence of Libyan involvement" is often read as the "evidence" uncovered in the investigation, that most people accept as God's own truth, I suggest it's confusing to refer to something else (the above) while saying there's evidence of Libyan involvement. But then I can get pedantic sometimes.
:)

Bunntamas

21st March 2011, 09:04 PM

That does seem reasonable and plausible enough, and interesting. The PFLP-GC hosted in Libya as their plot to blow up PA 103 unfurled. I'd say it's a reason to suspect possible involvement, but I still don't see any necessity.

So, what do you think they were doing? Having little tea parties, in the Libyan dessert, whilst testing Mebo's timers designed for blowing up airliners? Heaven forbid I should re-post thos DOD doc's from "way back when" that you and Rolfe hand waved because they were "so old". Heaven forbid any of the Libyans were plotting and training with others long before the PA103 bombing.

But then I can get pedantic sometimes.
:) Ahem. yep. Feel free to put me back on "ignore" any time you wish. :cool:

Kevin_Lowe

21st March 2011, 09:20 PM

So, what do you think they were doing? Having little tea parties, in the Libyan dessert, whilst testing Mebo's timers designed for blowing up airliners? Heaven forbid I should re-post thos DOD doc's from "way back when" that you and Rolfe hand waved because they were "so old". Heaven forbid any of the Libyans were plotting and training with others long before the PA103 bombing.

Pardon me for saying so, but there's a huge gulf between "there were some links between PFLP-GC and Libya" and "Megrahi planted the bomb". Establishing the truth of the first does not get you very far in establishing the truth of the second.

Rolfe

22nd March 2011, 03:02 AM

Not only that, but the documents Bunntamas posted earlier weren't "handwaved away because they were so old". They were discounted as being obvious fabrications. Hell, they weren't even presented as evidence in court, which gives you some idea of how reliable the prosecution thought they were.

Bunntamas herself spotted the principle problem. The "informant" related an alleged modus operandi which involved Megrahi travelling with the bomb suitcase as far as Heathrow, where he somehow managed to intercept it in order to arm the barometric device (which would otherwise have exploded on the first leg of the flight), and then sloped off without boarding the transatlantic leg.

Of course this didn't happen. Megrahi didn't travel on KM180 that morning, or on any other flight in the direction of London. He caught LN147 for Tripoli, and was in Libya by lunchtime. The prosecution's theory was that he had used the digital MST-13 timer which did not require to be armed at Heathrow. Anyone stating that he had travelled to London clearly had no clue.

The document alleges that both Megrahi and Fhimah attended a terrorist training camp run by Ahmed Jibril. Jibril of course was the PFLP-GC mastermind who was playing with the IEDs that used the barometric timers. The timing of the allegations relates to the offering of the $4 million reward by the US DoJ for evidence against the two men they had already indicted for the crime. It looks as if some enterprising Arab simply made the whole thing up, speculatively, in the hope that if it turned out to be helpful to the prosecution, he could be in line for some of the reward Giaka and the Gaucis ended up netting. He knew Jibril was playing with barometric timers, he knew the timing of the explosion on PA103 perfectly fitted the use of such a timer, he knew such a timer would have had to be armed at Heathrow, so he tailored his fictitious story to fit this.

The prosecution was never able to present any evidence at all against Fhimah, apart from what Giaka said and that was dismissed by the court as being fabricated. There was nothing to connect him to any terrorist-related activity at all. If the document Bunntamas refers to had had any credibility at all, it would have been presented in court to try to make something of the collapsing case against Fhimah, but it wasn't. Dammit, they presented Giaka in court, so they weren't exactly fussy about the quality of what they relied on. But that one was too far-out even for them.

I'm afraid that's the risk you take when you advertise enormous rewards available for evidence against named individuals. People are going to make stuff up. Giaka did, but he wasn't the only one.

Rolfe.

little grey rabbit

22nd March 2011, 03:21 AM

At what altitude and into how many pieces did the plane break up?

You know the famous picture of the front of the aeroplane split down the middle, I understood that to be quite some distance from the other famous picture of the ploughed out ground in the Scottish town.

So did the plane break up in mid air? And to what extent?

zooterkin

22nd March 2011, 03:36 AM

Rolfe

22nd March 2011, 03:42 AM

Pardon me for saying so, but there's a huge gulf between "there were some links between PFLP-GC and Libya" and "Megrahi planted the bomb". Establishing the truth of the first does not get you very far in establishing the truth of the second.

There is one huge, enormous yawning chasm in the case against Megrahi, and that is the alleged routing of the IED from Malta through Frankfurt to London that morning. There is no evidence the bomb suitcase travelled that route. None at all. On the contrary, there is "considerable and quite convincing evidence that that could not have happened" (Lord Osborne).

The prosecution established that Megrahi was at the airport in Malta that morning, at the time the Frankfurt flight departed. However, they also established that he didn't check in any luggage for his Tripoli flight, he wasn't carrying any suitcase, and he didn't go airside at any stage. He didn't meet anyone there, and nobody else was identified as being a possible accomplice. He behaved exactly as any passenger would who was merely at the airport to catch a plane - except that he was travelling on a coded diplomatic passport he had been issued with a couple of years earlier, in connection to business deals he was negotiating for the Libyan government, which was in a false name.

They investigated the passengers and luggage on the Frankfurt flight till their pips squeaked. The security systems at Malta were surprisingly good for a small regional airport - or maybe not that surprising when you take into account who their neighbours were, and that it's easier to keep good security in a small operation. All the passengers and luggage were accounted for, all the luggage belonged to bona fide passengers, and there was simply no lacuna in the evidence that would accommodate an unaccompanied bag on that plane.

Not only that, but all the luggage that passed through Frankfurt on to PA103A was x-rayed at Frankfurt by a "careful and conscientious operator" who had been specifically alerted to the possibility of bombs disguised as Toshiba radio-cassette recorders. The x-ray operator saw nothing suspicious in that luggage.

The prosecution maintained, and the judges accepted, that somehow Megrahi had in fact facilitated the loading of the bomb on to KM180 at Malta, despite the complete lack of evidence for any such thing having happened, and pretty damn good evidence that it didn't.

This is the central plank of the concerns about the Zeist verdict. The judges acknowledged that "The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 is a major difficulty for the Crown case". They then proceeded to ignore the difficulty, and without giving any hint as to how they overcame it, simply announced that they'd decided it happened anyway.

How can this happen in a properly-constituted court of a civilised western nation - my nation, dammit? Partly, because the court wasn't "properly constituted". A special dispensation had been given for judges to hear the case without a jury. Juries do some damn stupid things sometimes so nobody can ever be sure what decision a jury would actually have come to. However, I think it takes a peculiarly twisted legal mind to concoct the circular reasoning and chain of unsupported inference the Zeist judges used to convict Megrahi.

This verdict is a judicial horror that is a stain on Scotland's justice system. And I'm sorry if it offends Bunntamas, but I'm going to go on saying so.

Rolfe.

Caustic Logic

22nd March 2011, 03:59 AM

So, what do you think they were doing? Having little tea parties, in the Libyan dessert, whilst testing Mebo's timers designed for blowing up airliners?

Who? The PFLP/GC and Libya?

Heaven forbid I should re-post thos DOD doc's from "way back when" that you and Rolfe hand waved because they were "so old".Whern did that happen? I never dismiss things for being old. I love old ****. DIA chatter's problem is being chatter from many sources of mixed reliability, often contradictory, only to be considered and re-assembled later. A good portion of it's just not real, I'm sure they realize. In this case, they seem to have picked from that pool, to help create the same bias that now lets you latch onto these as the obviously true bits.

Next.

Edited to properly mask profanity. Please see Rule 10 re: the auto-censor.
Heaven forbid any of the Libyans were plotting and training with others long before the PA103 bombing.Some vague, reported by Bollier, tests of a timer, whose only place in the evidence chain is clearly jammed-in late in the investigation, says what, compared to 3-D reality clues available from the beginning all suggesting a Khreesat bomb loaded in London to fulfill the Iranian vendetta?

Your eyes glaze over, I know. Mine would too, probably. I don't blame you at all.

Ahem. yep. Feel free to put me back on "ignore" any time you wish. :cool:Nah, for now. that's an emotional reaction for when I get too annoyed. Intellectually, I always want to know what people are saying, but when it causes too much stress, and it's exactly the same every time, with no sign of learning, conversing, or even having basic respect, it's clearly time to change the channel/hit the mute button, whatever. You seem to have a better system for ignoring people and ideas than I have, so I'm glad for the button sometimes.

Cheerio-O

Adam.

Rolfe

22nd March 2011, 04:57 AM

Just in case anyone really wants the details of the break-up of the aircraft, they're here (http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/2-1990%20N739PA.pdf) and here (http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/2-1990%20N739PA%20Append.pdf).

31,000 feet, and the Air Traffic Controller watching the radar at the time saw the radar trace apparently break up into three pieces.

Rolfe.

little grey rabbit

22nd March 2011, 05:01 AM

little grey rabbit

23rd March 2011, 02:44 AM

Bunntamas hasn't actually caught on to LGR's modus operandi yet, I can see.... Which is a bit careless, seeing as it's pretty clearly laid out only a few posts above hers.

Rolfe.
May he/she is working on the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend? I don't have problems with anybody who deals with material honestly, because if approached the right way they may concede there is room for doubt. Speaking of dealing with material honestly, Rolfe, can I direct your attention to page C 11 of the Appendices of Lockerbie Air Accident Investigation that you so kindly pointed out to me and ask you opinion on this passage.

Recorded radar information on the aircraft was available from from [sic] 4 radar sites. Initial analysis consisted of viewing the recorded information as it was shown to the controller on the radar screen, from this it was clear that the flight had progressed in a normal manner until Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) was lost. There was a single primary return received by both Great Dun Fell and Claxby radars approximately 16 seconds before SSR returns were lost. The Lowther Hill and St Annes radars did not see this return. The Great Dun Fell radar recording was watched for 1 hour both before and after this single return [but not Claxby also?????] for any signes of other spurious [sic!!!!] returns, but none was seen. The return was only present for one paint [sic] and no other explanation can be offered for its presence

If 2 radar stations pick it up, it is not spurious. What is your opinion on this?

My view is it was probably Al-Megrahi on his broomstick chasing the Pan Am flight, waving the samsonite suitcase and crying "Fly, my pretties"

But I will bow to your superior knowledge.

little grey rabbit

23rd March 2011, 03:05 AM

Further to do this. You can see the anomalous [not spurious!] radar return on pages 59-61 of the pdf - or Figures C-14 onwards.

It also shows the plane immediately falling apart and parts shooting out in all directions.

Rolfe

23rd March 2011, 03:41 AM

May he/she is working on the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend? I don't have problems with anybody who deals with material honestly, because if approached the right way they may concede there is room for doubt.

Re. the first part, I think so. Re. the second, good luck with that. Let me know how you get on.

My view is it was probably Al-Megrahi on his broomstick chasing the Pan Am flight, waving the samsonite suitcase and crying "Fly, my pretties".

No, you've got it wrong! Megrahi was on his broomstick chasing KM180 while it was flying over the Med, and managed to prise open the cargo door during the flight and shove the Samsonite suitcase into the hold.

I mean it's obvious innit? There was no unaccompanied luggage loaded on that flight at Malta, and no Samsonite suitcase, that was proved. But hey, we're absolutely sure an unaccompanied suitcase came off the plane at Frankfurt. And we know Megrahi did it somehow. So how else? ;)

Rolfe.

Rolfe

23rd March 2011, 04:03 AM

Rolfe, can I direct your attention to page C 11 of the Appendices of Lockerbie Air Accident Investigation that you so kindly pointed out to me and ask you opinion on this passage.

If 2 radar stations pick it up, it is not spurious. What is your opinion on this?

Further to do this. You can see the anomalous [not spurious!] radar return on pages 59-61 of the pdf - or Figures C-14 onwards.

It also shows the plane immediately falling apart and parts shooting out in all directions.

I'd need some time to study that. Is this going to be some version of "the cause of the crash wasn't 450g Semtex in a Samsonite suitcase, it was something else"? 'Cos there are quite a few of these, and it would be helpful to know which one we're dealing with.

The breakup of the plane was so catastrophic that initial opinion had it pegged as either a much larger explosive device (I think 60kg was a popular meme at one point), or possibly an extraordinarily catastrophic mechanical failure (there is one theory which blames the entire thing on a cargo door failure).

This does not seem to have been borne out by the evidence that was subsequently discovered. The evidence found on the ground by a lot of individuals painstakingly litter-picking large swathes of countryside indicated a small device which by a cruel coincidence (at least if you believe the Malta story) just happened to have been positioned in the worst place possible to rupture the plane's skin and let pressure and wind resistance do the rest.

Now if you want to propose something different, and it sounds to me as if you're pitching to have the plane shot down, then I'm listening. But I'm going to be very hard to convince that all the debris that was scattered across the countryside was somehow faked and substituted and manipulated, and the entire AAIB report a fraud except for the parts where they stupidly left in the incriminating bits regardless, and these are of course completely trustworthy....

Rolfe.