[The following are excerpts from a column by Michael Binyon in The Times.]
Lord Mandelson, embarrassed by the Libyan insistence that al-Megrahi’s release was explicitly mentioned in talks on oil and gas contracts, insists that any such linkage was wrong, implausible and “actually quite offensive”.
He is wrong. It is by no means implausible. Realpolitik has always been a deciding factor in international negotiations. (...)
Of course such deals are offensive. Of course any linking of Lockerbie to Western oil interests is a dreadful insult to those still mourning their family members, friends and loved ones. But let no one think this would be the first such deal or even the first compromise over Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity.
From the start, politics have intervened. The fingers of suspicion after the Pan Am explosion in December 1988 pointed first to Iran. Only five months earlier an Iranian passenger jet was mistakenly shot down by the US warship Vincennes with the loss of all 290 passengers and crew. Compensation was paid. But the exact circumstances were never fully explained. Iran’s closest ally at the time was Syria, another country on the US terrorist watch-list. Syria had tried bombing an airliner before — and the bomber was caught before he boarded the El Al jet in Britain.
Intelligence information is not lacking. But after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the US needed Syria, and to a lesser extent Iran. The investigation instead seized on a lead pointing to Libya, possibly as terrorist subcontractors. That would prove politically easier to pursue.
For the sake of those relatives who have always questioned a sole Libyan responsibility, there must now be a full judicial inquiry. If this embarrasses Scottish justice, too bad. Courts have delivered unsafe verdicts before. The intelligence information, all of it, must come out. We may still never know who ordered the atrocity. But thanks to the bungling in Edinburgh, we have no mechanism for an inquiry — even if an angry America could now be persuaded to take part in one. What a tragedy.
MISSION LOCKERBIE >>US protest:
ReplyDeleteWieso the Secretary of US department of State Hillary Clinton and other important US people sind absulut nicht einverstanden, dass Mr. Megrah durch den Scottish secretary of Justice Mr. Kenny MacAskill begnadigt wurde und in die Freiheit nach Libya entlassen wurde!
Aus dieser Stellungsnahme kann abgeleitet werden, dass die US Regierung, kurz vor dem Abschluss stehenden zuversichtlichen Appeal Ergebnis von Mr. Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, interessiert waren und die Wahrheit in der Lockerbie-Tragödie wissen wollten. Angeblich ist nach schottischem Gesetz eine Begnadigung nur möglich, wenn ein laufendes Appeal zwischen einem rechtsgültig Verurteilten und der Scottish Justice zuvor zurückgezogen wird.
Mr. Megrahi erklärte sich immer als nicht schuldig da er mit der Lockerbie-Tragödie nichts zu tun hatte! Deshalb wollte Megrahi Scotland nur verlassen, wenn sein Name durch das Appealverfahren am High Court in Edinburgh gesäubert werde um seine Ehre zurückzuerhalten.
Leider wurde Mr. Megrahi physisch und psychisch schwer Krank und sein psychischer Zustand nötigte ihn, das laufende, Erfolg versprechende Appeal zurückzuziehen, um seinen letzten Wunsch zu erfüllen, bei seiner Familie in Libyen sterben zu können.
Da Mr. Megrahi, Libyen, USA und Hinterbliebene der Opfer von PA-103 und andere Geschädigte an der Wahrheit interessiert sind, muss ein schneller Weg gefunden werden das vorbereitete Material der Scottish Reappeal Commission (SCCRC) und des Defence Teams, für eine öffentliche Untersuchung einzubeziehen. Wie bekannt, hatte die Reappeal Commission (2007) das Appeal vom Mr. Megrahi in 6 Punkten, als mögliches "Miscarriage of Justice" gutgeheissen!
more information on our webpage: www.lockerbie.ch
by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland
MISSION LOCKERBIE DOES NOT TERMINATE:
ReplyDeleteQuestion at Secretary of Justice Mr. MacAskill: What do you undertake against their own criminal official ones?
MEBO reproach: Some of the Scottish Officials are the true criminals in the Lockerbie Affair: Ex forensic scientist Dr Thomas Hayes (RARDE) UK, Ex forensic expert Allen Feraday (RARDE) UK and three known persons of the Scottish police are responsible for manipulating evidence in the Lockerbie Affair and are still protected by the Scottish Justice ! (They are not involved in the PanAm 103 bombing, but responsible for the conspiracy against Libya).
Evidences on URL: www.lockerbie.ch
by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Switzerland
Michael Binyon's article postulates that Libya was blamed because of the need to include Syria in the Gulf War coalition. The indictment was announced eight months after the end of the Gulf War. If Megrahi was fitted-up then the plan to do so must have predated the bombing itself.
ReplyDeleteLord Mandelson's blunder was to give the appearance of impropriety. He should not have met Mr Gaddafi knowing this decision was pending.
To understand why Megrahi was fitted-up I refer to today's BBC story "Call for Libya to pay IRA Victims".
I agree with baz.
ReplyDeleteThe plan to fit-up Abdelbaset Megrahi was hatched on 13 December 1988, when Ireland refused to extradite alleged IRA terrorist Fr Patrick Ryan to stand trial in Britain.
Ryan's links with Libya and with suppliers of timers for bomb-making had been under close surveillance for many years by British intelligence (see Ryan's 1989 interview with Australia's Nine Network http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvaa2topM6E). Thus, MI6 knew all about Edwin Bollier's MEBO company in Zurich, and were well aware that the two Libyans, Megrahi and Fhimah, owned a firm, ABF, which had offices in the same building as MEBO.
This is the chronology:
On 1 May 1988, three off-duty British servicemen were assassinated in the Netherlands. On 30 June 1988, acting on a tip-off, Belgian police went to the home of an IRA sympathizer and arrested Ryan, who was believed to be acting as quartermaster of the IRA active service unit in Belgium. Upon his arrest, the police seized a quantity of bomb-making equipment and manuals, and a large sum of foreign currency. The British authorities provided substantial evidence in support of a request for Ryan's extradition from Belgium to face charges in Britain. Legal argument between the two countries ensued over the next five months and, following a three-week hunger strike in protest against his possible extradition to Britain, Ryan was instead transferred to Dublin on 25 November 1988.
On 1 December 1988, Britain's Attorney General, Sir Patrick Mayhew, asserted that the extradition paperwork sent to Ireland was in order and the government's claim to have Ryan extradited should be acceded to. However, Fr Ryan said that he would rather die than face a British tribunal as he believed Irish people could never receive justice through the British legal system. The controversy was heightened by the publication of a letter in The Guardian of 7 December 1988 from a British diplomat (me) accusing Mrs Thatcher of "double standards on terrorism" for insisting on Fr Ryan's extradition while failing to pursue the extradition of the Coventry Four from South Africa four years earlier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PatrickHaseldine3
.jpg). The following week, amid exchanges in the House of Commons, Neil Kinnock, the opposition leader, said Mrs Thatcher "blew" the possibility of Fr Ryan's extradition by her "performance."
On 13 December 1988, the Irish prime minister announced in the Dáil Éireann that the serious charges levelled against Ryan should be investigated by a court in Ireland and, because of prejudicial remarks made in the House of Commons, Fr Ryan could not expect to receive a fair trial in Britain.
On 21 December 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was sabotaged over Lockerbie. In targeting UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, apartheid South Africa was in my view responsible for the Lockerbie bombing (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PatrickHaseldine3B
.jpg).
In October 1989, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Ireland announced that he had decided not to initiate proceedings against Father Patrick Ryan.
MI6 must have anticipated that Ryan would escape prosecution, and so in mid-1989 began to fabricate the Lockerbie bombing case against the Libyans Megrahi and Fhimah. Why Edwin Bollier did not also feature in the eventual November 1991 indictment remains a mystery, however.
I don't recall three off-duty soldiers being murdered in the Netherlands. I do recall two Australian tourists being murdered.
ReplyDeleteI was referring to the totality of Libyan support for the IRA but in partcular the seizure of the Eksund in October 1987 and the revelation that Libya had already supplied the IRA with four hundred tons of weapons and explosives. (see Lockerbie - Criminal Justice or War by Other Means? at http://ezeecon.blogspot.com).
Why December 13th and how did the British know the South Africans would blow up a plane to murder Mr Bernt Carllson? (for motives I cannot grasp.)
"Diplomat" Patrick Haseldine concludes that "so in 1989 MI6 began to fabricate the Lockerbie bombing case".
I commented that if Megrahi was fitted-up then the plan to do so must have pre-dated the bombing. We do not agree at all.
Sorry, baz, I should have given you the weblink for the Fr Ryan/IRA information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Patrick_Ryan - where the significance of the 13 December 1988 date is explained.
ReplyDeleteFor more background, I recommend you take a look at the 1989 Ryan interview with Australia's Nine Network http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvaa2topM6E which talks about Ryan's alleged visits to Libya during the 1980s and obtaining timers for IRA bombs. Prior to the Lockerbie bombing, Ryan would have been kept under surveillance, as would his suppliers (Mebo?) and Libyan go-betweens (Megrahi and Fhimah?). Thus, when in 1989 it was decided to frame Libya for the Lockerbie bombing, British intelligence
already had two ready-made suspects. That is how I believe Megrahi was fitted-up.
I am surprised that baz appears not to grasp the apartheid South Africa motive for targeting Bernt Carlsson in the Lockerbie bombing. I have written extensively on his blog on this very subject!
Finally, as to my diplomatic status, I am the proud holder of the Queen's Commission dated 5 August 1983 (countersigned by foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe) which appoints Our Trusty and Well-beloved Patrick John Haseldine Esquire to be an Officer of Our Diplomatic Service.
My apologies. I thought a diplomat was somebody who represented his government overseas.
ReplyDeleteThis is not about an individual case but the totality of Libyan support for the IRA.
The comments on my blog were indeed extensive but not illuminating. I still haven't a clue as to why the apartheid regime would want to assasinate Mr Carlsson and kill 269people to do so. I would however be interested to know if flight 101 was full.
The totality of Libyan support for the IRA would in fact have been revealed had Fr Patrick Ryan been extradited to Britain in 1988, put on trial and convicted on terrorism charges. Because Ryan had close links to Libya, Britain (and the US) would then have either taken military action or sought to impose comprehensive international sanctions against Libya in 1989. It is unlikely that France would have supported military action (cf. the 1986 bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi) and, with a permanent seat on the Security Council, France would probably have vetoed UN sanctions.
ReplyDeleteInstead - following the September 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772 and upon the November 1991 indictment of the two Libyans for the Lockerbie bombing - Britain, France and the US were united in securing the imposition of comprehensive sanctions against Libya by the UN Security Council in 1992.
I do not propose to rehearse here apartheid South Africa's motives for assassinating Bernt Carlsson in the Lockerbie bombing, which have been articulated on many previous occasions (eg http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/01/patrick-haseldine-on-lockerbie.html).
I do, however, share baz's interest in finding out whether the 11:00am Pan Am Flight 101 from Heathrow to JFK on 21 December 1988 was full or not. This is why:
A Reuters news report of 12 November 1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_talk:REUTERS
12NOV94.jpg) finally confirmed – after an interval of nearly six years – the early rumours that South Africa was closely linked to Pan Am Flight 103. A South African delegation of 23 negotiators – headed by foreign minister, Pik Botha – arrived at Heathrow on 21 December 1988 en route to UN headquarters in New York to sign an agreement relinquishing control of South-West Africa (Namibia) to the United Nations, as demanded by Security Council Resolution 435. The whole delegation including defence minister, General Magnus Malan, and director of military intelligence, General C. J. Van Tonder, were booked for onward travel by flight PA 103. But, according to the Reuters report, their inward South African Airways (SAA) flight from Johannesburg had cut out a stopover in Frankfurt, which was SAA's European hub, and arrived early at Heathrow. The SA embassy in London managed to re-book Botha and five of his party on the 11:00 Pan Am 101 Flight to New York (according to the 1994 documentary film The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie). The remaining 17 negotiators cancelled their booking on PA 103 and returned by SAA to Johannesburg.
The question baz and I would therefore like someone to answer is:
Was Pan Am Flight 101 full or not?