Sunday, 28 June 2009

Opinion split over Lockerbie bomber’s fate

Survey shows that 51% of Scots believe man jailed for atrocity should be allowed to die in Libya

More Scots believe the man jailed for life for the Lockerbie bombing should be allowed to die in Libya than serve the rest of his sentence in a Scottish jail.

The survey by Cello MRUK for The Sunday Times found that while 49% of those who expressed an opinion want Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi to remain in Scotland, 51% thought he should serve the rest of his sentence in Libya or be freed.

Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, is currently considering a request from the Libyan authorities for Megrahi to be released into their custody under the terms of a transfer deal brokered by London and Tripoli.

MacAskill is expected to announce his decision within days amid growing concern about the health of Megrahi, who is terminally ill with prostate cancer and wants to spend his final days in Libya with his family.

The poll of 1,040 adults across Scotland found that 40% of those with a view believe Megrahi should be transferred to Libyan custody while a further 11% think he should be freed on compassionate grounds, another option MacAskill is considering. Just under a quarter of those polled were undecided.

Under the treaty agreed by the British and Libyan authorities no prisoner can be transferred while criminal proceedings are ongoing.

Last week the Sunday Times revealed that Megrahi, who is in Greenock prison, has told how he does not believe he will live to clear his name and may drop his appeal to try to spend his final days with his family.

MacAskill intends to talk to British and American relatives of the 270 people who died when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie in 1988 before announcing his decision.

MacAskill said any decision on whether or not to transfer Megrahi from his Greenock jail to Libya would be taken on judicial grounds alone.

While Scottish opinion is evenly divided between those who believe Megrahi should be transferred or freed and those who say he should be forced to remain in Scotland, the Tories claim Megrahi should not be treated differently from any other prisoner with a terminal illness.

It emerged last week that Lord Fraser, the former lord advocate who charged Megrahi, was unaware that a fragment of circuit board linked to the bomb had allegedly been moved to an FBI lab in Washington for analysis ahead of the trial and conviction of Megrahi.

Fraser said he would not have agreed to the step because it could have left the crown open to accusations at the trial that the circuit board could have been damaged or tampered with.

It will be for the Appeal Court to determine the significance of the alleged movement of the fragment in 1990, which may form part of Megrahi’s appeal.

[This is the text of an article published today (and not on 28 March as the website displays) by Jason Allardyce in the Scottish edition of The Sunday Times.]

5 comments:

  1. DOCUMENT no. 652 rtf.
    Zürich, 27 June 2009
    delivered to Solicitor Tony Kelly, Scotland UK,

    copy to the

    Criminal Justice Directorate
    Criminal Law and Licensing Division
    Edinburgh, EH1 3DC, Scotland

    URL:
    http://www.isrcl.org/Papers/Boyd.pdf

    INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE REFORM OF CRIMINAL LAW
    15th International Conference
    POLICE INVESTIGATIONS OF "POLITICALLY SENSITIVE" OR HIGH PROFILE CRIMES
    THE LOCKERBIE TRIAL
    By RT. HON COLIN BOYD QC,
    LORD ADVOCATE, SCOTLAND

    on page 4 of 12

    This is best answered by looking at the evidence. During the painstaking search of a vast area of land police officers were asked to look out for items which might be charred and which might indicate that they had been close to an explosion.
    On IP January 1989 in search sector 1, near Newcastleton, two police officers Thomas Gilchrist and Thomas McColm found a fragment of charred clothing. It was subsequently sent to the Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent for forensic examination.

    It was examined there on 12th of May 1989 by Dr Thomas Hayes. He teased out the cloth and found within it fragments of paper, fragments of black plastic and a piece of circuitry no larger than a fingernail. The cloth was found to be part of a grey slalom shirt - one of a number of items linked back to a little shop of Mary's House in Malta and the shopkeeper Tony Gauci.

    The mesh fragments were found to be consistent with the loudspeaker grille and the black plastic fragments consistent with the composition of the case of the Toshiba radio cassette. It had already been identified by other fragments of circuit board and from the fragment of the instruction manual which had been found the day after the crash by Mrs Gwendoline Horton in her garden at Longhorsely in Northumberland in north east England. The paper recovered from the charred cloth by Dr Hayes also matched a control sample of this owner's manual.


    MEBO addendum: The debris delivered to RARDE were listed by Dr. Hayes on the EXAMINATION page No.51 on the 12th of May 1989. Together with a remnant of a grey "Slalom" T-shirt and other debris from a Toshiba radio cassette recorder PT-35 (B) an unknown "fragment of a green coloured circuit board" was registered and depictured (photo no.100, label PI-995, PP' 8932).

    The red encircled fragment shows the MST-13 circuit board designated as PT-35 (b). The first evidence photography No.100 shows the circuit board in the original condition, before forensic sawing into two parts. The fragment comes from a MEBO prototype timer MST-13 circuit board and is designated with a in-scratched, well visible letter; "M" on it.

    This fragment, was as can be proved, not green coloured, but brown! The delivered MST-13 timer to Libya were equipped with green circuit boards.

    To implicate Libya and its official Mr. Abdelbaset Al Megrahi into the PanAm 103 bombing a green fragment was needed! This is the reason why instead of the brown original MST-13 fragment a green MST-13 duplicate was fabricated and used as evidence by the prosecution at the court in Kamp van Zeist!

    The second part of the Appeal, starting on the 7th of July 2009, is easy to win for Megrahi's defense team. Simply the green falsified duplicate MST-13 fragment, designation PT-35 (B) without the in-scratched letter "M" must be compared with the evidence photo
    No.100, Prod. label PI-995, PP' 8932, and everything is clear!
    (Photo No. 100 and the MST-13 fragment PT-35 (b), are kept in court archives)

    Thus Dr. Hayes and his backers can finally be indicted as counterfeiters of evidence in a heavy crime …

    Please see the crucial manipulation of the EXAMINATION report, Page 51 and Prod. photo no.100, from Dr. Hayes, RARDE
    Ref. PP-8932, PI/995 on our webpage: www.lockerbie.ch

    by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Switzerland

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  2. Dear Scottish Justiciary. What goes on is a barbarous cruelty!

    What has been done and is still done to Mr. Abdelbaset al Megrahi, an innocent and terminally ill man, by the Scottish Justice is very hard to bear.

    What kind of a unhuman jurisdiction goes on in Scotland? An innocent man, serving a life sentence has finally succeeded to get a second appeal by the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) because of a possible miscarriage of justice based on six grounds. After a further deliberate delay his second appeal started on April 28, 2009 at the Appeal Court in Edinburgh. One day later, on April 29, 2009 a 'Prisoner Transfer Agreement' between Libya and the UK was ratified. To integrate Mr. Abdelbaset al Megrahi in the deal the Scottish justice added the dubious paragraph (c) at the end of the agreement:

    (c) the prisoner has consented to being transferred in accordance with those arrangements the relevant Minister shall issue a warrant providing for the transfer of the prisoner into or out of the United Kingdom.

    This provision requiring the prisoner's consent was removed in 2006, but it is abundantly clear that, irrespective of the wishes of the UK, Scottish and Libyan authorities, Megrahi cannot in fact be transferred back to Libya without his consent since he cannot be transferred without his current appeal being abandoned and no-one but Megrahi can instruct the abandonment of that appeal.

    Because of strong exonerating evidence in favour of Megrahi the Scottish Justice is in difficulties concerning several aspects of the appeal. By extorsively means Megrahi is tempted to accept a questionable deal and abandon his appeal for being tranfered back to his family in Libya. What An other great dishonor for the Scottisch justice system !!!

    The chances to win the appeal until May 22, 2009 by defence evidence are undeniable! Mr. Megrahi and Libya have nothing to do with the Lockerbie-Tragedy. Mr. Abdelbaset al Megrahi and Libya are intitled to get their honour back by a clear decision of the appeal court! Mr. Megrahi said: "This is the real way to clear my name before I go back to my homeland Libya." Mr. Al-Megrahi has consistently maintained his innocence and has vowed to stay in Scotland and win his freedom through the appeal courts. MEBO has already disposed of all the needed exonerating evidence to the Defence Team and the High Court.

    by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Switzerland

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  3. Document no. 498

    Since August 1990, definitely a wrong date was created (7th of December, 1988) in order to accuse deliberately the libyan official Mr. Abdelbaset al Megrahi as the buyer of the cloths in "Mary's House".

    A further proof from MEBO that the sale of dresses in Anhony Gauci "Mary's House" took undoubtedly place on Wednesday, 23th of November 1988 by a supposedly Libyan buyer:

    Tony Gauci told Bollier on 25.01.2008 in Malta, that the 2 pieces of pyjamas, label "John Mallia", were the last two pyjamas he had sold to a Libyan in his shop. On the other day, the 24th of November 1988, Gauci by phon ordered at the company "John Mallia" additionally 8 pieces of the same pyjamas. The 8 pyjamas were delivered on the 25th of November 1988 with the calculation/delivery note, dated 25th of November 1988 to Gauci' s Mary' s House at Sliema Malta. Prod. 477-1.

    The day after Wednesday, December 7, December 8, 1988 was an official public holiday (Immaculate Conception Day) and the "John Mallia" company was closed. But the day after November 23, November 24, 1988 was not an official public holiday, the company "John Mallia" was open.

    Court at Kamp van Zeist, Excerpt:
    +++
    MR. CAMPBELL: The next witness is 606, Paul Mallia.
    THE MACER: Paul Mallia, Your Lordship.
    WITNESS: PAUL MALLIA, sworn EXAMINATION IN CHIEF BY MR. CAMPBELL:
    Q-- Mr. Mallia, what is your full name? A-- Paul Mallia. Q-- And your address? A-- It's 4 Marina Court, Sliema Road, Malta. Q-- What is the name of the company? A-- It's John N. Mallia & Son Limited. Q-- Would you look, please, at Label 445. Do you see that the bag contains a pair of pyjamas? A-- These are the pyjamas we used to manufacture back in that time. Q-- Could we have on the screen, please, Production 181, photograph 134. You see there a photograph of a pair of pyjamas. Can you confirm, first of all, that that's a photograph of the pyjamas that you have physically in front of you? A-- Yes, it is.

    Q-- Are you familiar with a shop called Mary's House in Tower Road, Sliema? A-- Yes. He is one of our clients. Q-- Did you supply that shop with goods? A-- Yes, we do. Q-- Would you look, please, at Production 501. Focus in on the label at the top of the page, please. We see that that label describes what we are about to look at as an invoice. If we move on, please, to the next image, image 1. Do we there see a carbon-copy invoice from your records, John N. Mallia & Son Limited? A-- Yes. Q-- And do we see that it's dated 31st October 1988? A-- Yes, that's correct. Q-- And it's to Mary's House? A-- Yes. Q-- In Sliema. And do we see that included in the order is a quantity of 16 men's pyjamas? A-- Yes.

    Q-- If you can close that, please, and look now at Production 500. Do we see that this label tells us that this, too, is a receipt. And if -- an invoice, I'm sorry. And if we move to image 1, we again see that this is a carbon copy invoice from your records. Is this one dated the 25th of November 1988? **A-- Yes, that's correct. Q-- And again, is it to Mary's House in Sliema? A-- Yes. Q-- And in this case the item -- the items in it is a quantity of eight men's pyjamas? A-- Yes.

    **(MEBO: This order made by Gauci on 24th of November 1988, by telephone).

    Excerpt: described by Gauci.
    Question: Q-- And if we can have Production 4771, do we see that that's a similar invoice to your shop from John Mallia dated 25th November 1988 for eight pairs of pyjamas?
    Answer: A-- Yes. I used to buy stock, and when it finished, I used to buy -- I used to phone often. It's an item that is quite sold in winter.
    +++

    MEBO:
    Mr. Abdelbaset al Megrahi was not in Malta on Wednesday, 23th of November 1988, thus Mr. Megrahi is definetely not the buyer of the dresses !

    by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO LTD, Switzerland

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  4. To the Sunday Times article of 28 June 2009, I commented as follows:

    "It emerged last week that Lord Fraser, the former lord advocate who charged Megrahi, was unaware that a fragment of circuit board linked to the bomb had allegedly been moved to an FBI lab in Washington...."

    The Dutch documentary "Lockerbie revisited" of 27 March 2009 actually revealed this fact.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 1040 polled is hardly a majority.

    ReplyDelete