Libya and Pan Am flight Lockerbie

[Peter Lemkin]

The next scheduled transmission of the programme on Al-Jazeera english are at Wednesday 29.2. 01:00 GMT and Thursday, 1.March at 6:00 GMT.
It is called "Lockerbie: Case Closed".
( http://www.aljazeera.com/Services/Schedu...edule.aspx )

Careful...there are different times for 'broadcast' and webcast AJ.

[Magda Hassan]

Fresh scientific evidence unearthed by a Scottish legal review undermines the case against the man convicted of being responsible for the Lockerbie aircraft bombing, an investigation for Al Jazeera has found.
The Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) report details evidence that would probably have resulted in the verdict against Abdel Baset al-Meghrahi, a Libyan man convicted of carrying out the bombing of Pan-Am flight 103 in 1988, being overturned.
'Lockerbie: Case Closed', an hour-long documentary to be aired on Al Jazeera on Monday, examines the evidence uncovered by the SCCRC as well as revealing fresh scientific evidence which is unknown to the commission but which comprehensively undermines a crucial part of the case against the man known as the Lockerbie bomber.
Among the evidence examined by the SCCRC was the testimony of Tony Gauci, a shop owner from Malta, and the most important prosecution witness in the case.
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Gauci identified Megrahi as a man who had bought clothing and an umbrella from him on December 7, 1988 - remnants of which were later recovered from among debris recovered from the disaster scene.
The SCCRC found a number of reasons to seriously question this identification and Gauci's account of events on that date, which was also the only day on which Megrahi could have been present in Malta to make such purchases
The report also raises concerns about the legitimacy of the formal identification process, in which Gauci picked Megrahi out from a line-up. The commission found that Gauci had seen Megrahi's photo in a magazine article identifying him as a possible suspect many weeks before the parade took place
The SCCRC also found that Scottish police knew that Gauci was interested in financial rewards, despite maintaining that the shopkeeper had shown no such interest
Gauci reportedly picked up a $2 million US government reward for his role in the case. Under Scottish law, witnesses cannot be paid for their testimony.
Most significantly, the documentary will reveal the dramatic results of new scientific tests that destroy the most crucial piece of forensic evidence linking the bombing to Libya.
The new revelations were put to the terminally sick Megrahi in Libya, and his comments on the case will be heard for the first time in these films.
Of Gauci, he maintains that he never visited his shop.

"If I have a chance to see him [Gauci] I am forgiving him. I would tell him that I have never in my entire life been in his shop. I have never bought any clothing from him. And I tell him that he dealt with me very wrongly. This man - I have never seen him in my entire life except when he came to the court. I find him a very simple man," Meghrahi told Al Jazeera.

John Ashton, who has been investigating the case for nearly 20 years, including time spent as part of Megrahi's defence team, said: "The Lockerbie disaster was Europe's worst terrorist attack. More Americans died in that attack than in any other terrorist event before 9/11. It's also Britain's worst miscarriage of justice, the wrong man was convicted and the real killers are still out there."

[Peter Lemkin]

Lockerbie Bomber Dropped Appeal after Meeting with SNP
27th February 2012
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, has blamed the SNP for his decision to drop his second appeal against conviction days before he was freed on compassionate grounds.

saifap 2060366b 300x187 Lockerbie Bomber Dropped Appeal after Meeting with SNPMegrahi is welcomed on his return to Tripoli by Saif al-Islam, Col Gaddafi's son Photo: AP

By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent

The Telegraph, 27 Feb 2012

Megrahi abandoned the appeal that could have cleared his name before being released by Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister, and allowed to return to his family in Tripoli. There was no legal reason to do so and the move was a huge disappointment to relatives of the victims who hoped the appeal would bring them closer to the truth.

However, ministers repeatedly insisted at the time that it was entirely the Libyan's decision, and was not part of any deal.

Megrahi, 59, makes the damaging claim against Alex Salmond's administration in a new book that tells the story of his "politically motivated wrongful conviction" and "puts the Scottish criminal justice system in the dock". The implication is that the appeal would have proved embarrassing to the Scottish justice system by revealing that he was the innocent victim of dirty politics and a flawed investigation.

Opposition parties in Scotland said the claim was "staggering" and demanded a statement in the Scottish Parliament from the Justice Minister.

Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said that if Mr MacAskill had been withholding information it called his position into question.

A spokesman for David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said the book was another reminder that "Alex Salmond's government's decision to free the UK's greatest mass murderer was wrong". He added: "Writing a book three years after he was released is an insult to the families of the 270 people who were murdered."

Megrahi, who is dying from prostate cancer, says in his own words in "Megrahi You are My Jury The Lockerbie Evidence", that Mr MacAskill met Libyan officials, including a minister named al-Obedi, on August 10, 2009, ten days before he was released. He claims that after the meeting the Libyan delegation came to see him in prison in Greenock, adding: "Obedi said that, towards the end of the meeting, MacAskill had asked to speak to him in private.

"Once the others had withdrawn, he stated that MacAskill gave him to understand that it would be easier to grant compassionate release if I dropped my appeal. He said he was not demanding that I do so, but the message seemed to me to be clear. I was legally entitled to continue the appeal, but I could not risk doing so. It meant abandoning my quest for justice." He says that it was with "huge reluctance and sadness" that he broke the news to his lawyer Tony Kelly the following day.

"He was utterly shocked and reiterated that I had a legal right to continue, but my mind was made up," he writes. "He dejectedly drove to Edinburgh for what was supposed to be a routine meeting with counsel and broke the news to them."

Megrahi was subsequently freed on August 20 and allowed to return to his family in Tripoli on the basis that he was terminally ill and had just three months to live.

American relatives of the victims, who accepted the original guilty verdict, have repeatedly claimed that the fact he is still alive today suggests he was freed because of British oil deals in Libya. There were also claims, strongly denied at the time, that Mr Salmond's administration was under pressure from Westminster.

But Mr MacAskill denied there was any interference from the Labour Government and dismissed suggestions that Megrahi had been asked to drop his appeal. At one point he said: "There's loads of stories about Megrahi. There's a veritable industry out there as there is about whether Elvis Presley is alive and working in some chip shop in Fife. A note of the meeting is on the government website and I never at any stage have suggested to him that he should drop his appeal."

During the international furore that followed Megrahi's release, Oliver Miles, the former British ambassador in Tripoli, said: "I don't understand why Megrahi gave up his appeal. He has always asserted his innocence. So why did he give it up? I've a nasty feeling he did it because somebody tipped him the wink that he was more likely to get humanitarian release if he gave it up."

Around 60 per cent of the new book by John Ashton, who was a researcher for Megrahi's legal team, is in the alleged bomber's own words. According to the author, it "destroys" the case against Megrahi and proves that he was framed for the murder. It states that potentially crucial evidence was withheld by the Crown Office from the original defence team at Megrahi's trial and reveals "crucial new evidence" which it says removes the "golden thread" linking the Libyan to the bombing.

The judges at the trial accepted that a tiny fragment of electronic printed circuit board recovered from the wreckage was from the timer in the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people. The timer was made for the Swiss company Mebo by another company called Thuring, to fulfil an order from the Libyan government in the 1980s.

But Mr Ashton claims that if Megrahi's appeal had been allowed to go ahead, it would have shown that new evidence proves the circuit board contained pure tin, while all the Thuring boards were made from an alloy of tin and lead.

Megrahi also claims in the book that the ultimate responsibility for his imprisonment lies with the three Scottish judges who heard his case at a special court in Holland. He says Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean knew that an acquittal would have brought "numerous powerful institutions into very serious disrepute".

He adds: "It would have meant that the largest criminal inquiry in British and American history had snared the wrong people; it would mean that the gaping holes in the police investigation and the Crown case would be open to public scrutiny; it would mean that the UN Security Council had passed resolutions on a false basis that resulted in years of suffering for the Libyan people; and it would be an acknowledgement that the real bombers remained untouched."

Mr Ashton and Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the atrocity, called following the launch of the book in Edinburgh for a new appeal and a full inquiry. Dr Swire, who last saw Megrahi in December, said he believed he did not have long to live.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...h-SNP.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

Very interesting.

It is abundantly clear that Megrahi's appeal would have demolished the prosecution case - in particular the corrupt and totally non credible Maltese connection.

However, the appeal could have been, effectively, suppressed or diverted into a blind alley by TPTB.

My sense is that Megrahi's release and deathbed return to Libya was some sort of deal, a quid pro quo if you will, with Gaddafi. Shortly afterwards, Gaddafi became persona non grata and was (re) demonized through MSM channels and eventually buggered and slaughtered like a dog.

I note the Tory government's official statement:

A spokesman for David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said the book was another reminder that "Alex Salmond's government's decision to free the UK's greatest mass murderer was wrong". He added: "Writing a book three years after he was released is an insult to the families of the 270 people who were murdered."

This smacks of the spooks trying to cover their tracks and blame the Scottish Nationalists for what was essentially a sordid deal brokered by the military-intelligence-multinational-complex.

[Albert Doyle]

The gesture of releasing Megrahi could have been used to soften Gaddafi with false detente prior to his CIA overthrow.

[Peter Lemkin]

Very interesting.

It is abundantly clear that Megrahi's appeal would have demolished the prosecution case - in particular the corrupt and totally non credible Maltese connection.

However, the appeal could have been, effectively, suppressed or diverted into a blind alley by TPTB.

My sense is that Megrahi's release and deathbed return to Libya was some sort of deal, a quid pro quo if you will, with Gaddafi. Shortly afterwards, Gaddafi became persona non grata and was (re) demonized through MSM channels and eventually buggered and slaughtered like a dog.

I note the Tory government's official statement:

A spokesman for David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said the book was another reminder that "Alex Salmond's government's decision to free the UK's greatest mass murderer was wrong". He added: "Writing a book three years after he was released is an insult to the families of the 270 people who were murdered."

This smacks of the spooks trying to cover their tracks and blame the Scottish Nationalists for what was essentially a sordid deal brokered by the military-intelligence-multinational-complex.

Agree on all counts. The appeal would have made BIG trouble for TPTB and they predicted that Magrahi would't die soon enough - so made some deal with Gadaffi to take him off their hands and make the appeal 'moot'. = no further investigation [they were aware that his detective was making REAL progress on the Maltese bullshit]. Sad that a totally innocent man was given up as a sacraficial lamb by Gadaffi and then given his last year or two by the same man. What is most important other than this human tragedy is that the murderers of the 270 people [likely more in other similar plane bombings] are free and likely still doing the same things. TPTB know who they are, generally, as they work for TPTB, IMHO. Its 'Deep'!

[Carsten Wiethoff]

From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics...etter.html

The release of the Lockerbie bomber was linked by the Government to a £400 million arms-export deal to Libya, according to secret correspondence obtained by The Sunday Telegraph.

An email sent by the then British ambassador in Tripoli details how a prisoner transfer agreement would be signed once Libya "fulfils its promise" to buy an air defence system.

The disclosure is embarrassing for members of the then Labour government, which always insisted that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's release was not linked to commercial deals.

More at the link.

[Jan Klimkowski]

From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics...etter.html

The release of the Lockerbie bomber was linked by the Government to a £400 million arms-export deal to Libya, according to secret correspondence obtained by The Sunday Telegraph.

An email sent by the then British ambassador in Tripoli details how a prisoner transfer agreement would be signed once Libya "fulfils its promise" to buy an air defence system.

The disclosure is embarrassing for members of the then Labour government, which always insisted that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's release was not linked to commercial deals.

More at the link.

It was always business.

Dirty, filthy, military-multinational-intelligence complex business.

All of the Lockerbie tragedy.

[Peter Lemkin]

Tony Blair: Libya, Lockerbie, Arms and Betrayals

By Felicity Arbuthnot[URL="http://www.constantinereport.com/publication/pravda/"]
[/URL]August 23rd, 2013




"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men." (Samuel Adams, 1722-1803, letter 1775.)

This will surely have you falling down with surprise. According to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained by the (UK) Sunday Telegraph, the August 2009 release from Scotland's Barlinnie jail of Libyan Abdelbaset al- Megrahi, accused of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988, hinged on an oil and arms deal, allegedly brokered by roving war monger (sorry, roving "Peace Ambassador") Tony Blair.

At this point it should be said that anyone who has read John Ashton and Ian Ferguson's meticulous "Cover up of Convenience" (i) on the Lockerbie tragedy could only regard Mr al-Meghrahi's conviction as between very unsafe and very questionable.
The British Labour Party, which Blair headed for ten years, until 27th June 2007, have always insisted that the release had no connection with commercial deals. After leaving Downing Street, Blair visited Libya some six times.
On 8th June 2008, the then British Ambassador to Libya, Sir Vincent Fean, sent Tony Blair's private office a thirteen hundred word briefing on the UK's eagerness to do business with Libya, according to the Telegraph. (ii) Blair flew to Tripoli to meet Colonel Quaddafi, just two days later, June 10th. Quaddafi paid: Blair, always lavish with other's money had requested, and was granted, the Colonel's private jet for the journey.
Sir Vincent's "key objective" was for: "Libya to invest its £80 billion sovereign wealth through the City of London", according to the Telegraph, which also cites the Ambassador writing of the UK being : "privately critical of then President George Bush for shooting the US in the foot' by continuing to put a block on Libyan assets in America, in the process scuppering business deals." Britain however, was voraciously scrambling to fill the fiscal gap.
Unlike the US and UK who abandon or drone to death their own citizens who are in trouble, or even accused of it, Libya's Administration had stood by their man and seemed to be prepared to do even unpalatable deals to free him and had long been pressuring the UK to release al-Megrahi.
In May 2007, a month before he left Downing Street, Blair had made his second visit to Libya, meeting Colonel Quaddafi and his Prime Minister Al Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi in then beautiful and now near ruined city of Sirte.
Surely coincidentally, on this trip, a deal was seemingly thrashed out, including prisoner transfer, just before British Petrolium (BP) announced their approximate £454 million investment to prospect for £13billion worth of oil in Libya.
Also, states the Telegraph report: "At that meeting, according to Sir Vincent's email, Mr Blair and Mr Al Baghdadi agreed that Libya would buy a missile defence system from MBDA a weapons manufacturer part-owned by Britains's BAE Systems." This seemed to (also) hinge on a Memorandum of Understanding for a Prisoner Transfer Agreement: "which the Libyans believed would pave the way for al-Megrahi's release." Various sources state that the arms deal was worth £400 million, and up to two thousand jobs in the UK. Sir Vincent referred to the arms deal as a "legacy issue." Blair's "legacy", as ever, synonymous with destruction.
Ironically, it was Blair who credited himself with persuading Colonel Quaddafi to abandon and destroy his weapons programmes after his visit to the country in March 2004 (placing that Judas kiss the Colonel's cheek) as a step to Libya returning to the fold of the duplicitous "international community." With friends like Blair, enemies are a redundancy.
When Blair returned to Libya in June 2008, the Telegraph contends that the British Government, then under Gordon Brown, Blair's former Chancellor of the Exchequer (who left the national coffers near empty) used the opportunity: " to press the case for the arms deal to be sealed. At the time, Britain was on the brink of an economic and banking crisis and Libya, though the Libyan Investment Authority had billions of pounds in reserves."
Saif al-Islam, Quaddafi's son, expressed the concern over the arms deal being voiced from within the Libyan military, given their close ties to the "Russian defence equipment camp."
An earlier discovery by the Sunday Telegraph shows, in letters and emails, that Blair held hitherto undisclosed talks with the Colonel in April 2009, four months before al-Megrahi's release. (iii)
Again he was flown at the expense of the Colonel, in his private jet: "In both 2008 and 2009, documents show Mr Blair negotiated to fly to the Libyan capitol … in a jet provided by Quaddafi." Blair's Office denies the claims, saying they were transported in a Libyan government plane.
By the time of the 2009 visit: "Libya was threatening to cut all business links if al-Megrahi stayed in a British jail." Blair seemingly attempted to pour oil on troubled waters by bringing American billionaire, Tim Collins to that meeting to advise Quaddafi on building the beach resorts he was planning, on the Libyan coast.
Further adding to the murk, a spokesperson for Collins stated:"Tim was asked to go by Tony Blair in his position as a trustee of Mr Blair's US faith foundation. Tim had no intention of doing any business with Quaddafi."
However: "Sources in Libya said Quaddafi had discussed with Mr Collins opening beach resorts along the Libyan coast, but that Mr Collins had dismissed the idea because the Libyans would not sanction the sale of alcohol or gambling at the resorts.
Blair's spokesperson said of the visit: " … Tony Blair has never had any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the Government of Libya and he has no commercial relationship with any Libyan company or entity." A Blair first, seemingly, given the impression that he never touches down anywhere without emerging with a lucrative contract or a large cheque,
However, Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, is quoted as saying : "Mr Blair is clearly using his Downing Street contacts to further his business interests."
In a further coincidence, the Prisoner Transfer agreement for Mr al-Megrahi was signed the day before Blair's 2009 visit.
When al-Megrahi, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, was released in August 2009, the British media and politicians were outraged. Scotland had done a deal and was benefiting financially from Libya. The latest revelations prove Scotland did no financial deals. When Mr al-Megrahi failed to die, politicians and media were even more outraged. They were a shaming spectacle.
Mental mind set can be a huge force in prolonging life in even the most serious cancer patients. No doubt in al-Megrahi's case, being back in a home and with a family he loved contributed to his extra time. He survived long enough to see his country destroyed by the devious forces the West embodies and at which Blair excels. Megrahi died in September 2012.
Incidentally, Ambassador Fean reportedly "expressed relief" at al-Megrahi's release: "He noted that a refusal of Megrahi's request could have had disastrous implications for British interests in Libya. They could have cut us off at the knees."(iv)
Quaddafi, however, never signed the arms deal.
Footnote: The 2004 visit by Blair was arranged by Saif al Islam, who Blair seemingly knew well and had allegedly even offered suggestions on his PhD thesis when Saif was studying at the London School of Oriental and.African Studies (SOAS.)
In September last year Saif al-Islam's lady friend of six years, appealed, passionately, to Blair to intervene to save the life of his now captured, maimed and death penalty-facing friend: "The two are old friends it is time that Mr Blair returned some loyalty. Mr Blair is a man of God as a Christian he has a moral duty to help a friend in need", she has commented. (v)
Seemingly there has been no response from Blair's office. Further, an extensive search for a comment on the appalling death of Colonel Quaddafi his former host and private plane provider and the demise of much of his family from this "Peace Envoy" and "man of God", has come up with absolutely nothing.
To mangle a quote: Beware of British offering deals.
i. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/04/lock-a24.html
ii. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics...etter.html
iii. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...tings.html
iv. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/de...bie-bomber
v. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...-life.html
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columni...etrayal-0/#

[Magda Hassan]

If it wasn't for the fact that no human being deserves the fate of Gaddafi I would say Blair deserves the same fate. How much blood is on that mans hands. All the hail marys in the world will not save his soul.