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19th July 2010, 02:17 PM | #281 |
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I forgot to say that I'm sure this is the part that frustrates you the most. Welcome to the world of power changing people.
And FWIW, right now is not the time to slap the U.S. with any subtleties like doubt about Megrahi's guilt. It's time to play real nice and roll over for the Senators, tail tucked in submission. I don't know. But people here really wouldn't get it. One more reason fury. "Now them Scots are trying to cover themselves saying the guy is INNOCENT?" I'm REALLY going to quit Scotch whiskey now, right after this last shot... Anyway, things are what they are. Personal anger is only useful if it motivates you. You certainly can't physically choke the problem away, so any adrenaline pumping to your hands is a waste. Etc. deep breaths... I only say that cause I am otherwise encouraging anger because !!11!! I AHTE PEOPLE!!!1111! okay, better... |
19th July 2010, 02:23 PM | #282 |
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The UK govt and the US should get the old FU from the Scots.
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19th July 2010, 02:40 PM | #283 |
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I fervently and sincerely hope this never happens. Arrogant, ignorant, loudmouthed morons. How would the USA like it if Britain or Scotland demanded their senior government ministers show up and explain themselves like naughty schoolboys regarding something which was entirely their own jurisdiction? This is absolutely the time to point out that the conviction was a complete farce, when people are listening. Rolfe. |
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19th July 2010, 06:30 PM | #284 |
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The "Lockerbie bomber" was released because he wasn't really the Lockerbie bomber - a fact known by the elites of Scotland, England, USA and Libya and the prostate cancer was a convenient way to lay the whole issue to rest.
Allegations about BP are just a convenient scape-goat to direct anger to. The corruption is not in BP, it is in the ruling elite (of which BP is a minor branch). Nothing is served by keeping a elderly sanctions busting trader in prison. |
20th July 2010, 02:39 AM | #285 |
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Hey, he's 58! This is "elderly" to you?
"Ruling elites", sigh. It's one way of putting it though. Just a way that's going to get most sane people in the western hemisphere to tune you out as a CT nut.... I don't know how many of these people currently shouting about it actually realise he didn't do it. I think some of them simply haven't looked at the evidence and go with "the court convicted him" without making any further enquiry. I think others have looked at the evidence and realise the appeal would have been successful (barring the judges being nobbled), but have decided he's really guilty in spite of the lack of evidence. This last was what was being promoted by Cannistraro. His line is that the airport ground staff and authorities on (devoutly Christian, western) Malta were all suborned by the Libyans to cover up the evidence, and that not a single person slipped up or repented in over 20 years, despite intensive interviewing, phone taps and a level of scrutiny that was beyond intrusive. Now there's a CT if you like.... My suspicion is that the decision-makers, who tend to be busy people, are being told exactly that by the spooks - even though the evidence is non-existent, he did it anyway, trust us. There's an enormous amount that says that simply isn't so, from the fact that the plan as proposed by the authorities is insane and would only have worked by a pure fluke, to the fact that there's a shedload of evidence pointing elsewhere. Nevertheless, it can sound persuasive. And if you contemplate the consequences of allowing Megrahi to be acquitted, then it's very attractive to try to prevent that happening. Acquitting him means admitting you got the wrong guy, that you have no idea who murdered 270 people, that each of the victims' families was paid £6 million by Gadaffi on false pretences, and we now have to open a cold case and start investigating all over again. Costing how many millions, in very tight financial times. I think it's pernicious. To convict someone, then block an appeal, without sufficient evidence but in the belief that he's guilty anyway, is a violation of all that justice stands for. Rolfe. |
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20th July 2010, 05:08 AM | #286 |
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Good stuff.
My end: I find out NY Daily News and Newsvine have a forum pane where threads are collected and bumpable, etc. I will single-handedly rule the American forums like we've done here. I'm being given a wide berth already. Here's from a recent discussion (thanks Rolfe for the tips on things I don't personally know or find, it's good to have someone else trustworthy):
Quote:
NYDN's is apparently justemotive issues being emoted over, mostly violent,tragic, morbid, sexual, or some combo. Swearing is alolowed, horrendous idiocy prevails. Newsvine has potential. One upright poster there actually asked me for evidence, and after a gentle nudge, actually e-mailed me to say he was looking at it (Gauci's ID, emph. on date). No report yet, but he seems reasonable, so it'll be a success. Sorry, I know cross-forum whatnot... I'll just alert on anything educationally relevant to the other stuff. Okay, goodnight. |
20th July 2010, 08:33 AM | #287 |
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It's three years since I started that first thread in CT, mostly saying, "Look, most of the serious journalists say this guy didn't do it and there were some shenanigans involved, does anyone know what that was all about?"
That was prompted by the issuing of the SCCRC report on the case, and the granting of leave to appeal. At that time and in the months following there was a lot of media attention, all relating to the flaws in the evidence, Tony Gauci having been bribed (which was common knowledge before the details were published last September), and the refusal to release the document sought by the defence that would have allegedly harmed Britain's relations with a "friendly power" if it saw the light of day. Every morning, the case was in the news. And every morning, the subject was the evidence, and the challenging of the evidence, and the possibility that in fact Megrahi had been wrongly convicted. And it's kind of been going on ever since. Why hasn't the appeal come to court yet, it's been five years? Oh noes, Megrahi has a fatal cancer! Why are they still delaying the appeal? Ah, the appeal has started, hey look how all that evidence is starting to unravel! Oh dear, one of the judges is ill, so they've called a six-month adjournment. Is that fair, when the appelant is terminally ill? Then, during the adjournment, it looks very much as if Megrahi has been leaned on to withdraw his appeal. He says as much himself, first by way of a statement from his lawyer. And the minute that's done, hey presto! The appeal is airbrushed from history. If it's mentioned, then he withdrew it of his own free will, and by doing so he has acknowledged his guilt! It's being treated like a confession by some people. Where are all these journalists who were writing about the bribery of Gauci and the iniquity of the PIIC on the secret document, and all the rest of the problems, back in 2007 and 2008? Somehow it's just not flavour of the month any more. Rolfe. |
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20th July 2010, 01:49 PM | #288 |
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This is a triumph of hope over experience, however, can you not understand the possibility that neither your government nor my government has any interest in acknowledging the crappiness of this conviction? I already explained to you that the US Department of Justice was a major player in securing that crappy conviction, and that they also provided the $3 million paid to the Gauci brothers under the Rewards for Justice scheme. Why would they suddenly want to upset that applecart now? Do you think there's anyone at all in a position of authority in either Britain or the USA who wants to acknowledge that they have no freaking idea who bombed that airliner, and start all over again with a cold case of 270 murders to investigate? Rolfe. |
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20th July 2010, 02:14 PM | #289 |
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I'm not sure why Cameron and Obama are even discussing the case publicly. Cameron has no jurisdiction in Scottish cases and the Conservative party is a minor player in Scottish politics. Obama made his representations at the time and they were duly considered.
Moreover, neither Obama or Cameron have any intention of retrieving Megrahi. While BP may have an interest in Libyan oil, so do Exxon and a host of other US oil companies. While Megrahi was being released, US senators were in Libya that very week signing an oil deal (including Republican ones). If one were to try to determine who would gain if he were released there would be one hell of a list. It seems everyone wants to take a cut and dump all the blame on the Scots and BP. I can't say people in Scotland are overly vexed over this issue though. More bemused at Cameron and Milliband's posturing than anything. |
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20th July 2010, 02:24 PM | #290 |
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So much for the New Politics: Cameron grandstanding, playing up to the American politicians is as embarrassing as Gordon Brown following Obama round like a love-sick puppy*.
* - I don't necessarily believe this version of events last year, but it sounds too good not to repeat. |
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20th July 2010, 02:35 PM | #291 |
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20th July 2010, 02:42 PM | #292 |
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I think it would be hard for them to get less - about 15% seems to be their bedrock and PR ensures they get a similar amount in seats. I can't see them get more mind you. They performed very badly in the election just passed. Their one solitary MP is having enough problems with alleged financial mis-doings than raising the standard.
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20th July 2010, 03:47 PM | #293 |
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Probably for the same reason Obama gets flak for the Arizona immigration law: unless Arizona (or Scotland) start building their own embassies and so forth, the British PM and the U.S. president will be seen as the international "representatives" of those entities.
As in most democratic nations, the national executive is far from all-powerful, but will still get blamed as if he is |
20th July 2010, 03:53 PM | #294 |
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It's difficult to know. They're obviously doing it to bash the SNP. Who knows if it will work.
Remember last August, there was deathly silence from Westminster (apart from the helpful hint of releasing Biggs a fortnight previously) until Kenny made his announcement, then once Megrahi was safely away, they all laid into him. (Of course his speech was largely sanctimonious twaddle, so they had a point.) I was quite touched by Megrahi's welcome at Tripoli, and glad the Libyans were waving our flag rather than burning it - of course nobody in that crowd thought he'd done it. But then people started taking that the wrong way. Since then, the appeal has been airbrushed from history. Who now remembers the spring of 2009 when that conviction was unravelling before our eyes? But nobody in any position of authority wants to acknowledge that Megrahi was probably about to be acquitted, and would have been by now but for agreeing to give up the appeal. So if everyone from Miliband to Obama is lining up to lambast the SNP for releasing "the biggest mass-murderer in Scottish history", then mud tends to stick. Especially when Kenny just goes right on being sanctimonious. Maybe after all this fuss dies down we'll get some articles looking at the appallingly weak evidence they brought that conviction on, but they aren't doing it now. Rolfe. |
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20th July 2010, 09:11 PM | #295 |
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All we need are Patton And Monty going at each other to make this a classic US/UK dust up.
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20th July 2010, 10:20 PM | #296 |
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Heard in a restaurant yesterday:
Lady: So now it turns out BP got the Pan-Am 103 murderer freed. Man: If they'd just'd executed him like we would have that could never have happened. Lady: Maybe if we start putting those BP bastards on death row here things might be even. |
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20th July 2010, 10:40 PM | #297 |
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Watching the coverage of Cameron here in the States was just painful. News orgs were bragging about asking him "tough questions", and he was brown nosing like... Well, a British PM .
Not a word on the validity of his conviction. Hell, I've only heard two passing mentions of the Scottish government. |
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21st July 2010, 03:58 AM | #298 |
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Watching the coverage from the USA was cringe-worthy. It reminded Scotland of just how much credence should be put on Cameron's recent promises to treat Scotland with respect, and to deal respectfully with the Scottish government. He was doing it for party-political advantage of course, but it remains to be seen how that will work out for him.
I note that Robert Black has collected a number of the best press articles about the issue on his blog. It seems that thoughtful commentators are beginning to work a few things out. It's worth a read. http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/20...1_archive.html Front-page newspaper headlines today are certainly about something completely different - a mortgage scandal involving the Clydesdale Bank gets a full-page splash. However, Lockerbie is certainly up there, with a side-bar pointer to articles taking up most of page 3, and a comment article. The comment column makes some pertinent points.
Originally Posted by Brian Currie
He's right of course. There was some self-righteous posturing from Labour and Conservative politicians at the time, and enquiries were conducted. While the complainers didn't like it, they had to admit everything was done by the book. Kawczynski is being particularly hypocritical, because in 2007-09 he was among the forefront of the Westminster politicians trying to force the Scottish government to use Megrahi to advance political/commercial interests in the Middle East, which the Scottish government refused to do. The correspondent also has some harsh words about US hypocrisy.
Quote:
These guys operate in a Federal system, and as politicians should be able to distinguish between diiffreent jurisdictions and different legal processes. But all we hear about is what they imagine happened, which is so wide of the mark as to be on another planet. It does look like simple posturing, combined with a desire to draw attention away from US commercial involvement with Libya. There are also nine readers' letters taking up the bulk of the correspondence column. You can read them for yourselves, but I'll summarise the points made.
Caustic Logic, the next time you see someone on a US forum carrying on about how ordinary Scots all deplore Megrahi's release, that would be a good page to link them to. Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 04:25 AM | #299 |
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Just saw this on the BBc and its got me hopping mad:
"Ms Gillibrand said it was clear a full investigation into the release was still needed. "This is about how we fight terrorism. We cannot have a convicted terrorist be told that he had three months to live and released and sitting in the lap of luxury for up to 10 years," she said. "That is not justice served and, when we are trying to be able to be effective in fighting terrorism worldwide as allies, we cannot tolerate a convicted terrorist going free on the basis of evidence that may well have been fraudulent." Senator Chuck Schumer, also from New York, said there was "too much suspicion to brush this aside". "The only way to restore the integrity of what happened and to continue the integrity of the British government is to do a full and complete investigation," he said." I'll tell you what MS Gillibrand and Chuck, when the wanted, murdering IRA scumbags that are currently living in the lap of luxury in your own back yards with the collusion of your Politician pals get handed back to us, then come and lecture my country about the integrity of Government and justice served. And Cameron should be telling Obama this!! |
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21st July 2010, 04:32 AM | #300 |
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The affair also got top billing on the radio this morning. Kenny MacAskill was grilled for ten minutes, live, just after 8am. Shorn of his rather pomopus delivery, the point he made was that in law (and remember he is a lawyer by profession) he had almost no discretion in the matter. His role was to scrutinise the reports from the various bodies (prison medical service, parole board and so on) to determine if the criteria for compassionate release had been met. Given that they had, and that these different authorities were all recommending granting compassionate release, it was then his job to do it, and then come on the radio and take the flak.
He also pointed out that the prognosis was based on the prisoner remaining in a Scottish jail. A number of factors can influence life expectancy in cancer cases, and prisoners in jail may simply turn their faces to the wall and give up. Being reunited with family in a home setting, and being given a further round of chemotherapy, can make a lot of difference. As he said, his information was, necessarily, based on Megrahi remaining in prison, and since that didn't happen, we're only speculating. He was asked whether he would release Peter Tobin (a serial killer currently in jail in Scotland) in the same circumstances. He answered that each case was considered on its individual merits and he didn't want to get into hypotheticals, but that the severity of the crime wasn't in itself an issue. What was an issue was public safety, and the possibility of any continuing risk to public safety was one of the factors considered by the prison authorities in making their recommendations to him. It was an extremely convincing performance. The fact is, he has the documentation to back it up, which has already been scrutinised as part of the Scottish parliamentary inquiry into the release, and it was all in order. He mentioned that there were some documents from the Westminster government that were refused permission to release at that time, and he called on these to be released as well in the interests of full transparency. He pointed out, as others have also mentioned, that no prisoner who met the criteria for compassionate release in Scotland has ever been denied it, by SNP, Labour, LibDem or Conservative politicians. His job was to satisfy himself that the criteria had all been met, and then follow precedent. He didn't elaborate, but it has been suggested elsewhere that Megrahi could have appealled to the European Court of Human Rights if he'd been treated in a discriminatory manner in this respect. He almost persuaded me he was playing a straight bat all the way. The elephant in the room was the appeal. Kenny at no point acknowledged that an appeal was in progress, and that the SCCRC had reported the case as a possible miscarriage of justice, thus he might in fact have been freeing an innocent man. That's par for the course. Similarly, the interviewer at no point asked Kenny why he had put pressure on Megrahi to withdraw the appeal. Of course Kenny will say he didn't, but Megrahi and his lawyers have stated several times that he did, and I've never heard Kenny confronted with that. It would be a particularly interesting point to make now, because if the appeal had not been withdrawn, it could well have been concluded by now, and the conviction quashed. And nobody mentioned Ronnie Biggs either, funnily enough. Later, as I was driving to work, a phone-in started on the subject. The first thing I heard was someone phoning in to talk about the appeal, saying that the public deserved this case to be fully examined not just the defendant. The six points mentioned by the SCCRC were brought up, as was the US DoJ bribe paid to Gauci (and the holidays in Scotland given to him during the case). Next up was Martin Cadman, whose son died at Lockerbie. He pointed out that the majority of the UK families have never believed Megrahi had anything to do with it, and questioned what was going on in the USA that none of the US families seemed to have any idea of the issues. He is convinced from personal exprience that there is a large US and UK government cover-up surrounding Lockerbie. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming days and weeks. Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 04:35 AM | #301 |
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21st July 2010, 04:37 AM | #302 |
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Thanks for catching and sharing that. And a chance to ask, as an American and one who doesn't buy CTs usually, but who's been able to see some of the amazing discussions here, well, what do you think?
Rolfe: From my info, the 3 months prognosis exam was I believe on August 3, and Fraser's report dated August 10. Just when was his appeal hprocess to start its hearing, last they heard at that point? Some date in November, correct? Some crazy stuff going down. I really don't follow politics very close, here or there,so I'm just going to mostly luurk along the edges and read what y'all have to say. |
21st July 2010, 06:26 AM | #303 |
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Leave to appeal (for a second time, the first one was bungled) was sought in 2003. The SCCRC spent nearly four years investigating the facts, including re-interviewing many of the witnesses I believe. So we perhaps can't criticise that part of the delay too much - apart from anything else, they discovered about the Gaucis having been paid millions of dollars and relocated to Australia, which the defence hadn't known about.
Leave to appeal was granted in 2007, and everybody assumed it would come to court in 2008. However there were more delays and foot-dragging on the part of the Crown, to a large extent centred around the mysterious secret document that was being withheld by the government. Instead of hearing about the appeal, it was announced in September 2008 that Megrahi had aggressive prostate cancer. Even right then there was speculation about compassionate release, but the government said he wasn't sick enough, but maybe later. The appeal finally came to court in April of 2009, and there were a few weeks of hearings. Then there was an adjournment. I had assumed that was directly because of the illness of one of the judges, but according to the primary source that illness wasn't announced until July. Whaever the cause, the case wasn't scheduled to come back to court until November 2009. Three months after the three-month prognosis was given. It's quite possible Kenny and the rest of the establishment didn't influence the prognosis at all. He is certainly telling the truth about all the reports and recommendations from the appropriate bodies being in order. He seems to have jumped at the chance of getting the appeal withdrawn though. Before that happened, there was speculation that the appeal might even have been continued on Megrahi's behalf after his death, possibly by one of his sons. Scots law allows for an interested party to continue the action when a defendant dies during the course of an appeal. Jim Swire was even talking about finding out whether he himself was eligible to be such an "interested party". However that can't be done now that it's been withdrawn. Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 07:04 AM | #304 |
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It's all very interesting to be honest. After all that has happened, perhaps a rather spurious connection between Megrahi's release and BP, and that company's disasterous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, may well be the catalyst for finally finding out what really was going on with Megrahi's appeal being dropped.
If the pressure continues to mount on the SNP govt., and they are the ones left to carry the can for this whole debacle, while UK and US politicians continue to push the 'it was a sole Scottish decision and nothing to do with us because we'd have let him rot', perhaps they'll be pushed so far into a corner and have no other alternative but to release the full documents relating to his appeal (which have declined up to now) showing the 'likely innocence', and therefore the justification for his release - albeit under the compassionate ruling. And that pressure does appear to be building. Dr Hans Köchler, the UN appointed observer at the Lockerbie Trial issued this statement today expressing his support for the call by a group of United States Senators for an inquiry into the release by the Scottish government of the only person convicted in connection with the midair explosion of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie (Scotland) on 21 December 1988.
Quote:
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/20...lockerbie.html |
21st July 2010, 08:19 AM | #305 |
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Thanks, Buncrana, I was just coming to post that link. If Prof. Kochler has come out of the woodwork (or rather out of the web into RL), things may get slightly more serious.
Most of the posturing politicians probably haven't a clue about the real issues. They're only after press exposure sounding tough on a subject they perceive as resonating with the public. However, if they offer enough opportunity to say, do you realise this conviction was a complete travesty, they may accomplish rather more than they intended. It's undeniable there is a pretty sizeable cover-up here. I've even considered, is it a cover-up of genuine evidence Megrahi was guilty, obtained in ways the spooks don't want to tell us about, as suggested by some of the CT-debunkers. However, that seems extremely unlikely, partly because we know the nature of the ace-in-the-hole evidence the prosecution thought it had, and it was discredited, and partly because the plan Megrahi is supposed to have been part of is insane and would have had a high chance of falling flat on its face at several different stages. It seems quite probable that it's as Martin Cadman says. The US and UK governments of the time knew exactly what happened, but had their reasons for not allowing that to become public. In my opinion, possibly a badly botched attempt to stop something like this happening, which ended up actually causing it to happen. Twenty years on, how strong is the need or desire to keep the secrecy going? It may be that by now, what is being covered up is the act of covering up, not the original secret as such. An investigation of the circumstances under which the Frankfurt airport baggage records mysteriously vanished wholesale, days after the disaster, might still yield some interesting factoids. Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 08:30 AM | #306 |
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Take a look at this Guardian CiF article. Lockerbie truth must be known.
The author is yet another of the UK relatives, who seem to be able to speak for themselves instead of hiding behind a paid spokesman who has no personal stake in this, and little knowledge of the facts. Pamela Dix lost her brother at Lockerbie. She has never said she is convinced Megrahi is innocent, merely that we don't know what happened. The comments are as interesting as the article, actually. It seems that everyone and his dog (or at least the portion of them that post on CiF) knows that Zeist was a kangaroo court. Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 09:40 AM | #307 |
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Prof Black is putting up more articles by the hour it seems. Always worth checking in.
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/20...1_archive.html Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 01:11 PM | #308 |
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It sounds like a horrible bit of FUBAR. Letting the US get involved with what sure seems like a dubious conviction doesn't make anybody look good. I think there really should be a thorough investigatory commission into all this new information. But....who would do it?
And one thing keeps gnawing at me though. Why? Why go through the mechanics of rigging things to get this guy? Why blame it on Libya if it was likely someone else that the US and UK hated? |
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21st July 2010, 02:08 PM | #309 |
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I don't think the issue is that Libya wasn't involved but that al-Megrahi isn't involved.
But if -- as it appears Rolfe is indicating -- the compassionate release was engineered to terminate an appeal that would probably have reversed the conviction, then I think Scotland is getting all the bad press is deserves. Have the courage of your convictions (literally). If the guy is innocent, let the appeal play out. Don't abuse some other process (compassionate release) to avoid the embarrassment of having the conviction overturned on appeal. If Scotland wants to do the right thing, someone in the government should stand up and say, "We sent him home because he wasn't guilty. We knew it, and the appeal would have confirmed it. We didn't feel like waiting for our own appeals process to play out in the normal course, so we got a doctor to say al-Megrahi had 3 months to live, and used 'compassionate release' to justify it." It might not stop the hoopla, but at least it would be honest and forthright. Right now, the Scottish government is stuck defending what appears to be a very shaky compassionate release determination, rather than upholding the more laudable concept of releasing an innocent man. |
21st July 2010, 02:36 PM | #310 |
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Heads up, anyone who can receive Newsnight Scotland. Gary Robertson has just announced that he is going to interview Hans Kochler about why the conviction was a travesty and a set-up, at 11 o'clock on BBC2 Scotland. Might be online in England, don't know about abroad.
This might be good. ETA: Started 5 minutes early.... Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 03:13 PM | #311 |
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Interviews seem to be going over a number of the points which have been brought up by you, Caustic and other posters here, which is good, but it really needs to be put across in the States I think.
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21st July 2010, 03:27 PM | #312 |
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Nobody claims it is anything to do with a desire to frame any individual.
Maybe the someone else might have been someone the US/UK hated at the time of Lockerbie (or simply a mercenary group hired by someone the US/UK hated), but by the time the investigation moved forward was politically very useful to the US/UK? "There is, in my opinion (not necessarily shared by the families), an explanation for all this, an explanation so shocking that no one in high places can contemplate it. It is that the Lockerbie bombing was carried out not by Libyans at all but by terrorists based in Syria and hired by Iran to avenge the shooting down in the summer of 1988 of an Iranian civil airliner by a US warship. This was the line followed by both British and US police and intelligence investigators after Lockerbie. Through favoured newspapers like the Sunday Times, the investigators named the suspects - some of whom had been found with home-made bombs similar to the one used at Lockerbie. This line of inquiry persisted until April 1989, when a phone call from President Bush senior to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned her not to proceed with it. A year later, British and US armed forces prepared for an attack on Saddam Hussein's occupying forces in Kuwait. Their coalition desperately needed troops from an Arab country. These were supplied by Syria, which promptly dropped out of the frame of Lockerbie suspects. Libya, not Syria or Iran, mysteriously became the suspect country, and in 1991 the US drew up an indictment against two Libyan suspects. " http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/ma...ockerbie.libya |
21st July 2010, 03:54 PM | #313 |
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Nobody's listening over there. The Newsnicht interview was moderately stellar. Hans Kochler followed by Jim Swire followed by a local university don who is an expert in US politics. It should be available some time soon on iPlayer on this link. ETA here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t4pzh I'll try to summarise. Kochler's English is good but not entirely fluent, and he spoke slowly. He was also being rather reserved and inviting Gary to make inferences rather than saying what he meant. He said there might be something to investigate as regards the UK government and the prisoner transfer arrangement, but that was irrelevant to the actual release so it was rather peripheral. He then moved on to the withdrawal of the appeal, and questioned why that happened. Surely it was in the interests of justice to allow it to continue? His implication seemed to be that Megrahi had had his arm twisted by Kenny MacAskill in the visit Kenny made to Greenock prison. He had the time-line. Kenny does his prison visit on 4th August, Megrahi applies to withdraw the appeal on 12th August, leave granted to withdraw the appeal on 18th August, compassoinate release granted 20th August. (Anyone who wants to search the live thread for that date will notice I made exactly the same inference.) Kochler went on to question why the visit was made. Gary pointed out he said he felt the prisoner had a right to make representation to him. Kochler pointed out the move was unprecedented, had never happened in any other compassionate release. The three of them (Gary, Kochler and Jim Swire) seemed to spend a lot of time asking each other why Megrahi withdrew the appeal, and answer came there none. At the end of the interview, Kochler moved on from BP, which he said was peripheral, and the withdrawal of the appeal, which clearly angered him, to calling for a review of the original trial and first appeal. Gary then turned to Jim Swire, who said he wholeheartedly supported an overarching enquiry. That the UK relatives had been waiting 20 years for such a thing. That the FAI found that the bombing was prevantable, which should have mandated an enquiry to determine how, and where the errors had been, but this never happened. He went on to say he didn't believe Libya had anything to do with it, which rather implied that Megrahi was innocent. He went back over the "they blamed the PFL-GC for the first two years" story (which as we know unpacks rather differently), and said that in his opinion it was about Middle East power politics from the start, which usually means oil, and it simply wasn't politically acceptable to pursue the real culprits. He pointed out that Margaret Thatcher, the latter years of whose premiership had been dominated and overshadowed by Lockerbie, stated implicitly in her autobiography that Libya was not responsible. Swire, I think, was the one who made the point most strongly about the prisoner transfer agreement. The Scottish government was bitterly opposed to it from the get-go. It felt it was a shady deal about trade agreements (bang on, obviously), and it was angry that a reserved Scottish matter was being horse-traded by Tony Blair. Alex Salmond protested strongly about it almost as soon as he became first Minister. This is true, and I think it is extremely important. Swire's theory about the withdrawal of the appeal was different from Kochler's. He said that Megrahi was almost certainly in regular contact with Libya, and the Libyan government may well have urged him to withdraw the appeal to maximise his chances of repatriation. I think Swire was implying that Libya has long ago accepted that it traded accepting the blame for Lockerbie and acceding to the Camp Zeist trial, for ending the sanctions and the beginning of rehabilitation into the civilised world. Libya does not feel it is in its national interests to upset that applecart, an applecart which would undoubtedly be upset if Magrahi's conviction was to be overturned on appeal. Finally, the academic tried to explain how come the Americans had so completely failed to grasp any of this. Basically that a federated country didn't understand Britain, called Britain England, and as devolutoin was only 11 years old, wasn't really aware of it yet. Or something. And that the senators are getting kudos from their constituencies for the way they're behaving, and that's really all that matters. Hopefully the clip will be available to view soon. It lasted for about 15 minutes. Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 04:06 PM | #314 |
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It was mid-March 1989. Paul Foot is fairly sound on the subject. Paul Channon was sat on by Thatcher on 17th March, so it was very shortly before then. A number of us, currently only myself, Caustic Logic and Buncrana, have been busting our brains in the CT forum sifting the evidence on this for about a year. Nobody else seems to care a dime. Back last summer, any mention of this subject was a sure-fire trigger for some US posters to demand the thread in question be moved to Conspiracy Theories, and then it promptly died because they didn't post to it any more. Nevertheless, there are about half a dozen threads where we've teased out the evidence for this and other suggestions, and it unpacks rather differently from the simplistic common perception of a sudden change of direction in late 1990. That's when it became public, and when PC Plod was told to go after a different suspect, but the roots do indeed go back to March 1989, and possibly (in the case of Frankfurt airport) to 22nd December 1988. There seems to be some sort of agreement on this forum that because 9/11 wasn't a conspiracy (OK, it was, a bunch of Arabs conspired to fly some aeroplanes into some large buildings), and man really did land on the moon, and Oswald really did shoot Kennedy, that the Official Story is true in every single instance. Particularly if it involves Arab terrorists downing a US airliner. It ain't necessarily so. Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 04:14 PM | #315 |
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Thanks for that Rolfe. I managed to catch it there, and your summary covers it well.
What I find perplexing is, why didn't the Scottish govt just make sure the appeal was allowed to continue while offering compassionate release? I appreciate the immense problems would come with the likely acquittal, but c'mon folks, take the bull by the horns, show the people of Scotland you do have values, principles and have the strength of your convictions, that seperate you from the old colonial rulers at Wesminster. Paving the way for a huge surge in new voters and thereby actually strengthening the rallying call for independence. For the political status quo? Well that particular agenda looks like it may well, eventually the way things are going, present you in with just as many, if not more hypocritical shadows, than westminister. Certainly outside of Scotland if the UK and US have their way. There is a way to cast off the mud being slung that's beginning to stick: set up a public enquiry and get the documents relating to the appeal and SCCRC conclusion made available. |
21st July 2010, 04:49 PM | #316 |
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Here's what's been bugging me about the withdrawal of the appeal. The official explanation, so far as there is one, is that Megrahi had applied both for prisoner transfer and for compassionate release. Since the former required the withdrawal of the appeal, he decided to withdraw it to maximise his chances of getting home.
This is slightly odd for a start. And you know what? A few pennies are dropping with me right now. This simply doesn't make any sense though. Megrahi had a TV in prison, that was well-known. (Gadaffi bought him a large-screen plasma TV, and the other prisoners liked to watch football on it - this was a random news story years ago.) He also read newspapers. He gave an interview to a Herald journalist in which he said the Herald was his preferred newspaper. He had tried to persuade his fellow-prisoners of its merits, but they stubbornly favoured the Sun. So, Megrahi was following the same news sources as I was. I knew all along that an SNP government would never grant him a prisoner transfer. Alex Salmond spoke out bitterly against it right at the start, tried (unsuccessfully) to have Megrahi exempt from it, and denounced it as a shabby deal for commercial interests. Just as Jim Swire said. It never got any better. SNP disapproval of the Labour Deal in the Desert never waned. It simply was not going to happen. If I knew that, Megrahi knew that. So why bother with the prisoner transfer at all? It was quite obvious from 6th August (the release of Ronnie Biggs, the precedent that nobody seems to be mentioning at the moment) that Megrahi would be freed by compassionate release also. It was only a matter of time. And interested parties were all pleased that this would allow the appeal to continue. Which should have suited Megrahi as well. At the very least, why not wait and see what happened? If compassionate release had been refused, he could always have withdrawn the appeal then and re-applied for the prisoner transfer. But he didn't do it that way. So the "he wanted to maximise his chances of getting home by keeping the prisoner transfer option open" argument doesn't hold water. He wasn't going to get prisoner transfer and he must have known that. Not until a future time when the SNP was no longer in power, anyway. Kochler thinks Kenny went to Greenock and twisted his arm, basically saying I'll grant the compassionate release if you withdraw the appeal, face to face with no written records to give away the deal. And this may be so. But Jim Swire's take on it has made me think of a completely different angle. Someone asked, some time back, so they were dragging their feet on the appeal, what would they have done if Megrahi hadn't contracted cancer? I said, go on dragging, and hoped they were either out of office by the time it was finally decided, or that something would come up. And prostate cancer came up. I was making the astonishingly naive assumption that without the cancer, the appeal would have got to court in the end. The penny that just dropped is that, no, that appeal was never going to make it. What was going to come up was the prisoner transfer agreement. The prostate cancer was just a complication. Swire is right. Libya moved on from Lockerbie years ago. They wrote a weasel-worded letter "taking responsibility for the actions of our agents", and turned over a couple of Libyans for trial, and made all the Lockerbie relatives who could stomach to take the money considerably wealthier than they were already (they received millions in the 1990s from a lawsuit against Pan Am). This all happened gradually, as Libya was gradually rehabilitated back into the community of civilised nations. The last of the money was paid over in 2008 I think, but even before that, the rehabilitation was proceeding apace. The Deal in the Desert in 2007 was an important milestone, oil deals for BP and prisoner transfer agreements and so on. Obviously, Libya accepting responsibility for Lockerbie was always part of it. Making sure Libya went on accepting resonsibility would be an important part of it. Of course Libya wanted Megrahi home. But it was also in everyone's interests (except his and the people who would rather like the truth to come out) for the appeal to be stopped. Libya applied for the prisoner transfer on Megrahi's behalf. We know that, and that's the way it would work anyway. Who knows what conflicts were going on between Megrahi, who wanted to stay in jail for the appeal to be heard, and Libya, who (I think) had come to an agreement as part of all these deals that the appeal would be withdrawn, urging going the prisoner transfer route? I strongly suspect that's what a lot of the delay was about. Keep that appeal out of court, play for as much time as possible, so that the prisoner transfer agreement can eventually come into action. There was stalemate in 2007 and 2008, as the Scottish government wouldn't wear prisoner transfer anyway, and Megrahi didn't want to withdraw the appeal. In September 2008, Megrahi was diagnosed with cancer. This opened the compassionate release route, which was acceptable to the Scottish government, but didn't require the appeal to be withdrawn. In the end it came to the same thing. Megrahi was told, withdraw the appeal, and you can go home. The day after he flew out, his solicitor Mr. Kelly came on TV and said his client had been pressurised. Later, he himself said the same thing. He never said who pressurised him. Was it Kenny, as Kochler thinks, or Gadaffi, as Swire thinks? It could very well have been both of them. Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 04:54 PM | #317 |
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Lengthy but excellent article from Scotlands Lawyers' Magazine, "The Firm".
Here's a portion.
Quote:
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21st July 2010, 04:56 PM | #318 |
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21st July 2010, 05:13 PM | #319 |
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See below. I was completely puzzled by this. Kenny can be a pompous ass, but he's a likeable human being too. It's been common knowledge in the SNP for years that Megrahi was wrongly convicted. Suppose, though, Tony Blair and Gadaffi had agreed to a deal which made sure Libya stayed "responsible" for Lockerbie in perpetuity. This avoided rocking any boats, and ensured that nobody had to open a cold case involving 270 murders. The prisoner transfer wasn't just about having the scapegoat home, it was about peace and stability in the Middle East. Gadaffi could then lean on Megrahi to take one more for the team, withdraw the appeal, and come home - ostensibly to a Tripoli jail, but once he was in Libya that was probably something that would be very difficult to enforce. We all know you didn't do it, and so on. Megrahi seems to have been a semi-willing sacrificial lamb. He could quite probably have got an acquittal by being a lot more forthcoming to the court about what he was actually doing on 20th-21st December 1988. However, his acquiescence never extended to admitting guilt, and the appeal seems to have been very important to him. Interesting dilemma. I'm still guessing about the details of this, but if the main pressure on Megrahi was coming from Libya, Kenny might have been relatively powerless. It's making a little bit more sense this way anyway.... Rolfe. |
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21st July 2010, 05:16 PM | #320 |
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You know, I posted a link and a quote from that this afternoon, but took it down when I read the full article. Most of it is extraordinarily good. But the bloody man is a Lockerbie no-Samsoniter. He thinks all the evidence of the suitcase and the clothes was planted. There are only about three sentences to that effect, but the trouble is, nonsense like that just allows the entire brilliant production to be dismissed. Rolfe. |
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