<Snip>
Are you drunk again? Your cites have jack shit to do with murderers
convicted in a court of law!
I worked in a US Army stockade for 2 1/2 years, and interviewed or talked
casually with hundreds of prisoners. Not ONE of them admitted guilt. Not
ONE!
The Lockerbie Bombing; Facts, Deception, And Misinformation.
by Garry Crystal (writer), August 25, 2009
“Your government and ours know exactly what has happened but they are
never going to tell.”
“Your government and ours know exactly what has happened but they are
never going to tell.”
This was the statement made to Martin Cadman whose son Bill who was
killed in the Lockerbie bombing. It was said to him by a member of the
President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, a government
body set up after the Lockerbie bombing. This statement is just another
in a long list of facts, deceptions and misinformation that go to make
up the shadows covering the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing.
The release of the Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi by the Scottish Government
has led FBI director Robert Mueller to brand Scotland as a pro-terrorist
nation and has also led to many Americans proclaiming that Scotland as a
nation should be boycotted. Megrahi was convicted in for his part in
helping to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 that exploded over the Scottish
town of Lockerbie killing 270 people in 1988. But many experts who have
in-depth knowledge of this case claim that Megrahi was either a fall guy
or completely innocent and the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice.
The Lockerbie bombing and who is actually responsible is still an
ongoing mystery.
There is a huge amount of unanswered questions regarding the Lockerbie
bombing, and theories abound over who is actually behind this act. The
trouble with conspiracy theories where governments are seen to be
involved is that many people think that governments would never actually
perpetrate these acts; they would never break the law, never cross the
line in this manner. Governments aren’t capable of such atrocities and
there are a great many people who actually believe this. There is also
the point that if these acts are committed by governments then someone,
somewhere would eventually say something. You cannot have such a huge
number of people involved in a cover up, people such as the FBI, CIA,
MI6, the Israeli Intelligence Agency involved without someone blowing
the whistle. People can’t keep secrets for 20 years without someone
saying something.
Yet people have been saying something. The most respected investigative
journalists in the world have been saying something. Ex undercover CIA
agents have been saying something. Film makers have been saying
something. Two documentaries provide a different story over the
Lockerbie bombings. Questions are asked in films such as The Maltese
Double Cross – Lockerbie directed by American film maker Alan Francovich
and financed by British businessman Tiny Rowland. A film that on its
release angered both UK and US governments. In the UK, legal action from
the US government prevented the film being shown at the 1994 London film
festival. It has never publicly been screened in the US although it is
available on the internet. A BBC documentary that was shown in 2008 came
to many of the same conclusions as those found in the Maltese Double Cross.
The Maltese Double Cross was narrated by Scottish Actor Brian Cox one of
the stars of the 2004 espionage thriller The Bourne Supremacy. When
Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi was released from prison Cox publicly stated
that he knew that Megrahi was set up. Talking about Megrahi’s release on
compassionate grounds Cox said on August 23 2009, “I’m in a double blind
about this because I personally believe the man is innocent. I think
it’s all been a set up from the word go.” Cox said that he obtained a
lot of important information while making the documentary that led him
to form the opinion that Megrahi’s conviction was a set up job.
To write an in-depth analysis on the findings made by these
documentaries would take at least 10,000 words; The Maltese Double Cross
comes in at a running time of 2hrs 35 minutes alone. The documentary’s
findings and conclusions sound like something from a Hollywood thriller.
It is a maze of double crosses, false leads, government corruption, CIA
rogue agents, drugs for hostages deals, tampered evidence, and
ultimately the loss of hundreds of innocent lives. It is a huge maze of
information that can only be fully understood, and believed or not, with
an open mind on how governments play political games with each other
under banner of the war on terrorism.
One of the first questions asked by the documentary was whether the
Lockerbie bombing was an act of retaliation by Iran over the shooting
down of Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3rd 1988 by the U.S. Navy’s missile
cruiser USS Vincennes. The US missile cruiser mistook the Iran airbus
for an F-14 Fighter Tomcat, opened fire, and the result was the loss of
290 civilians, 66 of which were children. Iran officials swore to,
“avenge the blood of their martyrs” and these threats were take
seriously by the US military.
The next question was why multiple detailed warnings about the bombing
were sent to intelligence agencies before the Lockerbie bombing yet the
public were not notified? If the warnings were considered a hoax then is
it a simple coincidence that high ranking officials such as the South
African Minister Pik Botha and the South African Defence Minister
General Malan amongst other VIPS and intelligence operatives who were
due to be on the doomed Pan Am 103 changed their flight only hours
before take off? It was known that Botha had ties to both the CIA and
the Israeli Intelligence Agency Mossad.
Only two months before the Lockerbie bombing bombs hidden in radio cases
that were designed to detonate at high altitude were found in Frankfurt
along with the bomb makers, members of The Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC). The PFLP-GC was
headed by Ahmed Jibril who in his own words was, “one of the leaders
influencing the direction of the struggle urging for an escalation in
the fight against the enemy who was occupying our land and our nation.”
The bombs were found in Frankfurt, the name of the location mentioned in
the detailed warnings as the place where the bomb would be taken onto
the Pan Am flight. Yet the suspects were interrogated then released due
to lack of evidence.
Three months after the Lockerbie bombing Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher’s Secretary of State for Transport Paul Channon announced to
five political journalists that those responsible for the bombing had
been found and arrests were imminent. This information was not yet ready
for release and the journalists were made aware that this was for their
ears only. At least one journalist broke the story in the press to the
public. At almost the same time Thatcher received a call from President
George Bush Snr telling her to “cool it” over the Lockerbie subject. A
few months later Channon, who had denied he was the source of the
original arrest story, was quietly sacked
Into the mix comes investigator Juval Aviv a former MOSSAD agent who was
hired by Pan Am to collect information on the bombing to be used in the
legal compensation battles that would ensue. Aviv’s findings are
controversial to say the least. Aviv claimed rogue CIA agents allowed
the bomb to be smuggled onto the PAN AM flight. The CIA agents were
allowing Middle East terrorists to smuggle drugs into the US via
Frankfurt. In return the CIA hoped to receive help in return for the
release of hostages held in Beirut. Aviv claims that Ahmed Jibril took
advantage of this operation to place the bomb in the suitcase. An
unwitting drug courier wasn’t told that his bag would be switched for
the bomb.
Sounds like an unbelievable conspiracy theory? And yet Juval’s theory is
very similar to another conspiracy theory that turned out to be true.
Three years before the Lockerbie bombing Colonel Oliver North was
running a secret operation whereby missiles would be sold to Iran in
return for American hostages held in Beirut by pro Iranian groups, the
Arms for Hostages deal. Since Aviv has made his claims he has been has
either been called a liar or the victim of a smear campaign. Yet why is
his theory so unbelievable when similar trades were being made three
years earlier?
The next question is the dramatic change of direction from laying the
blame at Iran’s door to Libya. Why did Libya suddenly come into the
frame as the main suspects behind the bombing? Many believe that America
and Britain had their own political reasons for turning the blame on
Libya. At the time of the Lockerbie bombing the Gulf War was just
beginning and America was trying to keep as many Arab nations as
possible on its side. Meanwhile relations between Libya and the US were
at all time low to say the least. But did it makes sense for Gaddafi to
authorise the Lockerbie bombing that would lead to sanctions being
imposed on Libya to the tune of an estimated $30 million?
Next up comes Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA Counter Terrorism Chief on
the National Security Council. According to a story in the Washington
Post by Bob Woodward, Cannistraro along with Colonel Oliver North was
one of the main developers of a disinformation and deception plan that
was spread during the Reagan administration with the intention of making
Gaddafi think that there was widespread internal opposition against him,
even from his most trusted aides. When the story broke President Reagan
disavowed all knowledge although did admit, “there are memos back and
forth, I can’t deny that.” Who better to lay the blame at Libya’s door
than Cannistraro who, as Chief of Operations at the CIA’s Counter
Terrorist Centre was now leading the investigation into the Lockerbie
bombing.
And so we come to Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi head of security for Libyan
Arab Airlines who was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life
imprisonment for his part in the Lockerbie bombing. Megrahni and his co
accused Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah were indicted in November 1991. They
denied all charges but eventually gave themselves up under the condition
that the trial be held in a neutral venue. After years of negotiations
the trial eventually began in May 2000 in a purpose built venue in Camp
Zeist in the Netherlands. The trial was engineered by legal academic
Professor Robert Black of Edinburgh University and the case was heard by
three Scottish judges, no jury. Megrahi was found guilty and sentenced
to life in prison while Fhimah was acquitted and released.
Professor Black has since said that the trial was a shameful miscarriage
of justice that has gravely sullied the Scottish criminal justice
system. He has also stated that the case against the accused was
entirely circumstantial and the prosecution could not even prove how the
bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 had gotten onto the plane. Black also
claims that, “I am absolutely convinced that if the evidence had come
out in front of a Scottish jury of 15 there is absolutely no way he
would have been convicted.”
The evidence provided by the prosecution was flimsy to say the least.
Vital evidence had been tampered with and strong key witnesses were
found to be confusing and evasive when questioned over evidence. One of
the prosecution’s star witnesses was a Libyan who claimed he could pin
the charges on the accused. The prosecutions star witness turned out to
be Abdul Majid Giaka a CIA asset and later defector. His evidence at the
trial was found by the judges to be, “at best grossly exaggerated and at
worst simply untrue and largely motivated by financial considerations.”
Professor Michael Scharf who was counsel to the US counter terrorism
bureau when the two Libyans were indicted said that the case was, “so
full of holes it was like swiss cheese and the case should never have
gone to court.” He also claimed that Giaka was a known liar to the CIA
and was out simply for money and that the CIA didn’t actually believe
what Giaka had said yet this was the man being presented at the trial as
the star witness. Now Scharf says, “I played a role similar to that of
Colin Powel after the invasion of Iraq, when he went in and said that he
had open and shut evidence of weapons of mass destruction and now Powell
feels that was the day that ruined his career. It didn’t ruin my career
but it’s a moment I’m not proud of.”
The other star witness Tony Gauci a clothes store owner in Malta gave
key evidence that he had sold the clothes to Megrahi that would
eventually be used to wrap the bomb, fragments of the clothes were found
at the plane crash site. Megrahi was interviewed 17 times by the
Scottish and Maltese police, and although he had claimed that he was not
sure that the clothes had been sold to Megrahi and that the multiple
statements he gave were found to be inclusive his testimony was
instrumental in convicting Megrahi. At the time Gauci claims to have
seen Megrahi it has been proven Megrahi was not even in Malta.
In 1999, 11 years after the event Gauci had named Megrahi during an ID
parade but strangely Gauci had said in a one of his previous statements,
“I am sure I did not sell him a shirt.” It has since transpired that
only four days before the ID parade Gauci had seen a picture of Megrahi
in a magazine and then the ID parade took place. Further new evidence
has since came to light that Gauci was rewarded or given as
‘compensation’ £2 million from US investigators for his part in the trial.
These are only some of the details that have been brought about by
journalists, filmmakers and legal experts on the case of the Lockerbie
bombing. There is a huge amount of other information that would take up
too much space on this website including witnesses at the crash scene
who were told by authorities not to mention drugs that were found.
British and US oil companies are now doing big business with Libya. The
once enemy Colonel Gaddafi is no longer an enemy but a partner in the
war on terrorism. Libya eventually admitted responsibility for the
Lockerbie crash but as Colonel Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam who is set to
take over from his father in the future said in an interview with the
BBC, “Yes we took responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, we wrote a
letter but it doesn’t mean we in fact did it. What could we do? Without
writing that letter we would not be able to get out of the sanctions. We
had to, there was no other solution. It’s a game. It’s a win win game.”
Megrahi was released after serving eight years of his sentence and is
now back in Libya. Suffering from the most aggressive form of prostate
cancer he is not expected to live more than three months. Evidence that
was to be used to prove his innocence at his second appeal is now being
used in Megrahi’s autobiography. The question over whether or not
Scotland was right to release Megrahi is still under debate.
Time is running out for Megrahi, and the question over whether he was a
political fall guy, an innocent man or indeed guilty may never be
answered. Time may also be running out for the relatives of the 270 who
died in the Lockerbie bombing, and who, 20 years after the event, still
have many unanswered questions.
http://newyork.broowaha.com/article.php?id=5118