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6th June 2010, 07:20 AM | #121 |
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6th June 2010, 07:33 AM | #122 |
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What I'm not sure about as regards either the "patsy" or "fall guy" terminology is what exactly is meant. Sometimes it seems to be meaning a low-level operative who was involved in the crime and was left to take all the blame. I don't think that's the case here.
If it just means someone wrongfully convicted on a mistaken interpretation of the evidence, then I think it's an appropriate description. If it means someone who was deliberately framed, well, that's a whole other can of worms. Rolfe. |
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6th June 2010, 07:52 AM | #123 |
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In relation to Megrahi I take it to mean that any involvement he had as a Libyan official is likely to have been small and that he didn't plan the operation, build the bomb or, as seems likely, plant it. In convicting Megrahi others were no longer required to give an account of themselves. Whether he was deliberately framed or not I don't know. He may have been asked to buy clothes and a suitcase and pass them on to a third party. Such activity would not be unusual for an agent of any country. Maybe he didn't have any involvement at all.
In taking the rap and the subsequent lack of effort to identify anyone else would suggest that he acted as the fall guy...perhaps for Libya, perhaps for Western security, perhaps for Iran, perhaps simply due to incompetence. |
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6th June 2010, 08:28 AM | #124 |
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Well, there's no real evidence Libya had anything to do with this. The details of that are probably better discussed elsewhere.
Megrahi was the Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies in Tripoli. Not the sort of person you ask to go and buy some clothes for you. And the main thrust of the appeal was evidence that he didn't buy the clothes. He didn't buy the clothes. He never had a suitcase of the right description, or indeed of any description on the day in question. And he didn't plant the bomb. Once that's understood, that's almost all the possible involvement of Libya in the affair up in smoke. Other than a fragment of electronics from a batch sold to Libya two years previously, and Libya wasn't exactly backwards about supplying armaments to terrorists, notably the IRA. It may be that there is a popular idea around that Megrahi was a low-level operative who was left to take the flak for the big fish, but it actually doesn't fly. If he didn't do what he was said to have done, and it appears he didn't, then they actually got the wrong bunch of terrorists. Rolfe. |
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4th July 2010, 02:31 AM | #125 |
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Well, one Scottish paper today claims that Megrahi is now approaching the final curtain:
http://www.sundaypost.com/postindex.htm Apologies for the Sunday Post reference; they're claimed it as an exclusive and the Herald hasn't picked it up yet. |
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4th July 2010, 02:47 AM | #126 |
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4th July 2010, 02:53 AM | #127 |
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Incidentally, I've suggested elsewhere that this be moved to the Non-US section, for rather obvious reasons.
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4th July 2010, 05:34 AM | #128 |
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As I've said elsewhere, I'm pretty convinced he wasn't guilty anyway. The evidence against him stinks - in particular the bribery of two witnesses to testify against him. Reading the both the original court judgement and the judgement of the first appeal, it's extremely difficult to see how a guilty verdict could be defended on the evidence available, except on the grounds that it wasn't politically expedient not to have someone convicted for that atrocity.
If he had a few extra months back in his homeland with his family, I for one don't feel especially outraged. Rolfe. |
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4th July 2010, 11:34 AM | #129 | ||
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4th July 2010, 11:38 AM | #130 |
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I suspect Frank Duggan would disagree, but you're right of course and thanks.
Rolfe. |
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4th July 2010, 12:23 PM | #131 |
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Hmmmm.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...bqiuHERX3KkX-Q http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/10501116.stm http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...s-or-more.html I don't think Karol Sikora has much idea what he's talking about. He messed up another expert job regarding a girl who was overdosed with radiation, last year. Rolfe. |
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4th July 2010, 06:46 PM | #132 |
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4th July 2010, 06:48 PM | #133 |
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4th July 2010, 11:25 PM | #134 |
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And specifically the complaint is that a Scottish court granted compassionate release because of advanced terminal cancer, yet he's still alive and living in the Middle East.
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4th July 2010, 11:40 PM | #135 |
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5th July 2010, 12:37 AM | #136 |
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In which case "Non-USA politics", if the proper place, is poorly named.
As far as this subject goes, I am disturbed to hear the case isn't as solid as one is lead to believe. Though I will quickly point out the equally disturbing feeling of some, when the thread was new, that there was Something Noble in letting the "guilty" guy go home, assuming true guilt. |
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5th July 2010, 01:22 AM | #137 |
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Well, the Telegraph has it's own subtle axe to grind vis-a-vis Scotland (together with its successive Labour and SNP administrations) so it wouldn't be my first choice of source. Going to one I think plays it more straight down the middle, today's Herald has some interesting comments from Jim Swires.
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5th July 2010, 01:31 AM | #138 |
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Didn't there used to be a unified politics forum, many years ago?
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5th July 2010, 02:14 AM | #139 |
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Yes, but the Yanks got fed up with us "sticking our nose" in on issues such as healthcare.
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5th July 2010, 02:55 AM | #140 |
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You're a bit slow on the uptake, aren't you? From the start of this discussion, even before Megrahi was released, sundry posters have been pointing out that he probably didn't do it. The main thrust of the argument as I recall it was mindless baying for him to die in prison, preferably in as much pain as possible, and please don't confuse the issue by pointing out that he's probably innocent. The relevant court judgements are available online, and I'd seriously like to hear from anyone who has read these documents and who still believes this case was proved beyond reasonable doubt - or even on the balance of probabilities. In fact the case is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese (called Edwin Bollier). http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library...ejudgement.pdf http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library...ljudgement.pdf There was a second appeal ongoing at the time of the release, and this was pretty certain to have resulted in the conviction being quashed. The evidence of the US authorities having bribed a key witness was damning. (Of course that wasn't the only witness they bribed, but the bribery of the first witness was uncovered during the original trial - why the trial continued after that revelation, nobody really knows.) If you search online for advocates promoting the view that this case was a serious miscarriage of justice, you'll find people like Hans Kochler (official UN observer to the trial), Robert Black (emeritus professor of law who was instrumental in arranging the trial), Jim Swire (father of one of the passengers on the plane) and even Robert Baer (CIA official who worked on the case). If on the other hand you look for people asserting Megrahi's guilt, you'll find only one Frank Duggan, spokesman for the US families of Pan Am 103 (not himself a relative, but a US government appointee, who never presents a case but merely jumps into discussions asserting that "the evidence was overwhelming"), Richard Marquise (FBI official who worked on the case, who again never presents a case but simply asserts guilt in occasional blog comments posts), and assorted twoofer web sites who seem to be basing their assessment on - wait for it - David Shayler. I find it odd that following on from the Sunday Post article Architect noted, saying that Megrahi is essentially on his deathbed, we have pretty much simultaneously reports like this one. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/h...tors-1.1039211
Quote:
Seems to me Sikora aquiesced to the Libyan government's desire for support for the compassionate release, and now he's embarrassed, and pretty much saying who knows how long such a patient could live - in rare cases it has been a very long time. Whether the Sunday Post's article is based on actually knowing about the man's clinical condition, or more speculation - well, who knows? Rolfe. |
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5th July 2010, 07:26 AM | #141 |
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Just to be absolutely accurate, the plane took off from Heathrow, having been loaded from empty there. This gave the UK complete jurisdiction over the incident, because the plane was under UK "host nation protection" at the time. The explosion was identified as occurring in a container of baggage which mostly held luggage that had been transferred on the tarmac from a feeder flight from Frankfurt, but which also contained a small number of cases loaded into it at Heathrow, having come from other connecting flights. A suitcase of the same description as the one identified as containing the bomb was seen by a Heathrow baggage superintendant in that container, in a position very close to where the explosion happened, before the Frankfurt flight landed. It was never established where that came from or who put it there. That suitcase was also not recovered after the disaster, and its owner was never identified. Oh and by the way, there was a break-in at the Heathrow terminal in question the night before all this happened. But hey, we know the bomb must have been in the luggage that came off the Frankfurt flight because.... er well, read the court papers and see how that got spun. Rolfe. |
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5th July 2010, 07:39 AM | #142 |
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Quote:
Those who think months of treatment, that is keeping him alive, is a walk in the park are delusional. Cancer is not a man flu. I saw what 4 months chemo did to my mother. This man will die, whether it be in 2 months or 6 months from now. It matters not now. |
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5th July 2010, 08:01 AM | #143 |
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.....Scotland soft on terrorism I see.....hmmmmmm....must not mention NORAID, Ted Kennedy, Patrick McGuire et al....
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"Nemo Me Impune Lacessit" Statements Richard G cannot back up - "You may not own a rifle, or a pistol in the U.K.. Period. One shotgun per person is allowed, under heavy regulations. Most owners have turned those in also, because the regulations, and registration are too difficult and burdensome" |
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5th July 2010, 08:44 AM | #144 |
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Why not? I mentioned it (quite a lot) in the "Second amendment" thread when some clueless Yank started talking about "the recent terrorist attacks in the UK", and the poster in question deserted the thread never to be seen again.
It's a point that shouldn't be ignored. Rolfe. |
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5th July 2010, 08:50 AM | #145 |
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What? You think there is something hypocritical about being taken to task about terrorism, when wanted IRA MURDERERS were being sheltered by American politicians and those collecting tins on St Paddys Day in New York and Boston were being used to buy Armalites to kill British citizens? You jest surely....
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"Nemo Me Impune Lacessit" Statements Richard G cannot back up - "You may not own a rifle, or a pistol in the U.K.. Period. One shotgun per person is allowed, under heavy regulations. Most owners have turned those in also, because the regulations, and registration are too difficult and burdensome" |
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5th July 2010, 09:27 AM | #146 |
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Thigh-slapping doesn't begin to cover it....
And as I said, the guy I was replying to never came back to the thread. It's actually not entirely irrelevant to the Lockerbie affair either, because one of the suspected reasons for the authorities being so keen to implicate Libya in that was Gadaffi's habit of selling Semtex and other armaments to the IRA, and this looked like a way to crack down on him. Rolfe. |
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5th July 2010, 09:39 AM | #147 |
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6th July 2010, 09:19 AM | #148 |
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Originally Posted by Rolfe
[....] You have no idea what it was like. You wouldn't listen to any pleas to close down Noraid and cut off the funding to the terrorists. That's right - in the late 20th century, Britain was under massive terrorist attack, funded from the USA. And nobody wants to go around with a gun in their sock. Then hey, you guys finally cop a hit, and you seem to think this has never happened to anyone else in the history of the world. You start pissing your pants in fear and advocating eveybody and their maiden aunt should be armed to the teeth. In the country that saw through the IRA years." --------------------------------------------------------------- Indeed. And let's be clear here. Saw through and defeated them |
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"Nemo Me Impune Lacessit" Statements Richard G cannot back up - "You may not own a rifle, or a pistol in the U.K.. Period. One shotgun per person is allowed, under heavy regulations. Most owners have turned those in also, because the regulations, and registration are too difficult and burdensome" |
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6th July 2010, 11:12 AM | #149 |
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Did we really defeat them? Or was it just a no-score draw, followed by sensible negotiations to achieve a hopefully lasting settlement?
[/derail] But yes, it's quite clear that some - not even a majority - of our North American cousins here have no idea of the impact of domestic Irish terrorism for a period of some 30 years. |
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6th July 2010, 01:58 PM | #150 |
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6th July 2010, 02:03 PM | #151 |
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I think Sikora was just shrugging with a sort of "all bets are off" remark. Word from Libya is that Megrahi is off all active treatment and on a morphine drip. You don't linger very long in that condition.
Rolfe. |
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6th July 2010, 02:25 PM | #152 |
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Well, chemotherapy for late, terminal prostate cancer would be rare in the UK. I don't know this, but I suspect it would have to be strictly privately funded treatment. Megrahi appears to have received chemotherapy in Libya which may have prolonged his life beyond what would be expected for a similar patient in the UK.
Or it might be pure chance, or minor shennanigans at the point of 'compassionate release'. Or major shennanigans to avoid the embarrassment of an appeal. The duration of his survival really doesn't matter. |
6th July 2010, 02:30 PM | #153 |
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There's some debate, as some sources reported that he received a treatment which is in fact available on the NHS.
The Libyans wanted him home because they believe he was wrongly convicted. The Westminster government wanted him back to sweeten the BP oil deal. The Scottish government wanted him back because that was a good way to persuade him to abandon that embarrassing appeal that was likely to clear him and leave them with no conviction for the worst mass murder in Scottish history. And maybe they didn't fancy the international political fall-out if he died in a Scottish prison. What's not to like? And since he probably didn't do it, and would have been freed on appeal, I can't see the reason for the outrage. Rolfe. |
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7th July 2010, 08:54 AM | #154 |
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why isn't Al-Megrahi dead yet?
Mass murderer Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi, who did just eight years of his life sentence after he was convicted of killing 270 people, was released last year on the dubious grounds that he had just three months to live. He returned to Libya to receive a hero's welcome, and now almost a year later he's living in luxury. What's even more maddening is that apparently, the man is still breathing.
It turns out the diagnosis was based on the opinion of just one doctor who now says that he could live as long as 10 years. http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/...bie-bombe.html |
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7th July 2010, 09:20 AM | #155 |
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7th July 2010, 09:33 AM | #156 |
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I don't know. You could always try reading the thread dedicated to the subject in this very forum.
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7th July 2010, 09:43 AM | #157 |
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You know, I'm getting tired of explaining the same points every time someone else starts a new thread on exactly the same subject.
Like, simultaneous stories have the man on his deathbed on morphine, and possibly going to live another ten (or even twenty) years. Who do you want to believe? Karol Sikora is a bit of a hired gun in this department, however his was most cetainly not the only opinion taken into consideration. Predicting how long a terminally-ill patient will live is notoriously unreliable, and particularly if he is subsequently moved to massively better living conditions and given a new round of chemotherapy. And Megrahi almost certainly didn't do it, and much of the point of letting him go back to Libya was to put a stop to the ongoing appeal which was widely believed to have been going to acquit him. Rolfe. |
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7th July 2010, 09:45 AM | #158 |
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Just bumping this as it seems to have been overlooked for some reason....
Rolfe. |
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7th July 2010, 09:53 AM | #159 |
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And a big problem is he was hired by Libya to declare he had 3 months to live.
Quote:
Now we know Sikora was hired by Libya to give a 3-month prognosis, and it was his prognosis that led to his release. And, of course, Sikora dodged his complicity in this for nearly a year. Remember last November thaht he was shocked shocked shocked that he was still alive? Freaking scumbag. |
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7th July 2010, 09:58 AM | #160 |
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