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Tags Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi , Lockerbie bombing , Pan Am 103

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Old 2nd December 2009, 06:17 PM   #281
Rolfe
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Originally Posted by Buncrana View Post
Here's the link to details of the original PanAm case detailing admissions which were denied to PanAm by the court - http://openjurist.org/37/f3d/804

We need a list of important documents, with links, in the wiki.
The AAIB report and appendices
This lot (and is there anything from the original case as well - this is the appeal)
The Camp Zeist judgement
Kochler's reports
The documents Megrahi has recently put online

And stuff like Trail of the Octopus and the documentaries.

I just started to read that link. I knew families had already got milloins from that process, before the later awards from Libya. Some people must have been made enormously rich from their losses. Maybe I start to see why some families are adamant that there has been no mistake....

But one thing sickened me.

Quote:
No award for survival damages--sought by plaintiffs--was made because the jury found the passengers had suffered no conscious pain and suffering before their deaths. Pan Am and Alert appeal challenging the finding of liability and the damage awards.

Not that I'm saying relatives should get money for their loved ones' pain and suffering, but to deny it like that? Realising that your aeroplane had just broken up around you at 31,000 feet isn't "conscious suffering", even before you black out because your lungs have quadrupled in size? And what about the evidence that some passengers regained consciousness on the way down?

Meh. I feel quite ill now.

Rolfe.
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Old 2nd December 2009, 07:57 PM   #282
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That German documentary. It's questioning whether the bombing was really Libya's revenge for the death of Gadaffi's daughter, or something else. I think Manfred Klink just repeated that an unaccompanied bag came from Malta. However, the document shown on screen says something else.

Quote:
In den gesamten Ermittlungen zum Gepack PA103A ergaben sich keine Beweise, dass mit dem Gepack der Bombenkoffer von oder uber Frankfurt/Main nach London Befordert wurde.
My best shot.

In the entire investigation into the luggage of PA103A, no evidence was found to support the bomb suitcase coming from or via Frankfurt/Main to London.

Slightly dynamite-ish, possibly.

But then Bollier is saying that the red-circle picture is a polaroid, and there is an M on the timer, and it's a prototype. Oh yeah. And Marquise offered him $4 million and a new identity if he said that timer could only have been sold to Libya (Marquise denies this).

Rolfe.
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Old 2nd December 2009, 11:53 PM   #283
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Quote:
That German documentary. It's questioning whether the bombing was really Libya's revenge for the death of Gadaffi's daughter, or something else. I think Manfred Klink just repeated that an unaccompanied bag came from Malta.
It does sound like it from the words I can half-make out and from the fact this is BBC-affiliated, Guy Smith managed, he's prob just a talking head explaining the official version as well as the narrator could.

Quote:
However, the document shown on screen says something else.

In den gesamten Ermittlungen zum Gepack PA103A ergaben sich keine Beweise, dass mit dem Gepack der Bombenkoffer von oder uber Frankfurt/Main nach London Befordert wurde.
My best shot.

In the entire investigation into the luggage of PA103A, no evidence was found to support the bomb suitcase coming from or via Frankfurt/Main to London.
Yeah I think that's about it. "von oder uber" app. equals "from or over" and it's saying Frankfurt. I tried just the line "ergaben sich keine Beweise" last night and it gave me "no proofs resulted." No evidence is obviously not quite right, as there were some clues via forensics etc. evidencing but far from proving Frankfurt origin. It is a BKA report from 1990, so it would seem one of those contrary view reports like the Scots and FBI produced after visitng Frankfurt's tarmac.

On the video, I'm not going to bother getting quotes translated. I am curious about its gist. Found this at BBC Germany, auto-translated:
Quote:
The documentation also reveals a horror scenario that has been silent about twenty years ago: A few minutes flight from the Lockerbie crash site was in 1988, the plutonium forging of the British Royal Air Force. Was it the actual bombing?
The what now? No matter where they do this stuff, they gotta find something weird to spend half the video debunking. What exactly is this saying? The Brits nuked it?

I do intend to do a review of what issues are covered next to what, music, graphics, etc. to decide what it's saying in the "gestalt" sense, words aside. I'll be back with that.

ETA: Rolfe, you're on a roll here! I do also hope to see some new things at the wiki by you, or anyone aside from me and Dan

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Old 3rd December 2009, 03:34 AM   #284
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I was in bed when I typed that last post, and nowhere near a dictionary, but I have the little one now that I use at work.

Beweis: proof, evidence. ("Beweise" is the plural form.)
Evidence: (proof) Beweis; (testimony) Zeugnis.

It's hair-splitting. It's obviously the form of words that the cops would use if they wanted to say "we found no evidence of", so that's how I'd translate it. (It's passive voice though - "no evidence was found." I don't think the language differentiates between "evidence" and "proof" in the way English might.

Now I have the dictionary, and I'm actually awake, I can read the sentence as a whole.

In the entire investigation into the luggage of PA103A, no evidence was found that the bomb suitcase was forwarded with the luggage either from or via Frankfurt/Main to London.

I think that's fair comment. The suitcase was in container AVE4041, but so were a number of suitcases that were loaded at Heathrow. Luggage tray 8849 appears to have been coded at station 206 at the same time as luggage from KA180 was coded, but there is no evidence that whatever was in that tray was the bomb suitcase.

Quote:
The documentation also reveals a horror scenario that has been silent about twenty years ago: A few minutes flight from the Lockerbie crash site was in 1988, the plutonium forging of the British Royal Air Force. Was it the actual bombing?

I've tried to dredge up some sense from that, because even though I live here it's ringing precisely zero bells.

Chapelcross Nuclear Power Station

I think that must be what they're on about. Anyway, recall that we discussed the impossibility of targeting Lockerbie itself by setting a timer to blow up an airliner at a particular point in flight? You don't know how late the plane is going to be, you don't know which route it's going to take, and you can't predict to the nearest few metres where any particular bit (actually, the engines is the only bit that matters) will fall.

ETA: I see from that article I linked to that there is a no-fly zone around Chapelcross anyway!

Quote:
In 2003, an RAF Hercules aircraft breached the No-Fly Zone around Chapelcross. [....] As the plants were not designed specifically to withstand aircraft crashes, following the events of September 11, 2001, the British Government doubled the No-Fly zone to two nautical miles.

So a passenger jet would not be routed over the power station. I do wish people would stick to what's reasonable or even faintly likely, rather than throwing out wild fantasies like this.

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Last edited by Rolfe; 3rd December 2009 at 03:42 AM.
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Old 3rd December 2009, 11:54 PM   #285
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In case it hasn't been settled yet, We can calibrate the times at Frankfurt from the flight log of KM180 presented as Production 930, Image 16 as read into the transcripts of the trial at Canp Zeist on day 33:
Flight log relating to the aircraft which performed flight KM 180 on 21st December 1988
Boeing 737 Registration number 9HABA
Crew members are listed captains Al Wahabi and Lahoud (one a cadet)
Times given in Zulu time (GMT)
In December local time in Malta an hour ahead of Greenwich mean time. GMT plus one.
Doors were closed at 08.38
Departed off blocks at 08.40. airborne at 08.52
Into Frankfurt at 11.42 and was on blocks at 11.50 GMT.
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Old 4th December 2009, 03:23 AM   #286
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Dan O. View Post
In case it hasn't been settled yet, We can calibrate the times at Frankfurt from the flight log of KM180 presented as Production 930, Image 16 as read into the transcripts of the trial at Canp Zeist on day 33:
Flight log relating to the aircraft which performed flight KM 180 on 21st December 1988
Boeing 737 Registration number 9HABA
Crew members are listed captains Al Wahabi and Lahoud (one a cadet)
Times given in Zulu time (GMT)
In December local time in Malta an hour ahead of Greenwich mean time. GMT plus one.
Doors were closed at 08.38
Departed off blocks at 08.40. airborne at 08.52
Into Frankfurt at 11.42 and was on blocks at 11.50 GMT.
Hey... Production 1068: The court’s point [29] denotes this for “the evidence of Joachim Koscha, who was one of the managers of the baggage system at Frankfurt in 1988” It was his evidence that established KM180’s arrival and unloading time, 12:48-13:00.

Obviously local. Presumably other times would be as well when the court's talking. Alright then.

Oh and I'm working up a page for resources. I was thinking category, but a page that appears in the alphabetical list as well as a more prominent link up top seems a better way.
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Old 5th December 2009, 01:35 AM   #287
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So, apologies then for getting hung up on the time zones thing. It was only an academic quibble at first, and then got more so, but I just wanted to be the smart one who was right all along.

Moving on, in that German video, Wilhelm Dietl is interesting. Former Secret Service, his web page (translatd) says "This web portal is used to put dangerous falsehoods with facts and evidence back into the right-Lot." Sounds like a debunker person? [ETA: Seems he's mostly debunking slanderous allegations against himself.] I don't know what he's said about Lockerbie, but he's big into Erika Chambers, which ties back in with the munich massacre, Libya, Germany, and something, I think this:
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/20...-in-world.html
led me back to Uwi Barschel and I guess a little off course and I'm not usually fond of the high-intrigue joyrides of linkage. But that last page features A. Kilgore, of WRMEA, who has recently run a 'meh' article on Lockerbie, here as there hinting at Isreali orchestration.

Okay, and the cool new thing found by Buncrana, at a resources site from American Radio Work ("Shadow over Lockerbie"):
Quote:
Mike Jones Diary Entry
On December 29, 1988 Pan Am security manager Mike Jones noted in his diary a phone call from the British Customs official: "Call from Phil Connolly H.M. [Her Majesty's] Customs/Excise re FRA bag switch due to large amount of Turkish workers."
Hmmmm....

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Old 5th December 2009, 11:20 AM   #288
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You do know that Mike Jones worked at Heathrow London


Testimony of Mr. Berwick Day 43 (condensed and paraphrased)
Quote:
*Production 1224 -- statement given by you (Mr. Berwick) on the 8th of February 1990, concerning Pan American flight PA 107 on 21st December 1988, London to Washington (read into transcript)
"coupon was presented for carriage on flight PA 107, 21st December 1988. London to Washington by passenger with the name of Mr. Ali Nassr Zia."
"it was purchased for travel commencing in Tehran, Iran, and for a routing from there to London, Washington, Los Angeles, Washington, London, and return to Tehran."
"revalidation sticker shows that the passenger was booked on Pan American flight PA 107 on 21st December 1988, London to Washington."
"the document was issued in conjunction with another Iran Air ticket"
"was originally issued in Tehran on the 14th of June 1988"
"I now produce a copy of the flight manifest for flight PA 107 on 21st December 1988"
"passenger Zia, initial N, listed under sequential number 203, was checked in and travelled on the flight occupying seat 41B"
"Coincidentally, there was another passenger Zia, initial P, listed under sequential number 204 who checked in and travelled on seat 41A."
"Issued by Student Travel in London"

"flight PA 107, on 21st December 1988, ... was scheduled to arrive at London at 11.40 a.m. In fact, it arrived at 11.42 a.m. It was positioned on stand Kilo 17."
"While at Heathrow and should have departed at 13.30. In fact, it took off at 13.31. The aircraft began its journey in Frankfurt and continued on to Washington."
Ali Nassr Zia was wanted by police in connection with the "ACHILLE LAURO" hijacking ... his real name was Armad Jusiff Sao Ad Jusif

on the 21st of December of 1988. ... Airport security staff employed at Heathrow in this section ... only Mr. Jones and myself. Mike Jones.

Alert Security provided an additional 81 persons. (raised to 251 after the events of the 21st of December)
This line of investigation may have been considering that the bomb suitcase followed Nassr to Frankfurt and somehow got switched while he took a different flight to London then on to Washington. Where was Nassr at the time the bomb went off?
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Old 5th December 2009, 11:50 PM   #289
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Dan O. View Post
You do know that Mike Jones worked at Heathrow London
Oh yeah, we've been talking about him and his visit to Frankfurt of course. Heathrow would require no visit, as he was there, but when he jetted across the channel to check something, 103A's loading files were abnormally gone without a trace. So he says, and so no other evidence contradicts.

Now we have him, just under a month before this visit, a week after the bombing, saying people at customs are calling him about a bag switch because of Turks? That just sounds odd. Who's initiated this re: dialogue? How would they know or suspect this, etc? I have heard it theorized somewhere that Turks were responsible for the switch. I forget if that's Coleman's line or whose.

On Mr. ANZ, I'm not sure what to make of that. Belongs on our people list obviously. His flight seems a little early, and there's a lot of questions around this apparently new theory. I dunno, if it seems worthwhile to someone else I'll think about it some more.

Sorry, I just have a lot else going on. I'll be back.
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Old 6th December 2009, 09:13 AM   #290
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
On Mr. ANZ, I'm not sure what to make of that. Belongs on our people list obviously. His flight seems a little early, and there's a lot of questions around this apparently new theory. I dunno, if it seems worthwhile to someone else I'll think about it some more.
I can't pick up any trace on the name (either the alias, the presumed real name or the misspelling in time's report on the trial). If this were really a terrorist I would expect to find more about him. I also don't see the tie-in during the trial between this evidence and PA103. It's almost like the prosecutor is trying to make it look like the whole thing was Pan Am's fault because they were letting known terrorists fly and didn't have enough armed security guards.


The flight time isn't too early. By my calculation, it's about 2.5 hours outside of Washington over the Atlantic (right where Rolfe says it should have been). It's bucking the jet stream so there is no chance to have landed before the timer expires and at least 5 hours leeway for delays.
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Old 10th December 2009, 05:18 AM   #291
Caustic Logic
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Just an FYI - I took a summary of the findings of this thread, and other evidence of the Malta-based plotting, against counter-claims by Maltese themselves - grand geopolitical sarcasm in hyper-obnoxious mode, what the hell am I thinking? It's going somewhere though.
HOW MALTA LET LOCKERBIE HAPPEN
http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2009/1...lta-slept.html
Once I get going I know it's way too much but just don't know what to cut.
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Old 11th December 2009, 11:49 PM   #292
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
grand geopolitical sarcasm in hyper-obnoxious mode, what the hell am I thinking? It's going somewhere though.
And this is where it was going, even worse.
http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2009/1...-on-malta.html
Some official story supporters out there should be askin themselves why they AREN'T up in arms about outlandish statements like these from prominent Maltese authorities:
Quote:
“Tony Gauci is an area where we have to investigate more thoroughly and we are preparing for this. There was never enough proof, to be frank, on the circumstances of his evidence and there is pressure coming from many quarters on Malta to move to resolve the issue."
- Unnamed Justice Department official, 31 Oct 2009

"[since 1988, the Maltese government has] always maintained the bomb which downed Pan Am flight 103 had not departed from Malta and ample proof of this was produced.”
- Justice Department Statement, 1 Nov 2009

"Our position was always that Malta had nothing to do with the terrorist attack and it has never changed."
- Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, 1 Nov 2009

"We have no proof that these two Libyan suspects were involved in anything illegal in Malta regarding this case, particularly the placing of this bomb on Air Malta Flight ... 180.”
- Then Justice and Home Affairs Secretary Tonio Borg, in 2000
What the hell is wrong with those people? No proof?

ETA: 3 comments already! I guess vinegar does catch more dumb bees that think it's honey for some reason; none seems to have understood the absurdity of the content, and I was TRYING to make it obvious. Favorite comment so far, following two pans of it as dreadful (yah, ya noticed?):
This is hardly dreadful, it is a welcome change from the bilge we have to read from the Libya shills. They have no shame and cannot be embarrassed by the facts. Thank you for your efforts to publish the truth, you are like a breath of fresh air.
Frank Duggan, President
Victims of Pan Am 103, Inc

My response:
Frank, you truly get it and you are awesome.

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Old 22nd January 2010, 04:31 AM   #293
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I don't know if anyone else finds this very interesting, but I think I've found that Granada TV docudrama that Air Malta sued over. It's got Ned Beatty and was re-released by HBO in America as "Tragedy Of Flight 103: The Inside Story." It doesn't ring any bells here. Here's a trailer for it.
http://www.videodetective.com/titled...lishedID=18490
There are some clips on Youtube, some info at IMDB and in Paul Foot's booklet. Apparently the alleged Malta link revolves around a bakery there, with PFLPGC people, one of whom is shown inserting the bomb at Luqa airport. Mostly though it's about Pan Am's and Frankfurt airport's culture of greed and security failure, I think. No Libyans are mentioned I know of. US Release date December 9 1990. Previously (?) released in UK under the title Why Lockerbie?

That's closely synched with when Marquise finally announced (to the Maltese police's chagrin) that the investigation was indeed officially following the Malta lead. (early December 1990, see SCOTBOM, p 73). FWIW. Almost a year before the indictment, a year after first learning of a Maltese bag and first talking to the Gaucis. It's an interesting movie to me.
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Old 25th January 2010, 04:19 AM   #294
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No, it really is interesting. I've now blogged about it, behold:
http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2010/0...ocu-drama.html

An interesting aspect, in bringing malta around -who here know what time frame were Maltese officials freezing the Brits and Yanks out over tensions, or wiretapping, etc? Was it mid-late 1990? Marquise's book hints at it (last quote here)

The movie, Why Lockerbie?/The Tragedy of Flight 103, was aired Nov 26 and Dec 9 1990 in UK and US, respectively. Jointly produced by UK, US, and German companies. Blames Pan Am security laxness, to save money, etc. at Frankfurt for the Maltese bomb getting through. Repeats David Leppard's year-old synthesis of Khreesat/Talb/etc. and Malta origin bomb. The timer was just becoming public, making that kinda work... Air Malta sues. Maltese investigators however...
Originally Posted by blog
In his 2006 memoir, Marquise writes of an early December 1990 conference (apparently on the 6th?) of investigators in Sweden, bringing Swiss police in for the first time.
“The night before the formal conference, Henderson and I convened the other police officials in a private room above the main dining area. The Swiss were introduced and the new direction of the investigation was discussed. Because the formal agenda had been drawn up in advance, much of it was devoted to the PFLP-GC cell in Germany. However, we had always said evidence would drive the investigation, not speculation. Now the evidence had pointed away from Dalkamouni and his PFLP-GC cell. Everything we saw pointed directly at Libya.” [Marquise, p 73]
The Germans were “relieved,” Marquise recalled, but the Maltese, who were on bad terms with the investigation at the time, “were not as ready to accept the new scenario,” and “adopted the same philosophy which the Germans had employed for a time.” Presented with evidence that “the bomb bag … had originated in Malta,” that was a year old already, “had not yet been proven to the satisfaction of Maltese officials.” But the next day’s conference went smoothly enough, and “not one word of what was discussed at the meeting was ever leaked to the media, proving that this group of law enforcement officials was trustworthy."

Three days later, however, HBO would re-air half of that new direction, the bag that Maltese authorities still couldn't see even after the first UK airing of Why Lockerbie? just days before the conference. Air Malta would of course take the issue to court as we started out, but Maltese investigators just acquiesced; on December 10, the day after the American re-broadcast as The Tragedy of Flight 103 in case that matters, "Henderson reported the Maltese were ready to let us back in to work, possibly as soon as December 17." [Marquise, p 73]
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Old 5th February 2010, 07:21 AM   #295
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I'm bumping this to draw attention to the fact that Edwin Bollier is now dementing on about the Fankfurt baggage tray. I don't have much of an idea what he's trying to say, but it starts with this post.

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/20...39444231734468

Quote:
Important: for example: A luggage item from air Malta would have been inter-line.

Through the wrong statement, Gunther Kasteleiner, the court had accepted, the bag came from AirMalta, KM-180!

Thus witness Gunther Kasteleiner (sworn) traffic assistant FAG, is responsible for this fatal error, inter-line, instead of correctly on-line, solely the bag B-8849 could be assigned to AirMalta flight KM-180 !!!

It has been confirmed that the alleged bombbag no. B-8849 which had been coded over the counter V3-206 at 13.07 hour with code S-0009+Z1307, was forwarded on the moving floor (track in the main area HS33+Z1514) and singled out at 15.23 hour (code HS33+Z1514) to F1042/PA-103/A:

Tray: B 8849 F1042 S0009+Z1307--TO--HS33+Z1517--BO44+Z1523 V3

There was no inter-line bomb suitcase (B-8849) coming from Air Malta flight KM-180!
B-8849 was arriving on-line from Berlin /PA-643, W. Wagenführ and was not loaded from Airplane PA-643, direct to Airplane PA-103/B, but via the inter-line counter V3-206.

He seems to be pushing a particular theory about where tray 8849 actually came from and where it was going to. Considering that a bunch of experts couldn't seem to determine this from the very limited information available, I seriously doubt if Edwin is on to anything.

Rolfe.
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Old 8th March 2010, 05:29 PM   #296
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Just another note to add, as I'm wrapping up The Lockerbie Divide take on the missing computer data:
http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/...-airports.html

We've seen how the souvenir printout wound up becoming THE evidence for PA103A's loading, turned in by Erac to her supervisor Berg in mid-late January. Yet this isn't mentioned in David Leppard's 1991 book. In fact, he's got a different origin, and it's from the BKA's 2 February reports.
Quote:
For these, the BKA had interviewed Gunther Kasteleiner, in charge of baggage flow at Terminal B. His interviewer wrote into the report “by a coincidence, the record of baggage transported […] for flight PA103 on 21.12.88 is still stored in the computer.” This report then is in stark contrast to the story we now have that it was all wiped well before then and the souvenir saved the day. Leppard does however say “the BKA had obtained a print-out of this record from Kurt Berg.” This, we now know, was Bogomira’s supervisor, to whom she handed the printout and by whom it was taken to the BKA at the end of January. But investigators were saying that Berg had gotten this off the computer itself, a month after the police couldn’t find it there. That is very interesting.
Also, the book agrees with Coleman on the date of handover for the printout and its attached reports - given to a Scottish liaison team in Germany Aug 16, received by SIO John Orr back home the next day.

Peace out.
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Old 8th March 2010, 06:00 PM   #297
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Could just be someone making a false assumption, not knowing where it really came from....

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Old 9th March 2010, 05:37 AM   #298
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Could just be someone making a false assumption, not knowing where it really came from....

Rolfe.
Absolutely true. If a guy was handed a print-up of the computer data in late January, he might just presume it had just been printed. It is a silly presumption, given thhat it should've been already gotten or gone. I'd guess a wrongly-archived paper copy just found.

It could also be a clue, and I don't mean to push it, just float it solidly, that they were presenting it differently at the time. Or perhaps it was differently - Bogomira's speciality wasn't printing, but programming, right?

Yeah, it's okay to get a couple steps ahead of oneself. Leap to a speculation, leap right back... we is nimble like dat.
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Old 9th March 2010, 05:58 AM   #299
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The thing is, people make assumptions, or get the wrong end of the stick, and write something that's wrong as a result. They may realise their mistake later, but the original statement remains.

We do the same thing even in these threads. I couldn't count the wrong assumptions I've made, that could be dragged out of the archives.

I think the writer knew the data had been obtained as a printout from Berg, and just assumed he'd got it from the computer. It's a reasonable assumption, if you don't know different. It was actually Bogomira's souvenir, but who would have guessed that?

Rolfe.
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Old 9th March 2010, 06:22 AM   #300
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Yeah, you're probably right. It's a noteworthy little discrepancy, possibly a clue of something else, but probably just a small goof.

In general tho, I still think the printout we've seen is most likely altered (re-programmed and re-printed elsewhere), but Bogimira may well not know it. She probably sees herself as like a whistle-blower, being alarmed by the evidence having slipped away. By luck (or was it her woman's intuition? etc. with the internal mythology) she had made a copy to help. Sort of a hero, really.

But once it was in the hands of the BKA, something weird may have happened. (that is, it's weird because it happened under the BKA, not the FBI). She might be like the Hortons here with the intact Toshiba manual page that morphed into evidence against Libya - a convenient spot to seed in bogus evidence where there had been good, and give it a human (pref. female) face.

Nebulous thoughts here, too.
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Old 9th March 2010, 07:47 AM   #301
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I had thought about that too. The thing that argues against it is that apparently the BKA contacted the Maltese authorities in early February 1989 to ask about the baggage records for KA180. The timing suggests they had a look at Bogomira's souvenir, checked off the entries against the handwritten records they already had regarding incoming flights, and identified tray 4489 at station 206 as the smoking gun.

This seems to have taken no more than about ten days or so. Yes, it would be possible to have fabricated it, but why on earth were the BKA trying to fabricate evidence to link to Malta, unilaterally, only about six weeks after the actual crash? It doesn't make a blind bit of sense.

If they'd sat on the Erac printout until August, and only then come up with the Malta connection, I'd be as suspicious as hell. It would fit in beautifully with the stuff that seems to have surfaced in September. But the Maltese baggage controller says he was contacted in February, which is when he dug up the records for KA180.

Why they sat on that until August, I have no real idea. The D&G people were apparently running around Malta getting nowhere in March, purely on account of the clothes with the Maltese labels. The BKA knew about tray 4489 and KA180 but didn't tell them. Might have made a difference if they had, who knows.

My best guess is that when they were shown the cast-iron copper-bottomed evidence that there was nothing untoward about KA180's payload, the BKA initially decided it was a dead end. (Why, when the Maltese clothes were common knowledge?) Only by August did someone decide that maybe this bit of evidence should be added to the common pool.

According to Coleman, it was the information about KA180 that took the D&G people back to Malta and this time they were led almost directly to Gauci. Which is something else I'd like to know a little more about.

I'm essentially convinced that bloody bomb went into the system at Heathrow. That it was never near Frankfurt-am-Main. Nevertheless, I'm deeply curious as to what was going on at Frankfurt, because something was going on there, for sure.

Rolfe.
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Old 10th March 2010, 04:19 AM   #302
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Quote:
why on earth were the BKA trying to fabricate evidence to link to Malta, unilaterally, only about six weeks after the actual crash? It doesn't make a blind bit of sense.
[...]
I'm essentially convinced that bloody bomb went into the system at Heathrow. That it was never near Frankfurt-am-Main. Nevertheless, I'm deeply curious as to what was going on at Frankfurt, because something was going on there, for sure.
Well, I'm not sure something was going on at Frankfurt - it could just be that nothing suspicious did show and to eliminate Bedford's clues, had to be hidden and perhaps replaced. I know, it sounds like I'm conflating the British lead and German interests, which seem so at odds. Allow me to explain...

First, I just have a hard time with that coincidence that a non-Maltese bag, destined for 103A, really was coded at just the time and place to appear like it was from, of all flights, KM180. If this really was in the computer, why wasn't it gotten up front and used to settle the dispute all at once and by official means? It's just too convenient, with nothing to verify it by. Quite possibly not the genuine data.

So, if it were faked/altered, and again no one could ever prove that now, it would seem to be under either BKA control post Berg, under Berg's control post-Erac, under Erac' control, or somewhere else off to the side we don't know about. Those are all Germans, helping prove the bomb did slip through their airport (Pan Am's part anyway). Hmmm... "unilaterally?"

Ultimately the Anglo-American side called the shots in this, and cold get a paper printed up with one right contact and a stack of cash. Quick job, as soon as mid-January the Brits and probably FBI knew it had to be something shady from Germany, PLEASE, IT HAS TO BE! No need for BKA policy, they could just be left holding this and puzzling for months over whether to act on it or not, since it's so weird.

But even at the official level, I'd think neither the UK nor Germany wanted the Autumn Leaves people to have struck. Better any obscure, unforeseeable, remote villain, but not those bombs. The Jordanian intelligence/BND/CIA(?) ones. We know, as they did, such would be quite obvious if it started at London. 38 minutes plus Bedford's bags? Case closed! Germany let that one slip through, and so did the UK it seems. Not too good.

So in the long-run, it was in Germany's interest to help cover up the London aspect. They create a solvable mystery by squelching the airport records and eventually what emerges? Yes, it passed through here, and it came from KM 180, huh! Wonder that's gonna lead? Perhaps there was some cohesion in the investigation after all, simply masked with the noisy substanceless snarls and counter-snarls of 1989?

How do you feel about that line of thinking?

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Old 10th March 2010, 06:31 AM   #303
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Too convoluted, I think. Sometimes coincidences happen. The clothes being from Malta and tray 4489 seeming to have come from Malta is within my tolerance zone.

I'll give it some more thought though.

Rolfe.
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Old 10th March 2010, 02:40 PM   #304
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Alright. Well, I've got to get back to the Divide now.
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Old 11th March 2010, 03:14 AM   #305
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Sorry, some kind of terseness-inducing breakdown moment. Nothing personal.
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Old 11th March 2010, 09:18 AM   #306
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I remain highly suspicious of the whole Erac printout story and it's apparent divine intervention corroborating the Maltese clothes purchase. I think this piece of evidence has earned this cynicism, due not just to it's very convenient nudge towards Malta, but down to the superabundance of inconsistencies and suspicious surroundings of the other 'key' pieces of evience presented at Zeist.

Given we know that the judges themselves conceded there was a huge hole in the prosecution case illustrating any possible method in which Megrahi inserted the bomb-bag at Malta, nevertheless deciding he must have somehow, without the Erac printout it would have rendered their even highly tenuous (non-existent) presumption absolutely impossible. Erac's printout presented a bridge between the two areas where there was not a solitary piece of evidence uncovered throughout all the years of investigation.

ETA: Sorry i wasn't being completely clear above. The 'two areas' I refer to that are bridged are the departure of the bag from malta and the arrival of the bag at Frankfurt. No evidence whatsoever, over the 11 years of every LE agency the US and UK could muster (and others no doubt) investigating, aside of course from Mrs Erac's and the BKA's printout.

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Old 11th March 2010, 11:20 AM   #307
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I have to agree, but I'm awfully torn. We know the story says Bogomira made the printout on 22nd December, and put it in her locker either that evening or later. She didn't say anything about it over the next few days when she was apparently at work, as she speaks of a "New Year" holiday, not a Christmas one. I do find this strange, because surely the BKA were all over the place that week?

Except, if they were, how come the data that should still have been on the computer weren't saved? But if these data were already gone for some reason, why wasn't there an all-points bulletin out for anything that might still exist? It seems inconceivable that the BKA didn't go there, dammit, even the newspaper reports from the time say they did. But even if they didn't, how come the airport security and baggage security people themselves weren't trying to save the data, and searching for anything that was still available? This is the first oddity.

However, she wasn't prompted to volunteer the information about the printout at that point, and off she went to Slovenia for a fortnight. Lucky girl. She got back in mid-January, and a couple of days later something seems to have reminded her about the printout. I speculated earlier that it might have been the visit of the Pan Am security man from London (Jones?), which he describes in The Maltese Double Cross. She goes to Berg and tells him she has the printout. He's very surprised as he believes all the data were wiped. He then tells her to search the filing cabinets in case anything else was inadvertently kept.

That's weird. Didn't they carry out such a search earlier, when they realised the data had been wiped from the computer? I can't find any reasonable explanation at all for the apparent failure to secure the evidence at Frankfurt, and even more so, for the absence of any descriptions of a real search, or why the information was wiped before it could be saved, or any furious recriminations flying around. Even Jones doesn't volunteer any explanation.

We're close to the end of January now, and Berg takes the printout to the BKA. The BKA take a look at it and presumably check through the entries against the paper information they have secured. They fix on tray 4489 quite quickly as apparently coming from KM180, and since there was no passenger booked from KM180 to PA103A, they decide this is significant.

They contact Air Malta in early February, and ask for the baggage records of KM180. Air Malta digs the stuff up and obliges. The BKA discover that the Maltese records (in marked contrast the the Frankfurt ones) are tighter than a duck's arse, and there was no unaccompanied bag. So they just shelve the whole thing, tell nobody, and leave it. Only six months later do they decide to pass this information to the Scottish police.

Bogomira could be lying, but she comes over fairly credible. The printout she kept could have been altered (re-typed with an extra line, or with a line substituted), which would be in line with what we suspect happened to the Horton manual page. However, the evidence suggests that if this was done, it happened in late January 1989, which is awfully early for directed shenanigans.

So, I'm torn. I can't quite figure out a secnario where - or maybe when - that printout was interfered with.

Rolfe.
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Old 11th March 2010, 03:37 PM   #308
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I suppose the sequence I'm imagining is that it was the printout, and identifying that an item seemed to have come from KM180, that prompted the BKA to contact Air Malta in February. The timing just fits so well. This would suggest that tray 4489 really did exist on the printout originally.

I suppose the only other thought might be that they contacted Air Malta because of the clothes. If they were simply trying to find some other airport to push the blame back to, I suppose they might have thought of Malta because of the clothes, and just tried out KM180 on spec. Then when they found the records were watertight, they just backed off.

In that scenario, although Bogomira is on the level, the printout shows nothing interesting. We then have to propose that the BKA then decided, in August, to implicate KM180 anyway, and to use the printout to do it. They copied it exactly, only with that extra line about tray 4489 inserted. Hey presto, Malta it is.

I'm not that enamoured with this explanation, partly because it seems daft to decide to frame KM180, if you already know that plane has a set of luggage records that refute your suggestion. But it's a thought. What think you?

Rolfe.
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Old 11th March 2010, 06:22 PM   #309
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Yeah, I'm perplexed as to the scenario which fits with the whole tale being contrived, but, as I say, given the other crucial pieces of evidence, and Bogamire's documents significance to the whole prosecution's picture, it's surely natural to be wary? In my initial scenario, perhaps the BKA had indeed secured most, if not all, of the relevent records for baggage movements around Frankfurt on 21 Dec, and were horrified at the amount of stray and unaccompanied baggage that was swilling around the system? Some of which were either known to be loaded onto, or were certainly destined towards the parked 103A.

The FBI had reported after all, despite the 103 disaster, that in Sep '89, operations around the baggage areas were certainly not tightened-up, and they had reported how a airport worker had wandered up and placed two bags onto the belt at a coding station without noting or recording these bags. So, if the baggage system was this lax after the 103 bombing, then what the hell was it like before? The same, probably worse?

So, if the BKA have a list of records, showing unrecorded baggage that doesn't tally with the completary airline's records, then that is a huge problem for the airport and the security officials assigned to deal with this. I wonder if phoning Malta was simply part of a larger exercise in which the German's had spotted a rogue bag entering the system at the time Air Malta had been unloaded and checked into the coding station, but were never at all sure where it had actually arrived from, apart from the timing coincidence? Did they also contact Syrians about their flight, did they also contact Quantas about an earlier flight were unknown baggage had entered the system at the same time that flight's baggage was introduced into the Frankfurt system.

The fact that the BKA contacted Malta in late January does not with certainty mean they were working from the discovery of Bogamire's printout. It may have simply been a routine BKA check against airlines who had coincidentally touched down and were unloaded at Frankfurt as yet another bag/bags had entered their handling system without any trace-back record as to their precise origin. Of course, we wouldn't know had they ever contacted anyone else, as no one else bar Air Malta mattered by the time of the trial came.

And again, I simply can't envisage that securing the full records was not considered by anyone in the BKA on the 21st or 22nd Dec. To suggest the records from this airport, and to 103A, weren't even given a thought by anyone for more than a week is preposterous. That's even if we accept that 'a week' was the cut-off for the computerised records, which in itself has been disputed.

If Bogamire did take the list a some sort of weird memento, she surely didn't study it that closely, given it was simply dumped in her locker, and therefore could it have been manipulated by the BKA to show 8849 neatly tucked in the list, and she would inadvertently confirm it's details and source?
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Old 12th March 2010, 02:07 AM   #310
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Good thoughts, and Buncrana welcome back to the discussion. My main computer died today, and I'm not sure what's lost. Just seeing a third voice here again, and being on the Internet at all has improved my foul mood. Lest I lose the comment again this foreign browser with no undo...
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Old 12th March 2010, 03:07 AM   #311
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That flies pretty well, Buncrana. It's an interesting reason for the disappearing records that I hadn't thought about. I was thinking, maybe the tales about the controlled drug deliveries and Jafaar being a courier and so on were at least partly true, and that the records might have vanished because it was possible to spot this sort of activity, and to see that it was being condoned (or at least blind-eyed) by the authorities.

That's still a possibility, and I still quite like the idea, but the thought that the records simply showed such a shambles that nobody wanted to air that linen in public is also interesting. I just wonder, would a mere shambles be enough to prompt such a cover-up, or would it take the extra motivation of positive evidence of wrongdoing?

It would indeed be interesting to see whether the BKA phoned a number of airports at about the same time. And again, do we know when the clothes were identified as of Maltese origin? Even if the Scottish police didn't formally contact Frankfurt about that, they could well have found out about it (was it in the news?) and thought of checking on KM180 for that reason. It could be just coincidence that it happened very soon after Bogomira produced the printout.

I'm still astonished by the very low-key approach of everyone to the vanishing Frankfurt records. It simply seems to be dismissed with a shrug by everyone, or at the most, a raised eyebrow. Did the BKA really get the lot and then pretend they hadn't, or is it possible the airport's own security people wiped the files before the BKA got there, and then simply wrung their hands and pleaded "routine"?

CL, I had a computer die on me just over a year ago and had to get a data recovery firm to retrieve my files. Expensive, but worth it, as they say. Backups, my boy!

Rolfe.
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Old 21st May 2010, 04:25 AM   #312
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I'm bumping this thread because SnidelyW's mentioning of the Erac saga in the other thread got me thinking about it again.

I'm really quite taken with Buncrana's 12th March suggestion that the enquiries the BKA made of Air Malta in February 1989 might not in fact have been as a result of analysing the Erac printout and fingering tray 4489/coding station 206 at 13.07/KM180, but merely routine enquiries made to all carriers who had flights into Frankfurt on the morning or early afternoon of the fatal day. Borg's account tends to back that up, in that he refers to a general enquiry about flights heading in that direction, not to a specific request relating to KM180.

Thus we may be back to the possibility of the Erac printout being manipulated in August to introduce that orphan bag apparently pointing to KM180. While it seems that the BKA must have known that the Luqa records relating to that flight were clean, it's possible they calculated they could make enough mud stick to do the job - which is what actually happened, after all.

This all relates back to the fact that Megrahi really was at Luqa when that flight checked in, and using a false name into the bargain.

I wonder how many flights went into Frankfurt on the morning of 21st December, that might conceivably have connected with PA103A? Possibly quite a few, but still a finite number. Possibly most airports in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa had flights that might have made that connection. But even so, for a JSO officer to have been right there at the check-in desk when one of them was departing, must look like a pretty interesting lead to anyone. When we realise that it wasn't just any airport either, but the one located on the island where the bomb-damaged clothes were manufactured - well, wow.

We can pick apart tray 4489 till the cows come home. It's perfectly clear that even if genuine, it could have come from just about anywhere. Hubbard's unaccompanied Christmas presents, or pretty much anything. It's also fairly clear it couldn't have come off KM180 as suggested. Nevertheless, the simple, clear and obvious interpretation of the data as presented is that this tray represents a bag coming off KM180.

The flight where Megrahi just happened to be present at the check-in.

So is this all one huge big fat coincidence, that this orphan luggage tray that came from somewhere not-Malta and just happened to be coded in such a way that it looked as if it had come from Malta, just happened to point right to the place where Megrahi (under his false name) just happened to be that morning?

Or was the coincidence merely that Megrahi was at Luqa airport when a potential feeder flight for the doomed aircraft was departing, and the pointing was manufactured to take advantage of that?

Rolfe.
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Old 22nd May 2010, 02:21 AM   #313
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
I'm really quite taken with Buncrana's 12th March suggestion that the enquiries the BKA made of Air Malta in February 1989 might not in fact have been as a result of analysing the Erac printout and fingering tray 4489/coding station 206 at 13.07/KM180, but merely routine enquiries made to all carriers who had flights into Frankfurt on the morning or early afternoon of the fatal day. Borg's account tends to back that up, in that he refers to a general enquiry about flights heading in that direction, not to a specific request relating to KM180.

Thus we may be back to the possibility of the Erac printout being manipulated in August to introduce that orphan bag apparently pointing to KM180. While it seems that the BKA must have known that the Luqa records relating to that flight were clean, it's possible they calculated they could make enough mud stick to do the job - which is what actually happened, after all.
Awesome bump. That whole notion didn't sink in for me first time around, but it sounds interesting. If indeed Borg saw, or there was no, special BKA interest in KM180, that's odd if they DID have the paper. So back dating could make a bit more sense yet and time opens up to negotiate the solution it presents - the VIA-Frankfurt from Malta non-London theory. I'll have to study that angle, on down my list a ways.

I'll be out of town for a day or so, so no one demand instant responses from me and blow a gasket.
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Old 24th May 2010, 06:35 AM   #314
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Borg's evidence on that point was as follows.

Quote:
Q Looking at those exhibits, Mr. Borg, have you ever seen them before?

A Yes, I did.

Q Would you tell the ladies and gentlemen what those documents are, the whole package?

A That is the flight file or the ship's papers for Flight KM-180, destined to Frankfurt in Germany on the 21st of December 1988.

Q When did you first see this particular flight file?

A I saw this flight file, the first time, in February '89.

Q What were the circumstances under which you saw the flight file at that time?

A Our office in Germany had received a request from the German police requesting us whether we had any passengers or baggage connecting to Pan American flights out of Frankfurt. They said they were investigating this, they wanted this information in view of the Lockerbie incident in December, '88.

Q And what did you do with respect to their request?

A The request was passed along to me by our office in Germany. I requested the manager responsible to keep these records, to give me this relevant flight file. I went through it and gave the relevant replies to the German police.

It's impossible to say, one way or the other. I can't tell if the BKA were specifically after the records for KM180 because they had reason to believe something had come in on that flight, or whether it was a request of a more general nature.

The timeline is that Bogomira gave the printout to Berg on or just before 25th January. Berg probably gave it to the BKA fairly soon after that. The next date is of a report prepared by the BKA regarding baggage movements into and out of Frankfurt, which was dated 2nd February. Then the BKA requested these records from Air Malta some time in February.

It seems intuitive that this chain of events was precipitated by Bogomira's printout. That it took the cops about a week to go through the printout and the ancillary documentation they somehow acquired, and pick out tray 4489 as apparently having come off KM180, and then making enquiries of Air Malta as a result. Perhaps at the same time they made similar enquiries of other airports with bags aparently coming into that list, and it was Borg's insistence that there were no bags or passengers on KM180 booked through to PA103 that first pinpointed that entry as significant.

If that is the case then it seems to me impossible for tray 4489 to have been a fabrication. It's simply too early and there isn't enough time. It doesn't make any sense.

However, the other thing that makes no sense is the subsequent six-month utter silence. If the BKA got that far that quickly, to the point where they had the printout and they had the evidence of a mysterious orphan bag apparently having come through from KM180 (and it was hardly a secret that blast-damaged clothing of Maltese origin had been found on the ground, as far as I know), why did they say nothing?

Why get it pretty much sewn up in February, and not breathe a word of this until August? Didn't they want to present the fruits of their great detective work to the main investigation as soon as possible?

The alternative is that the February enquiry to Air Malta wasn't related to Bogomira's printout or tray 4489 at all, but was merely a routine enquiry to all airports that had flights coming into Frankfurt that morning or early afternoon. If that's the case, then it still leaves open the possibility that tray 4489 was an interpolation introduced in August specifically to point to the flight from Luqa, specifically because Megrahi was known to have been standing right there when that flight checked in.

I don't know. I'm speculating.

Rolfe.
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Old 24th May 2010, 07:36 AM   #315
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When I started looking at this, I thought it was the timer fragment that was the key piece of evidence. It logically shouldn't be there, but there it was. Was it for real? However, while I'm still mightily interested in it, I can see it swings both ways. Even if it's entirely on the level, it's still possible it was something Jibril or Khreesat got hold of to refine their methodology.

As far as implicating Megrahi personally, it's nothing. Megrahi's connection to Bollier never had anything to do with these timers, and he was never known to have had such a timer in his possession. Even if you were to decide that the presence of such a timer necessarily means it was a Libyan plot, there's nothing specifically to implicate the Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in its execution.

Then of course there's Gauci. Of course, if Megrahi really did buy these clothes, then he's guilty, string him up and throw away the key. But he didn't. It's blindingly obvious that Gauci was pathetically anxious to please earn a nice fat reward, but that if the alleged purchase ever took place it was on a day when Megrahi wasn't there. If the investigators hadn't had other evidence suggesting Megrahi was a suspect, they'd never have pushed Gauci to identify his picture in the first place.

We know that much of what supposedly "implicated" Megrahi and Fhimah was the invention of Giaka. He told a lot of porkies about brown Samsonite suitcases and explosives in desk drawers and so on. But some of what he related was true, for example he told the CIA even before the plane blew up that Megrahi was in Luqa on 7th December. Which he was.

I'd like to know when the CIA first discovered that Megrahi was checking in at Luqa on the morning of 21st December, at the same time as KM180 was departing.

It's a bit of a coincidence that Megrahi, a JSO operative, was right there when a flight from the island where the blast-damaged clothes were manufactured took off to connect to PA103A. However, he was a frequent flyer in that part of the world, so mabe it's not such a big stretch. It's a coincidence of a whole different order that the computer printout that miraculously emerged from the total wipe-out of the Frankfurt baggage records appeared to show an orphan bag coming into the system from that very flight. This is what makes this, for me, the really crucial piece of evidence. It's the one thing that really does connect to Megrahi in a way that can't be hand-waved away.

Now we know that Megrahi couldn't have got anything on that plane. He didn't go airside while he was at the airport, and the entire alleged plan necessitated an airside accomplice to take the suitcase he (allegedly) checked in and divert it to KM180. And Fhimah, the alleged airside accomplice, wasn't even at the airport that day, and no other possible accomplice was ever identified.

We also know that nothing was smuggled on to that plane, to the limits of where certainty can take us in such matters. The Luqa loading records were tested to destruction again and again and they held up.

So please. It's a coincidence that Megrahi was there at all, but maybe not such a big one. But to take that coincidence further, so that the apparently extraneous line in the Erac printout, which must (if genuine) have been due to some other piece of luggage being coded at station 206 just when the KM180 bags were going through, seems to point right to where Megrahi actually was - well, what are we supposed to think?

In an affair bedevilled by coincidences that boggle the imagination, this one takes the biscuit. So, when did the CIA discover where Megrahi was on the morning of the day in question? If it was after the publication of tray 4489 (that is, 17th August 1989), then I suppose we have to swallow it. But if they knew earlier than that, is that the crucial point?

Is it possible the CIA discovered some time in July or August 1989 that a JSO officer was conveniently present at Luqa airport right when a flight that connected to the bombed aircraft was checking in, and then proceeded to manufacture a case against him? Consisting of an extra line added to the printout Bogomira Erac had turned in, a fragment of a timing mechanism traceable to Libya and to a manufacturer Megrahi had had business dealings with, the substitution of an unrelated piece of debris with a page bearing the model number of a type of radio mainly sold to Libya, and the torturing of Gauci's evidence to turn Megrahi into the purchaser of these clothes?

It's possible I'm on entirely the wrong track, but otherwise the coincidences are doing my head in.

Rolfe.
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Old 24th May 2010, 02:20 PM   #316
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This is all about cheese.... Sorry, being facetious. Cheese and ducks, of course.

Following on from the unfortunate damage to my car caused by hitting a pair of suicidal mallards at speed just outside Lockerbie on 7th May,



I was shopping in my favourite butcher's shop on Friday and took advantage of a special offer they often have available - Lockerbie cheese (a variety of cheddar). Obviously, I'm supposed to sit up and take notice again.

Sorry for the frivolity. I'm just sad so many people are enjoying spending time chewing up the FOTL, or examining every minute detail of the Meredith Kercher murder, but hardly anybody seems enthused to get to grips with this one. I'll be serious, really.

Caustic Logic, have you any idea how to go about finding out when the CIA first became aware of Megrahi's presence at Luqa on the morning of 21st December 1988?

Rolfe.
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Old 25th May 2010, 01:03 AM   #317
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Crap, that poor duck. Did the other one die as well? That's really sad because ducks often mate for life. So a pair is often like husband and wife, though they've also been known to gay up their marriages I hear. You drove all the way home like that?

Excellent quality road kill however, and a shame not to have it eaten by someone.

I don't know off the top of my head the answer to that Q or where to find it. I'd imagine it could be found out almost anytime, considering he was on a short list of Libyans active on Malta and these people (??) can surely think quick. I'll keep in mind to see if I can find that when it's convenient. It's likely in the transcripts somewhere.

- Caustic (swish sound)
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Old 25th May 2010, 02:04 AM   #318
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I suspect they knew quite early on, but it's hard to be sure. He was travelling under a false name, so it wouldn't have been immediately apparent just from looking at passenger lists. On the other hand, Giaka was a busy little bee, telling the CIA quite a bit about his movements.

The thing is, though, the initial questioning of Gauci, from September 1989, wasn't concentrating on Megrahi at all - if anything, they were trying to get him to identify Abu Talb. From the expert witness reports on Gauci's evidence, I think he wasn't shown a picture of Megrahi until February 1991. Does that mean the investigators had no idea Megrahi might be implicated at all until two years after the incident? Or is it a question of the CIA running a game of their own (centred on Giaka), and keeping these cards very close to their chest?

I'd very much welcome any information that's to be had on this.

I'm certain I killed a brace of ducks. They were in the middle of the road, necking, in a shallow dip, and I didn't see them until about a nanosecond before I hit them. What I didn't realise was that the male had become wedged in my radiator gille, and I drove all the way home from Lockerbie with it. Look, it was about 4.30am and I'd been up all night at the election count in Dumfries. (The picture is a bit of a fake though, because I didn't think to photograph it until after I'd pulled the duck out. It was originally wedged much tighter and I think head-first with the arse sticking out. After I'd been to the garage to get an estimate for the damage, and the repair man had pulled out some loose bits of grille, I went home and arranged the corpse artistically for the photograph.)

From my background, eating that would have been a bit like eating something out of the post mortem room, and we have cultural taboos on that idea!

Rolfe.
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Old 9th June 2010, 06:57 PM   #319
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I suppose this will do in this thread.

I've challenged some of the Official Story supporters to explain the points of evidence that convince them Megrahi is guilty. Lots of tumbleweed, but nothing else. However, there are certain points, and the Malta baggage is the biggie.

Megrahi was checking in at Luqa for his flight to Tripoli at the next check-in desk to KM180, at the same time. And when Bogomira's printout was analysed, never mind all the other possibilities about what tray 4489 might be, the straightforward interpretation of the data is that it was something that came off KM180.

In one of the other threads, I've speculated that the decision to make this all about Libya was surprisingly early - pretty much about the time of the Thatcher/Bush phone call if not earlier. Cannistraro was appointed head of the CIA investigation, with a nod and a wink that this was one more thing he could pin on Gadaffi, because Bush sure as hell didn't want the PFLP-GC operation dissected in court.

At the same time, the CIA was talking to Giaka, who wanted to be a double agent but had the problem of not really being an agent in the first place. He contacted them in September 1988, and was passing over whatever meagre information he had all through the Lockerbie incident and investigation. He was talking about Megrahi and Fhimah as being JSO agents even before Maid of the Seas blew up.

We're led to believe by Paul Foot that the idea of blaming Megrahi didn't occur to anyone until late 1990, after the timer fragment was traced back to Bollier. And it certainly looks as if the Scottish police had no thought of any other culprits than the PFLP-GC throughout the first year of their interviews with Gauci.

This doesn't really gel, to me. If we assume I'm right about Cannistraro, then Bush decided Libya would make a handy scapegoat less than three months after the bombing. By sheer chance, evidence appears that the bomb bag may have come from Malta, and this is followed up in detail for a time. Then, much later, it actually transpires that one of the guys Giaka has been telling us are JSO agents and potential terrorists and bombers, was right there when the suspect flight was checking in.

If that's how it happened, Cannistraro must have thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

I can think of only three possible explanations here.
  • This was a huge coincidence, which quite by chance completely screwed Megrahi.
  • Cannistraro was right all along and Megrahi did it, God knows how.
  • Megrahi was framed.
Discuss.

Rolfe.
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Old 10th June 2010, 04:30 AM   #320
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FWIW, Re: Cannistraro, Leppard p. 211 says he "retired from the CIA in September 1990 after nearly two years leading the American intelligence investigation..."
How's that for LIHOP?
Doesn't seem to specify a date, but as the then-head of the Counter-terrorism center at CIA, I'd suspect he was in charge by default from the beginning.
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