The Scotsman ("Lockerbie: eight other 'high-level' suspects") and The Herald ("Police hunt for eight 'high level' Lockerbie accomplices") and other newspapers refer to the re-invigorated police investigation as focussing particularly on eight high level suspects.
I wonder whether, just possibly, these eight suspects might be the eight persons mentioned as associates and superiors of Abdelbaset Megrahi in the (highly tendentious) Briefing Note on the Pan Am 103 disaster issued by the US State Department in April 1992? They are (in order of appearance in the document):
Sa'id Rashid
Izz Aldin Hinshiri
Badri Hasan
Rifi Ali al-Sharif
Abdallah Sanussi
Ibrahim al-Bishari
Nasir Ali Ashur
Ibrahim Nayili.
One further name is mentioned - Abdallah Mahmud Hijazi - of whom, however, the document states "we lack concrete evidence of direct linkage".
In 1999, six Libyans were put on trial in the Paris Assize Court for the September 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772. Because Colonel Gaddafi would not allow their extradition to France, the six were tried in absentia and were convicted. They were:
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Abdullah Elazragh, Counsellor at the Libyan embassy in Brazzaville;
Ibrahim Nayili (or Naeli) and Arbas Musbah, explosives experts in the Libyan secret service;
Issa Shibani, the secret agent who purchased the timer that allegedly triggered the bomb; and,
Abdelsalam Hammouda, Sanussi's right-hand man, who was said to have coordinated the attack.
I guess that all six of those convicted of the UTA 772 attack must be in the frame for the Lockerbie bombing, though only two (Sanussi and Nayili) figure on Robert Black's list of the nine "suspects". The remaining seven are:
Nasir Ali Ashur
Ibrahim al-Bishari
Badri Hasan
Abdallah Mahmud Hijazi
Izz Aldin Hinshiri
Sa'id Rashid
Rifi Ali al-Sharif
Add to that list three more suspects (mentioned on BBC News by Richard Marquise):
Ahmad Behbahani
Ahmed Jibril
Mohammed Abu Talb
and (with Megrahi and Fhimah) that makes eighteen individuals who according to the Crown conspired:
a. to buy clothing from Tony Gauci's shop in Malta;
b. to wrap the clothing around an IED, triggered by an MST-13 timer and installed in a Samsonite suitcase;
c. to despatch the unaccompanied suitcase bomb by Malta Airlines flight KM 180 to Frankfurt;
d. to transfer the suitcase at Frankfurt to the feeder flight Pan Am 103A destined for Heathrow; and,
e. to transfer the suitcase at Heathrow to the transatlantic flight Pan Am 103, which exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.
There seems to be a fundamental flaw in the Crown's case. No doubt the current desktop review of the evidence being carried out by a team of four gallant officers from Dumfries and Galloway Police, headed by an officer who was involved in the original investigation, will be quick to spot it!
Yes, that is indeed a lot of suspects. And some will still be missing. We still need to know how Megrahi managed to get the bomb on the plane, a theory I assume must involve Maltesian airport staff? Or maybe he just sneaked into the luggage room, whistling, trying to look casual?
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Smart counter move, bringing up N named new persons, giving the public more focus on Libya.
We have seen the case against Megrahi - with the need for highly dubious forinsic science and -tists and certain other witnesses who will go over in history as the most unreliable ever.
And the need for judges saying "There are times where even highly paid witnesses, being an apple short of a picnic, expressing uncertainty and giving conflicting statement throughout the investigation - can be more reliable than people who from the beginning are sure of what they remember - and we are qualified to evaluate that beyond reasonable doubt".
I can't believe anyone thinks that it would be possible to reach any even remotely reliable conclusion regarding new people brought in now? Who 21 years ago should have done something, and whom it today should be possible to get any reliable information about - even of the same "quality" as we had for Megrahi?
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But expect to see it all in the press. Inquiries to Tripoli, asking to question witnesses. Headlines like "Libya refuses to..." New theories of how it could have happened.
As we already know: you can fool most of the people most of the time.
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Recently, some bones and the sculls of a human being were found in Denmark.
However, the Danish police dropped the murder investigation, as it turned out that the bones were approx. 2200 years old.
http://www.dr.dk/Regioner/Kbh/Nyheder/Gribskov/2009/10/14/085039_1.htm
(in danish)
However, should somebody have had misgivings about how Danish law enforcement dealt with their duties, I suppose police could have taken up the case and named a handfull of suspects.
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Merriam-Webster:
Di·ver·sion
1 : the act or an instance of diverting from a course, activity, or use ...
If you conduct an intensive investigation on Mr. Gauci (Photo parades and so on, promise of more money) I am sure that it turns out that Mr. Gaddafi himself bought the umbrella. And that the CIA recovered the Gaddafi DNA when he spoke to the UN general assembly, a DNA that matched the umbrella DNA.
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