The real Lockerbie bombers, whoever they are, must be unable to believe their luck that they are still not even facing any charges for their criminal act of mass murder, due to most politicians and much of the media continuing witch-hunting Megrahi even after his death. This is helping governments deny Scottish and British relatives of Lockerbie victims from getting the truth which they are demanding, by helping the Scottish and British governments deny them an independent public inquiry.
Megrahi is still routinely labelled a 'mass murderer' or 'convicted Lockerbie bomber' by many politicians and much of them media, despite his trial having been a show trial that Stalin would have admired. There was no jury (1). Key evidence - the timer fragment - was tampered with and probably fake according to witness and timer manufacturer Edwin Bollier. Bollier also says the fragment he was shown in court had a brown circuit board, while those he sold to the Libyan government had green circuit boards (2).
Witness Tony Gauci - who identified Megrahi as the person who bought clothes said to have been found in a suitcase surviving the plane crash - was paid $2 million by the US government to identify Megrahi as the man who bought them ; and had seen photos of Megrahi in magazines before doing so (3) - (4).
Scots Law Professor Robert Black (who helped negotiate the establishment of the trial), UN observer Dr Hans Kochler and Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, are among the many reliable neutral observers present at the trial and appeals hearings who say they were shams and that Megrahi was innocent (5) - (7).
Kochler said the trial verdict made no sense based on the evidence, while the appeal hearing (in which Megrahi was denied an appeal) was more like an intelligence operation than a legal process and also"a spectacular miscarriage of justice" (8) - (11).
Black has written that "for the judges to be satisfied of all these matters on the evidence led at the trial, they would require to adopt the posture of the White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, when she informed Alice: "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." In convicting Megrahi ... this is precisely what the trial judges did. 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." (12)
Theories that should be investigated
There are three theories plausible enough to warrant investigation.
Iranian revenge for the killing of 290 Iranian airliner passengers by the USS Vincennes?
The first is that the bombers were Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists contracted by Syria's government for Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini after he vowed revenge for the killing of 290 Iranian civilians when the US navy warship the USS Vincennes entered Iranian waters during the Iran-Iraq war (in which the Reagan administration was allied to Saddam Hussein) and shot down an Iranian Airbus airliner earlier in 1988 (13) - (14).
This would be embarrassing to the US government and it's allies because it highlights a massacre of civilians by their own forces, whether deliberately or , more likely, accidentally through sheer recklessness and carelessness in starting a battle that could have been avoided and not using their radar system properly (15).
If this did lead to the Lockerbie bombing in revenge it would also show that terrorist attacks are not always random or based on irrational hatred, but sometimes acts of revenge for the murder of other civilians by the US government and it's military.
It was also the original line followed by the first British police investigations into Lockerbie, but rapidly reversed after a phone call to Margaret Thatcher from President Bush senior in 1989. Bush would go on to enlist Syria as an ally against Iraq in the 1990 Gulf War and secure Iran's neutrality in it (16) - (20).
Gaddafi's revenge for US airstrikes using planes refuelling in the UK in 1986?
The second is that Gaddafi ordered it as revenge for US bombing attacks on Tripoli in 1986, in which the planes involved used British airbases with to refuel (with the permission of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher). The bombings killed dozens of people including Gaddafi's adopted daughter but fai (21) - (22).
Cover-up of CIA drug trafficking involvement from the Middle East to Europe,
similar to that from central and Southern America in the 1980s as part of Iran-Contra?
The third is that the CIA bombed the flight to kill operatives who were about to reveal their involvement in Middle Eastern heroin trafficking. Former US Defence Intelligence Agency operative Lester Coleman says some CIA and DEA (US Drug Enforcement Agency) agents' bags were never checked when they flew through Frankfurt or London Heathrow airports (23) - (24).
This would explain how the bomb, which the prosecution claimed was in Megrahi's suitcase, managed to get through airport security without being detected.
John Ashton and Paul Foot’s investigation found that Jim Wilson, a farmer whose farm was near Lockerbie, found a suit-case containing bags of white powder which he suspected were drugs among the debris on his land. He was not called to give evidence at the trial. The name on the case was not on flight's passenger list. On the night of the bombing two bus loads of FBI agents arrived the same night at the site. Residents reported that they had a coffin on one of the buses. Scottish doctors and police had tagged 59 bodies. Only 58 were ever mentioned by the FBI and the prosecution. According toe Coleman the 59th body was Major Charles Mckee - a US intelligence agent who was about to blow the whistle on a deal with Lebanese drug traffickers. (25).
This may sound far-fetched unless you know about the part of the Iran-Contra scandal which involved the CIA and US military intelligence, using Latin American drug smugglers' planes to fly guns to the contras, with the purchase of the guns funded by the CIA taking a cut of the profits from cocaine smuggling into the US in the same planes. This was authorised by senior members of the Reagan administration in order to get round the congressional Boland Amendment which banded any US government funding of arms for the contra terrorists. This has been established by congressional inquiries and investigations by American academics - and it was going through the 1980s - with the Lockerbie bombing happening in 1988 (26) - (28).
This third theory is strengthened by the fact that the US government, after recieving a warning phone call, warned many of it's employees not to get on the flight, but did not warn McKee nor other governments or members of the public (29).
The truth did not die when Megrahi did : Give Scottish and British Lockerbie relatives the Independent Public Inquiry they demand
Whether one of the above theories is the truth or something else entirely, we should give the relatives of Lockerbie victims the independent public inquiry which they are demanding, deserve and are being denied by politicians of every major party in Scotland and Britain (30).
By an independent public inquiry I mean one in which the inquiry is given governmental authority and powers, but it's powers, remitt (the evidence it can consider, questions it can ask and conclusions it can draw) and who heads it are all decided by the Scottish and other British relatives of those killed at Lockerbie.
The truth being embarrassing for politicians and judges is not a good enough reason to deny it to the families.
The governments and politicians and judges for whom an end to any questions about Lockerbie would avoid embarrassment ; and those in the media who have chosen to parrot the government line might prefer to claim that the truth about Lockerbie was lost when Megrahi died , but it was not and will not be.
Sources
(1) = BBC News 20 May 2012 'Lockerbie questions remain following Megrahi's death', http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-12191604
(2) = Observer 02 Sep 2007 'Vital Lockerbie evidence 'was tampered with'', http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/sep/02/theairlineindustry.libya
(3) = Herald 03 Oct 2007 'Revealed: CIA offered $2m to Lockerbie witness and brother', http://www.heraldscotland.com/revealed-cia-offered-2m-to-lockerbie-witness-and-brother-1.866400
(4) = BBC News 28 Aug 2008 'Lockerbie evidence not disclosed ', http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7573244.stm ; '...Tony Gauci, who picked al-Megrahi out in a line-up, had looked at a magazine photograph of him just four days before he made the identification. BBC TV programme The Conspiracy Files: Lockerbie has now seen documentary evidence that Scottish police knew this was the case. That information should have been passed to the defence, but the disclosure did not take place. '
(5) = Professor Robert Black's 'The Lockerbie Case' blog, http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/
(6) = Dr Hans Kochler , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_K%C3%B6chler%27s_Lockerbie_trial_observer_mission
(7) = Lockerbietruth.com - The website of Dr Jim Swire and Lockerbie researcher Peter Biddulph, http://www.lockerbietruth.com/
(8) = Independent 21 Aug 2009 ‘Hans Köchler: I saw the trial – and the verdict made no sense’, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/hans-kchler-i-saw-the-trial-ndash-and-the-verdict-made-no-sense-1775217.html
(9) = BBC News 14 Mar 2002 ‘UN monitor decries Lockerbie judgement’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/1872996.stm
(10) = The Firm (Scottish lawyers’ magazine) 10 Jun 2008 ‘UN Observer to the Lockerbie Trial says ‘totalitarian’ appeal process bears the hallmarks of an “intelligence operation”’, http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/901/UN_Observer_to_the_Lockerbie_Trial_says_%E2%80%98totalitarian%E2%80%99_appeal_process_bears_the_hallmarks_of_an_%E2%80%9Cintelligence_operation%E2%80%9D_.html
(11) = Report on the appeal proceedings at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands (Lockerbie Court) in the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi v. H. M. Advocate by Professor Hans Köchler, international observer of the International Progress Organization nominated by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the basis of Security Council resolution 1192 (1998)
(12) = ‘The Lockerbie Case’ 21 Aug 2009 , http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2009/08/this-shameful-miscarriage-has-gravely.html (blog written by Professor Robert Black)
Sources - Iranian revenge for killing of 290 Iranian airliner passengers by the USS Vincennes?
(13) = NYT 15 Jul 1988 ‘Iran Falls Short in Drive at U.N. To Condemn U.S. in Airbus Case’, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/15/world/iran-falls-short-in-drive-at-un-to-condemn-us-in-airbus-case.html
(14) = Newsweek 13 Jul 1992 ‘Sea of Lies : Sea Of Lies : The Inside Story Of How An American Naval Vessel Blundered Into An Attack On Iran Air Flight 655 At The Height Of Tensions During The Iran-Iraq War-And How The Pentagon Tried To Cover Its Tracks After 290 Innocent Civilians Died’, http://www.newsweek.com/id/126358
(15) = See (14) above
(16) = Guardian 31 March 2004 ‘Lockerbie's dirty secret’, by Paul Foot, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/mar/31/lockerbie.libya
(17) = Paul Foot (1989-2001) ‘The Great Lockerbie Whitewash’ in Pilger, John (ed.) (2005) ‘Tell Me No Lies’, Vintage/Random House, London, 2005, pages 214-254
(18) = Sunday Times 01 Jul 2007 ‘Unpicking the Lockerbie truth’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2009603.ece (19) = Guardian 07 Apr 1999 ‘Lockerbie conspiracies: from A to Z ; Based on a 1995 Guardian investigation by Paul Foot and John Ashton’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/apr/07/lockerbie.patrickbarkham (20) = Guardian 29 Jul 1995, SECTION: THE GUARDIAN WEEKEND, Page T22 ‘INSIDE STORY: BODY OF EVIDENCE’, http://leninology4.blogspot.com/2007/06/paul-foot-john-ashtons-1995.html
Sources - Gaddafi's revenge for US airstrikes using planes refuelling in the UK in 1986?
(21) = Bovard, James (2003) ‘Terrorism and Tyranny’, Palgrave-MacMillan, NY,2003, Chapter 2, pages 24-26
(22) = Geoff Simons (2003) ‘Libya and the West’ Center for Libyan Studies, Oxford, UK, 2003,Chapter 7, pages 131-134 of hardback edition
Sources - Cover-up of CIA drug trafficking involvement from the Middle East to Europe, similar to that from central and Southern America in the 1980s as part of Iran-Contra
(23) = Coleman, Lester K & Goddard, Donald (1993) ‘Trail of the Octopus: From Beirut to Lockerbie - Inside the DIA’
(24) = Guardian 29 Jul 1995, SECTION: THE GUARDIAN WEEKEND, Page T22 ‘INSIDE STORY: BODY OF EVIDENCE’, http://leninology4.blogspot.com/2007/06/paul-foot-john-ashtons-1995.html
(25) = See (24) above (26) = Cockburn, Alexander & St. Clair, Jeffrey (1998), ‘Whiteout – The CIA, Drugs and the Press’, Verso, London & N.Y , 1998, Chapters 12 & 13 (27) = Scott, Peter Dale & Marshall, Jonathan (1998) ‘Cocaine Politics – Drugs, Armies and the CIA in Central America (1998 edition)’, University of California Press, Berkeley, London & Los Angeles, 1998 (28) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_North#Involvement_with_drug_trafficking (this is a wikipedia entry but provides reliable sources - including the Kerry report - a congressional inquiry into links between drug traffickers, the contras and the CIA - and FBI investigations)
(29) = See (24) above
Sources - Give Lockerbie relatives the Independent Public Inquiry they demand
(30) = Herald (Scotland) 22 May 2012 'Lockerbie families vow to force public inquiry', http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/news/crime-courts/lockerbie-families-vow-to-force-public-inquiry.17660141
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