This is a link to a long, immensely detailed and very well-informed article by David Horovitz on the Jerusalem Post website:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1191257285759&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Pierre Prier, who has recently written a number of well-researched articles on Lockerbie and who attended the procedural hearing, has published the following article (in French) in Le Figaro:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/20071012.FIG000000229_lockerbie_la_piste_libyenne_perd_de_sa_credibilite.html
RE: The Jerusalem Post article.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link to that excellent article Prof. Black. I would support much of the writers assertions and conclusions. However, there are 2 particular areas of this tragic case which were not explored at all, which slightly disappoints me.
First, there is no reference to the alleged vip's who were pulled from that specific flight - and if this suggestion is accepted, by whom were they warned?
Second, reference is made to the US intelligence team inc. Maj. McKee, returning to New York, but none to the young man who's picture appeared in UK newspapers very early into the investigation as the apparent unsuspecting bomber: Kahled Jafaar.
With such a crucial question left by the author at the end of his article ;"Would the British and American governments be prepared to mount so extensive a cover-up for the expediency of keeping Syria onside during the first Gulf War and avoiding irritating Iran? It seems inconceivable", would these two additional theories I have mentioned not have merited further examination?
For your information Prof. Black, here is an article from 1995 I read some time ago, which may, provide an insight to such a question.
http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence/readme/lockerbie
Eddie
Many thanks for the link to the Intelligence article. Very interesting indeed.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I would like to get to the bottom of the persistent stories about VIPs being pulled from the plane (particularly, given my South African connections, Pik Botha and Magnus Malan). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_103#People_who_didn.27t_travel
Similarly, the stories about Khaled Jafaar and a (possibly protected) drugs run persist. I understand that the SCCRC investigated this but found no evidence to support it. But the SCCRC also found no evidence to support the allegation that physical evidence in the Lockerbie case had been fabricated. So who knows?
Further to my earlier reply to Eddie on South Africans who were originally booked on Pan Am 103, here is another Wikipedia reference:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
South_Africa_luggage_swap_theory#
South-West_Africa_.28Namibia.29
Yes, good question by Eddie: who warned the VIPs?
ReplyDeleteOf course, the South Africans had their own very well informed intelligence service (NIS - successor to BOSS) and, let's not forget, the head of military intelligence, Gen. C J Van Tonder, was also in the Pik Botha/Magnus Malan party booked on Pan Am Flight 103 - then unbooked, according to the 1994 film "The Maltese Double Cross".
If, as alleged, the South Africans themselves were responsible for the Lockerbie bombing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_luggage_swap_theory - then their intelligence service wouldn't have had to work too hard to get their own people off that flight!