The advantage of a break fron blogging is the chance to give a digested view rather than the momentary reaction to events that blogging encourages. Juan Cole is the only blogger who consistently produces up to the second considered brilliance; but then he has a brain the size of a small planet.
So here are a few well-digested thoughts on the recent ructions over UK/Libyan relations.
It was absolutely right to release al-Megrahi. Every dying person deserves what comfort, pain alleviation and disease amelioration can be provided by the presence of family and by medical treatment. There should be no place in a justice system for the cruel vindictiveness of making a now harmless person die in jail. Scotland and the SNP have shown a civilised example; those who attack them have shown ugliness. There is a secondary but also valid utilitarian argument that to keep al-Megrahi in strict confinement while providing necessary medical treatment would have cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of pounds. to no purpose other than making some vicious people happy.
The Tories have shown their blood-baying, American bum-sucking true colours. New Labour have been caught in their usual horrible hypocrisy, attempting to capitalise on anti-SNP right wing media reaction, while having been deliberately paving the way for the release for years.
Those who believe that al-Megrahi was the Lockerbie bomber. believe he acted on Colonel Gadaffi’s orders. I have neard no-one argue that al-Megrahi acted alone. Even mad Aaronovitch, who loves attacking conspiracy theories, appears to believe that there was a Libyan government organised conspiracy to blow up the plane. So if Gadaffi was responsible, what logic is there in a view that it is fine for Blair and Brown to be pictured smiling with Gadaffi, but al-Megrahi must rot in jail? Who is more guilty, the man who gave the order, or his tool? But New Labour have been doing everything they can to give the impression that Gadaffi is now absolutely fine and rehabilitated, but the SNP were wrong to release his agent. Where is the logic in that?
Jack Straw has admitted that trade was the deciding factor in his agreeing that al-Megrahi should not be excluded from the prisoner exchange agreement. Bill Rammell has admitted that as an FCO Minister he told the Libyans that Gordon Brown did not want to see al-Megrahi die in jail. There is no room to doubt that the UK’s assiduous courting of LIbya saw all kinds of positive signals given quietly on al-Megrahi, whose release was an obvious Libyan demand in the normalisation of relations.
The infuriating thing is that New Labour actually did the right thing in their dealings with the Libyans. Jack Straw’s positions and Gordon Brown’s message were the right ones. But a combination of fear of the United States, a right wing populist media instinct and a desire to attack the SNP has led New Labour to tyy to hide the truth – and try so badly as to bring down more media scorn than if they had just come out and supported the release in the first place.
Al-Megrahi was not the Lockerbie bomber. The scandal is not that trade deals and the realpolitik of relationship normalisation led to his release. The scandal is that trade deals and the realpolitik of relationship normalisation were what led the Libyans to hand him over in the first place – very much in the way their ancestors had given hostages to Imperial Rome. His family were richly rewarded, made wealthy for generations by his acceptance of the role of sacrificial lamb, and there was the hope that he would be acquitted. That he was convicted on very dubious evidence shocked many, especially Dr Jim Swire, representative of the victims’ families, who followed the evidence painstakingly and has never accepted al-Megrahi’s guilt.
Syria was responsible for the Lockerbie bomb. But in the first Iraq war, we needed Syria’s support, while Libya remained a supporter of Iraq. Lockerbie was a bar to our new alliance with Damascus, so extremely conveniently, and with perfect timing, it was discovered that actually it was the Libyans!! Anyone who believes that fake intelligence started with Iraqi WMD is an idiot.
It haunts me that I had a chance to read the intelligence reports which, I was told by a shocked FCO colleague in Aviation and Maritime Department where I then worked, showed that the new anti-Libyan narrative was false. I say in self-defence that at the time I was literally working day and night, sleeping on a camp bed. I was organising the Embargo Surveillance Centre and I was convinced that a watertight full physical embargo could remove the need to invade Iraq. I was impatient of the interruption. I listened to my colleague only distractedly and did not want to go through the rigmarole of signing for and transporting the reports I hadn’t got time to look at then. Events overtook me, and I never did see them.
Which is not to say the Libyan regime was not a sponsor of terrorism. It was. It just didn’t do Lockerbie. It did indeed supply Semtex to the IRA. I have an obvious sympathy with the victims of IRA bombing, and their desire to obtain compensation.
But think of this. Why just Libya?
Is the United States offering to pay compensation to the tens of thousands of victims of CIA sponsored insurgents in Central and South America? Are we and the US going to pay compensation to the victims of UNITA? Are we going to pay compensation to the victims of British made cluster bombs in the Lebanon? Are we going to pay compensation to the victims of Executive Outcomes? Are the Americans going to pay compensation to the Russian and Uzbek victims of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan in the days when he was a US sponsored terrorist? I could go on for a week.
Ultimately, negotiating with “terrorists” and “rogue states” has to be done. The strange thing is that New Labour’s Libyan policy has been one of its genuine successes – and makes a nonsense of its argument that we could deal with Saddam no other way. There should be more human rights emphasis in the relationship, but the apporach has been basically the right one, just as it was right to settle with the IRA, and just as it is long overdue to settle with the Taliban.
On a rare occasion when this government has shown wisdom, it appears ashamed of it.
Welcome back Craig!
It’s not ‘bum-sucking’ Americans to want the man who blew up a civilian airliner to remain in prison. The families of the victims were promised his incarceration and they doubtless feel betrayed. The way it was handled showed great insensitivity to the victims’ families and the wanking on about some unique Scottish compassion is embarrassing.
Also, there were plenty of mujihadeen paid for by the US such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other atrocious figures but where is the evidence that Osama bin Laden was on the payroll?
QUOTE “It’s not ‘bum-sucking’ Americans to want the man who blew up a civilian airliner to remain in prison. ”
Ok, so when they catch him let me know…
‘Who is more guilty, the man who gave the order, or his tool?’ Dunno on that one – obviously in Stalin’s case there wasn’t much of an option – either do it or your entire family will be wiped out – hmm…hokely dokely.
What has happened is exactly the right result and, whilst it’s fair to look at the politics of it and view them all as hypocritical turds; i’m more inclined to think this was a blessed opportunity for the Yanks, the Tories and anyone who wasn’t directly involved in it – distraction news cycle type crap.
Good result – innocent patsy allowed home for a crime he never committed. And I love the utter hypocrisy of the Yanks as regards the any comparison to the Mai Lai massacres.
You really have to take your hat off to the remarkably bad media handling by Labour but….who cares?
Welcome back Craig.
Missed you and your always thoughtful input on things.
Bestest
Mike
“On a rare occasion when this government has shown wisdom, it appears ashamed of it”.
That’s democracy for you. When you follow the crowd and give free rein to its prejudices and hypocrisy, you are praised and esteemed. But when you show wisdom you are pilloried and, if you keep it up, thrown out of office permanently.
The really horrible thing is that this is how the system is supposed to work. Plato and Jefferson (or even Socrates and Franklin) would recognise the syndrome right away.
Whether or not it was right to release al-Megrahi, that decision should not have been made by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice and an elected Member of the Scottish Parliament. As long as a politician is the final decision maker over the liberty or detention of an individual, that decision is politicised. The decision maker is subject to political pressure, and even if they act with absolute integrity, they are subject to political backlash and accusations of political bias.
It is just plain wrong that a politician can decide to release or further detain a prisoner. Such decisions should be made by the judiciary (or in the case of parole, by the parole board).
The decision about whether to release al-Megrahi should have been made by a judge, or a panel of judges.
“It’s not ‘bum-sucking’ Americans to want the man who blew up a civilian airliner to remain in prison”
I suppose not if its the commander of the USS Vincennes.
Glad to see you’ve resisted the temptation to quit blogging. Someone needs to say these things, and you do it very well. Keep up the good work.
For anyone interested in Lockerbie, I would recommend Robert Black’s blog – link below.
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/
Professor Black is one of the most respected legal professionals ever to have worked in the Scottish legal system, and has long described the original Megrahi verdict as one of the gravest miscarriages of justice ever perpetrated under Scottish Law.
I don’t believe he had access to the intelligence reports you mention, but instead was appalled by the thinness of the evidence relied upon.
Further to this – and to emphasize the hysterically hypocritical reaction in Washington and London to the release – the release of Megrahi coincided with (or depended on) his dropping of his intention to appeal, a process that would have caused severe embarrassment if the original conviction was as unsound as people like Professor Black have claimed.
I think he was released, at this particular time, to prevent his appeal being heard; which, arguably, would have shown that there was a conspiracy, involving the UK and the USA, to frame an innocent man for a terrible crime.
The mountain of evidence presented at the appeal would not only have been accutely embarassing, it would also have opened up a whole new can of worms, for example, if it wasn’t Lybia, who was behind the atrocity and why was it covered up?
There’s a lot of, granted, strong circumstantial evidence, that the attack was revenge for the downing of an Iranian plane by the Americans. The Lockerbie attack was apparently ordered and financed by militants with ties to the Iranian regime and carried out by the PFLP, an extremist Palestinian splinter group.
I think it would have been totally outrageous to release him for a £10BN oil deal, if anyone deeply involved thought he had anything to do with it.
I would also say that you can’t make bombs out of hydrogen peroxide in aircraft toilets…
You could however probably do something with the duty free.
Particularly the Polish or Russian Vodka..
But who gives a fuck about Truth?
Tony
“…in the days when he was a US sponsored terrorist”
“where is the evidence that Osama bin Laden was on the payroll?”
angrysoba: suggest you extract your head from the sand for a moment and listen to former FBI translator and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. She has recently revealed that the US maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Bin Laden and the Taliban “all the way until that day of September 11”.
Which is cutting things a little fine I feel.
OK – Libya might, one day, pay compensation to the families of victims of the IRA – but why not have payment, too, from the USA for its support of the IRA through the fund-raising efforts of NORAID and other Irish-American organisations which went on in broad daylight across the length and breadth of the country for years?
Perhaps we should just bomb Boston.
Thoughtful comments. Keep them up please.
Craig, I have no problem with the captain of the USS Vincenes being prosecuted for manslaughter.
He should be.
from John Pilger
The trial of the “Lockerbie bomber” was worse than a travesty of justice. Evidence that never came to court proves his innocence
The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown’s “repulsion” to Barack Obama’s “outrage”, the theatre of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those
who call themselves journalists. “But what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?” whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. “What will you say to your constituents, then?”
Horror of horrors that a dying man should live longer than prescribed before he “pays” for his “heinous crime”: the description of the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, whose “compassion” allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to “face justice from a higher power”. Amen.
The American satirist Larry David once addressed a voluble crony as “a babbling brook of bullshit”. Such eloquence summarises the circus of Megrahi’s release.
No one in authority has had the guts to state the truth about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, in which 270 people were killed. The governments in England and Scotland in effect blackmailed Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. Of course there were oil and arms deals under way with Libya; but had Megrahi proceeded with his appeal, some 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence would have set the seal on his innocence and given us more than a glimpse of how and why he was stitched up for the benefit of “strategic interests”.
“The endgame came down to damage limitation,” said the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who took part in the original investigation, “because the evidence amassed by [Megrahi’s] appeal is explosive and extremely damning to the system of justice.” New witnesses would show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft – he was convicted on the word of a Maltese shopowner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and even failed to recognise him in the courtroom.
The new evidence would have shown that a fragment of a circuit board and bomb timer, “discovered” in the Scottish countryside and said to have been in Megrahi’s suitcase, was probably a plant. A forensic scientist found no trace of an explosion on it. The new evidence would demonstrate the impossibility of the bomb beginning its journey in Malta before it was “transferred” through two airports undetected to Flight 103.
A “key secret witness” at the original trial, who claimed to have seen Megrahi and his co-accused, al-Alim Khalifa Fahimah (who was acquitted), loading the bomb on to the plane at Frankfurt, was bribed by the US authorities holding him as a “protected witness”. The defence exposed him as a CIA informer who stood to collect, on the Libyans’ conviction, up to $4m as a reward.
Megrahi was convicted by three Scottish judges sitting in a courtroom in “neutral” Holland. There was no jury. One of the few reporters to sit through the long and often farcical proceedings was the late Paul Foot, whose landmark investigation in Private Eye exposed it as a cacophony of blunders, deceptions and lies: a whitewash. The Scottish judges, while admitting a “mass of conflicting evidence” and rejecting the fantasies of the CIA informer, found Megrahi guilty on hearsay and unproven circumstance. Their 90-page “opinion”, wrote Foot, “is a remarkable document that claims an honoured place in the history of British miscarriages of justice”. (His report, Lockerbie – the Flight from Justice, can be downloaded from http://www.private-eye.co.uk for £5.)
Foot reported that most of the staff of the US embassy in Moscow who had reserved seats on Pan Am flights from Frankfurt cancelled their bookings when they were alerted by US intelligence that a terrorist attack was planned. He named Margaret Thatcher the “architect” of the cover-up after revealing that she killed the independent inquiry her transport secretary Cecil Parkinson had promised the Lockerbie families; and in a phone call to President George Bush Sr on 11 January 1990, she agreed to “low-key” the disaster after their intelligence services had reported “beyond doubt” that the Lockerbie bomb had been placed by a Palestinian group, contracted by Tehran, as a reprisal for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a US warship in Iranian territorial waters. Among the 290 dead were 66 children. In 1990, the ship’s captain was awarded the Legion of Merit by Bush Sr “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer”.
Perversely, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, Bush needed Iran’s support as he built a “coalition” to expel his wayward client from an American oil colony. The only country that defied Bush and backed Iraq was Libya. “Like lazy and overfed fish,” wrote Foot, “the British media jumped to the bait. In almost unanimous chorus, they engaged in furious vilification and open warmongering against Libya.” The framing of Libya for the Lockerbie crime was inevitable. Since then, a US defence intelligence agency report, obtained under Freedom of Information, has confirmed these truths and identified the likely bomber; it was to be the centrepiece of Megrahi’s defence.
In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi’s case for appeal. “The commission is of the view,” said its chairman, Graham Forbes, “based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.”
Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi the bomber who beleives after the trial?
This is not the first time that state expediency has laid honesty and scruples to rest. Recall some years ago the Kuwaiti dissident who lived in London and trade deals were at risk if he remained, so he was conveniently granted a Dominican passport for a life in the Caribbean; or the “Matrix-Churchill” affair, when Saddam Hussein was being sold arms by Britain even after the Gulf War had started. If a country can sell arms to the enemy to have same used to kill its own sons and daughters sent to fight a war
– does this latest affair really surprise anyone? Given that kind of track record I say that 10b is not enough, an absolute insult, it should be at least double the amount!
MJ:angrysoba: suggest you extract your head from the sand for a moment and listen to former FBI translator and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. She has recently revealed that the US maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Bin Laden and the Taliban “all the way until that day of September 11”.
Which is cutting things a little fine I feel.
Well, it’s cutting it more than fine given that bin Laden was already wanted for the embassy bombings in Africa and there was already a CIA unit set up to track him.
What has happened is exactly the right result and, whilst it’s fair to look at the politics of it and view them all as hypocritical turds; i’m more inclined to think this was a blessed opportunity for the Yanks, the Tories and anyone who wasn’t directly involved in it – distraction news cycle type crap.
Good result – innocent patsy allowed home for a crime he never committed.
There’s nothing “good” about this result. If he was innocent then he shouldn’t have been incarcerated in the first place and there will no longer be an opportunity to find out what really happened. By this I mean whether or not Megrahi really was responsible but also who put him up to it. At the very least it looks like someone’s role in this is being whitewashed.
Those who believe that al-Megrahi was the Lockerbie bomber. believe he acted on Colonel Gadaffi’s orders. I have neard no-one argue that al-Megrahi acted alone. Even mad Aaronovitch, who loves attacking conspiracy theories, appears to believe that there was a Libyan government organised conspiracy to blow up the plane.
It’s hardly a conspiracy given that Gaddafi has all but admitted to his government’s role in the bombing and paid compensation to the victims. If he was not responsible then what right does he have to take responsibility and pervert the course of justice?
So if Gadaffi was responsible, what logic is there in a view that it is fine for Blair and Brown to be pictured smiling with Gadaffi, but al-Megrahi must rot in jail? Who is more guilty, the man who gave the order, or his tool? But New Labour have been doing everything they can to give the impression that Gadaffi is now absolutely fine and rehabilitated, but the SNP were wrong to release his agent. Where is the logic in that?
How about New Labour’s behaviour in rehabilitating Gaddafi is shameful and the SNP were wrong to release Megrahi?
It’s clear that the whole thing has been a fucking farce from the beginning and if Megrahi is innocent then the Libyan government probably have a pretty good idea who was responsible and therefore shamelessly threw him to the wolves. Gaddafi’s son is surely one of the dumbest ever dictators-in-waiting:
There was not in fact any official reception for the return of Mr. Megrahi, who had been convicted and imprisoned in Scotland for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The strong reactions to these misperceptions must not be allowed to impair the improvements in a mutually beneficial relationship between Libya and the West.
Translation: This is all about politics, cast any other feelings you have about the Lockerbie bombing aside.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently confirmed my statement that Libya put Mr. Megrahi’s release on the table at every meeting.
So, he his release was always part of some horsetrading nevermind whether he was ill or not.
He also made it clear that there was never any agreement by the British government to release Mr. Megrahi as part of some quid pro quo on trade ?” a statement I can confirm.
Seems to be a direct contradication of what he just said.
Mr. MacAskill’s courageous decision demonstrates to the world that both justice and compassion can be achieved by people of good will.
If Gadaffi believes Megrahi was innocent then why was he released as a “guilty” man?
What’s more, although we Libyans believe that Mr. Megrahi is innocent, we agreed in a civil action to pay the families of the victims, and we have done so.
Well, that was stupid, if not an admission of guilt.
Libya has worked with Britain, the United States and other Western countries for more than five years now to defuse the tensions of earlier times, and to promote trade, security and improved relations.
Either by using Megrahi as a pawn or by sweeping the Libyan government’s involvement under the carpet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/opinion/30qaddafi.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=&st=nyt
Welcome back Craig!
I was away when you said you might stop blogging but it seems your other fans did what I would have done and begged you not to.
As ever an interesting piece, and informative on a subject I was not well informed on.
I wonder though, given Libya agreed to al-Megrahi’s sacrifice and then agreed to a deal to get him back, might it have been made part of the deal that it wouldn’t have been so massively celebrated in Libya. The visual of him being greeted of the plane and feted has been part of the media problem for the UK. I guess this is just part of the NuLab lack of effective media handling.
Owen
Welcome back Craig!
I was away when you said you might stop blogging but it seems your other fans did what I would have done and begged you not to.
As ever an interesting piece, and informative on a subject I was not well informed on.
I wonder though, given Libya agreed to al-Megrahi’s sacrifice and then agreed to a deal to get him back, might it have been made part of the deal that it wouldn’t have been so massively celebrated in Libya. The visual of him being greeted of the plane and feted has been part of the media problem for the UK. I guess this is just part of the NuLab lack of effective media handling.
Owen
Welcome back..about bloody time Tai Pan…I was getting bored over here !
USS Vincennes, exactly, who has ever cried out for justice of 270 muslims, five of them from Georgia, coming back from their trip of a lifetime, well for some it would have been the first time they flew to Mekka? Who has ever screamed to have the command chain that gave the order to fire the missile?
Who has ever questiopned the stste of readyness this ship must have been under? why was it ready to dispatch a missile.
Experience tells me that there was either a manouver going on, or it must have been under code orange, at least.
Still nobody has explained why the commander of that vessel locked on to an aircraft, a seperate process, then forgot the readiness of his missiles and gave the ‘accidental’ order to shoot down a passenger aircraft.
Was the aircraft hailed by IFF? ( identification friend/foe) did they get a response? How come he locked on to a target flying at an altitude known for civilian aircraft, in the right flight corridor for a civilian aircraft?
I reiterate, should Obama really want to open up channels with Iran and talk issues, a re investigation and subsequent reprimand/prosecution of this clearly irresponsible military action that was apparently not sanctioned, ‘accidental, it will be the lever that opens the door.
But I question his resolve, because the erngagement in Pakistans border region and, the digging in behind Bush strategy, the use of Diego Garcia as a torture camp, all that makes me think that he is not that interested in changing US foreign policy or their geostrategic drive to secure as many resources as possible.
If this shooting down and killing of 270 innocent worshippers was indeed accidental, why not open up the episode to public scrutiny by a reliable independent investigator?
Great post, Craig. All that can be said about the Lockerbie puppetshow has been said, but we have to keep on saying it cos no-one was listening.
And Angrysoba – would like to understand your arguments but you were dropping in quotes from elsewhere…without quotation marks, thus making it difficult to follow. Dig?
To Angrysoba:
I second Mike Cobley; I could disect your post to work out what came from where, and so could everyone else, but really you should re-post with clarity, to save many people that time.
From today’s Scotsman newspaper
Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
Published Date: 28 August 2005
By MARCELLO MEGA
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.
The evidence will form a crucial part of Megrahi’s attempt to have a retrial ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The claims pose a potentially devastating threat to the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system.
The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses “wrote the script” to incriminate Libya.
Last night, George Esson, who was Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway when Megrahi was indicted for mass murder, confirmed he was aware of the development.
But Esson, who retired in 1994, questioned the officer’s motives. He said: “Any police officer who believed they had knowledge of any element of fabrication in any criminal case would have a duty to act on that. Failure to do so would call into question their integrity, and I can’t help but question their motive for raising the matter now.”
Other important questions remain unanswered, such as how the officer learned of the alleged conspiracy and whether he was directly involved in the inquiry. But sources close to Megrahi’s legal team believe they may have finally discovered the evidence that could demolish the case against him.
An insider told Scotland on Sunday that the retired officer approached them after Megrahi’s appeal – before a bench of five Scottish judges – was dismissed in 2002.
The insider said: “He said he believed he had crucial information. A meeting was set up and he gave a statement that supported the long-standing rumours that the key piece of evidence, a fragment of circuit board from a timing device that implicated Libya, had been planted by US agents.
“Asked why he had not come forward before, he admitted he’d been wary of breaking ranks, afraid of being vilified.
“He also said that at the time he became aware of the matter, no one really believed there would ever be a trial. When it did come about, he believed both accused would be acquitted. When Megrahi was convicted, he told himself he’d be cleared at appeal.”
The source added: “When that also failed, he explained he felt he had to come forward.
“He has confirmed that parts of the case were fabricated and that evidence was planted. At first he requested anonymity, but has backed down and will be identified if and when the case returns to the appeal court.”
The vital evidence that linked the bombing of Pan Am 103 to Megrahi was a tiny fragment of circuit board which investigators found in a wooded area many miles from Lockerbie months after the atrocity.
The fragment was later identified by the FBI’s Thomas Thurman as being part of a sophisticated timer device used to detonate explosives, and manufactured by the Swiss firm Mebo, which supplied it only to Libya and the East German Stasi.
At one time, Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, was such a regular visitor to Mebo that he had his own office in the firm’s headquarters.
The fragment of circuit board therefore enabled Libya – and Megrahi – to be placed at the heart of the investigation. However, Thurman was later unmasked as a fraud who had given false evidence in American murder trials, and it emerged that he had little in the way of scientific qualifications.
Then, in 2003, a retired CIA officer gave a statement to Megrahi’s lawyers in which he alleged evidence had been planted.
The decision of a former Scottish police chief to back this claim could add enormous weight to what has previously been dismissed as a wild conspiracy theory. It has long been rumoured the fragment was planted to implicate Libya for political reasons.
The first suspects in the case were the Syrian-led Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), a terror group backed by Iranian cash. But the first Gulf War altered diplomatic relations with Middle East nations, and Libya became the pariah state.
Following the trial, legal observers from around the world, including senior United Nations officials, expressed disquiet about the verdict and the conduct of the proceedings at Camp Zeist, Holland. Those doubts were first fuelled when internal documents emerged from the offices of the US Defence Intelligence Agency. Dated 1994, more than two years after the Libyans were identified to the world as the bombers, they still described the PFLP-GC as the Lockerbie bombers.
A source close to Megrahi’s defence said: “Britain and the US were telling the world it was Libya, but in their private communications they acknowledged that they knew it was the PFLP-GC.
“The case is starting to unravel largely because when they wrote the script, they never expected to have to act it out. Nobody expected agreement for a trial to be reached, but it was, and in preparing a manufactured case, mistakes were made.”
Dr Jim Swire, who has publicly expressed his belief in Megrahi’s innocence, said it was quite right that all relevant information now be put to the SCCRC.
Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, said last night: “I am aware that there have been doubts about how some of the evidence in the case came to be presented in court.
“It is in all our interests that areas of doubt are thoroughly examined.”
A spokeswoman for the Crown Office said: “As this case is currently being examined by the SCCRC, it would be inappropriate to comment.”
No one from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland was available to comment.
Why Syria and not Iran ? Surely Iran had the strongest motive.
Ingo
Actually there have been several documentaries on this matter as well as an excellent one by the National Geographic, rather renowned for thier impartiality…as you can post here, I assume you can Google…