[This is the headline over a report by Jennifer Glasse on the website of the radio station Voice of America. The report (which can be listened to on the same website) reads in part:]
Scottish police have just announced they are looking into evidence surrounding the 1988 bombing of an American airliner flying from London to New York. It exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. Some victims' families had been trying to convince British authorities to reopen the case, after the only person convicted of involvement, Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi dropped his appeal just before he was released by Scottish authorities because he is suffering from terminal cancer. (...)
Pamela Dix's brother Peter was one of the victims of Lockerbie. She has mixed feelings about Scottish authorities reviewing the criminal investigation. "I do have a concern that the criminal investigation may get in the way of a decision to hold a full public inquiry," she said.
Dix and some other family members say British officials have in the past used the Scottish criminal investigation as an excuse to not hold a public inquiry which they see as their best chance to find out how Lockerbie was allowed to happen and who was responsible. Prosecutors have always said that al-Megrahi wasn't acting alone. (...)
"...it is my professional opinion that on the evidence led at the trial Abdel Baset Megrahi was wrongly convicted. It's a question of law. It's not a question of opinion or of counting heads. It's a simple question of law," said Robert Black, a professor of Scots law (...)
The Scottish Criminal Cases review commission backs him up. In 2007 it issued a ruling giving six reasons why there is reason to believe that al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted. Al-Megrahi had been planning an appeal, but he dropped it just before he was released, opening the door for a possible public inquiry. Black says both the legal and political establishment in Scotland don't want an inquiry because they're afraid of what it will turn up. (...)
Many American victims' families disagree. They were outraged at al-Megrahi's release, and consider the case closed. But the Reverend John Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter Helga was killed in the bombing, has his own idea who might be guilty. "Having attended the whole trial except maybe one and a half weeks in Poland, ten months, I came away feeling that, still feeling that, the Palestinian group- the PFLPGC and Ahmed Gabril, protected by the Syrians and financed by Iran, were guilty, but we can't prove that at this point," he said.
Dr. Jim Swire is the father of a woman killed in the bombing. He thinks the bomb was planted at London's Heathrow airport, not in Malta as prosecutors alleged. He points to a break-in in Heathrow's baggage area hours before Pan Am flight 103 left London. "When you add that to the fact that the plane that took off, and was blown up, took off and was loaded completely at the Heathrow Airport. And quite apart from the fact that I myself took a copy of the Lockerbie bomb on board a British Airways plane at that same airport in 1989 and wasn't stopped from doing so and flew to America with it. It seemed to us very obvious that there were major, major flaws in security at that airport," he said.
The news that Scottish authorities are pursuing possible new evidence in the case came as UK families of Lockerbie victims delivered a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown asking for the public inquiry every former British government has denied them. Britain's foreign minister said this week if there is any question of an inquiry, it will be up to Scotland to address it.
[Time magazine's coverage of these recent "developments" can be read here. It is of interest principally because, unlike every other report I have seen, it points out that the email to relatives from Crown Official Lesley Miller announcing the police review of the case dates from [3rd] September 2009. How did it come about that the press publicised it only on 25 October, the very day that UK Families-Flight 103's call to the Prime Minister to set up a full independent inquiry was published? Further evidence, if any were needed, of a spoiling operation?]
"Britain's foreign minister said this week if there is any question of an inquiry, it will be up to Scotland to address it."
ReplyDeleteAccording to the BBC, this is what he had to say:
On a public inquiry, Mr Miliband said: "We have always said that this was something that happened over Scottish soil, it was investigated by the Scottish authorities, it is right that they pursue the investigation on a criminal basis and if there is any suggestion of an inquiry that should be a matter for the Scots, because that's the way our system works."
A Scottish government statement said it would welcome a wide-ranging inquiry into the circumstances of the Lockerbie atrocity. However, it said: "Given the international dimensions to this issue, the remit of any such inquiry goes well beyond the restricted remit and responsibilities of the Scottish government or Scottish Parliament, and would therefore have to be convened by those with the required powers.
"Scottish authorities would cooperate in full in any such inquiry, and our police and prosecution services have done an excellent job throughout the Lockerbie investigation."
When both sides are so clearly reticent about actually doing anything, let there be a United Nations Inquiry - see http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/ !
MISSION LOCKERBIE:
ReplyDeleteIn den nächsten Tagen erscheinen von MEBO Ltd. zwei diverse professionelle Chronologien über das MST-13 Timerfragment
(PT-35), begleitet mit Foto-Kopien aus offiziellen Unterlagen von RARDE und Gerichts-Fotos, Kamp van Zeist, zuhanden von:
New Scotland Yard, Westminster, London
und
Mrs Christine Grahame MSP, Scottish National Party UK
Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh
Fakts:
1) Die erste Chronologie datiert vom, 22. Juni 1989 > 23. März 1990 > 17. April 1990 > 2. Oktober 1990, 15. November 1990 >13. September 1999 > 2000, Kamp van Zeist, zeigt den realen Werdegang des MST-13 Circuit Board. (Prototype, handfabriziert, Farbe braun, Type standard mit 8 Fiberglas Lagen, als Timer nicht betriebsfähig) > das daraus fabrizierte Fragment PT-35, wurde mit dem eingekratzten Buchstabe "M" markiert.
2) Die zweite Chronologie datiert vom 17. Januar 1989 > 12. Mai 1989 > 10.-15. September 1989 > 15. Juni 1990 > 15. September 1990 > 15. November 1990 > 13. September 1999 > 2000 Kamp van Zeist, zeigt den manipulierten und gefälschten Werdegang des Fragments PT-35, ab 15. Juni 1990, von FBI Experte Tom Thurman, als MST-13 Timerfragment zugeordnet.
(Nach Besuch bei Siemens AG in Deutschland, am 27. April 1990, wurde ein neues PT-35 Fragment (Duplikat) jetzt aus einem maschinell gefertigten Thüring PC-Board fabriziert, Farbe grün, 9 Lagen Fiberglas, ohne "M" markiert).
Verantwortlich für die Manipulationen und Fälschungen auf offiziellen Unterlagen, die Offiziellen, Dr. Thomas Hayes, Allen Feraday (RARDE) und mindestens 3 Beamte der Scotish Police.
by Edwin Bollier,VR, MEBO Ltd. Switzerland
MISSION LOCKERBIE:
ReplyDeleteDer Versuch von anonymen Personen (vermutlich involvierte) mit fragwürdigen technischen Kenntnissen, das entscheidende Timerfragment MST-13, (PT-35) im Lockerbie-Fall, als massgebender Beweis zu "demontieren" und als "vernachlässigbar" in den neuen Polizei Ermittlungen einzugliedern, schlägt gewaltig fehl!
Nur mit einer sauberen Aufklärung dieser "Machenschaften", können in den eigenen Reihen, die schottischen Offiziellen überführt werden!
Das MST-13 Fragment, das die IED Explosion aktiviert haben soll, ist das einzige massgebende Beweisstück, welches Libyen in das PanAm 103 Attentat in Verbindung brachte! Diesem fragwürdigen Beweisstück muss die grösste forensische Untersuchung zu Teil werden um Libyens Ehre endgültig zurückzubringen!
Nicht zu vergessen die Worte von ex FBI Task Force chief Richard Marquise vor 11 Monaten am 20. Jahrestag der Lockerbie-Tragödie, im Dokumentar-Film "Lockerbie-revisited", von Gideon Levy:
The main subject dealt with the notorious 'timer circuit board MST-13 fragment', called PT35 in the court records. FBI Task Force Chief Richard Marquise answered Gideon Levy's question G. L.:
Would you have a case if you wouldn't have these evidence (MST-13 timer)?
R.M.: Would we have a case. It would be a very dificult case to prove. It would be a very dificult case to prove ... I don't think we would ever had an indictment.
And he said also: But I can tell you that now money was paid to any witness, any witness prior to the trial. No promise of money was made to any witness prior to the trial. G.L.: And was there paid any money after he trial?
R.M.: I'm not gonna answer that.
And he said: If someone manipulated evidence, if somebody didn't invesitgate something that should have been investigated, if somebody twisted it to fit up up Megrahi, or Fimah or Libya, then that person will go to jail. I mean that sincerely, that person should be prosecuted for that.
Please watch now the full documentary film "Lockerbie revisited" by Regisseur Gideon Levy, shown to Scottish members of Parliament about important facts concerning the conspiracy against Libya.
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/41867169/media/41892895/
by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland
Moderator, wake up.
ReplyDeleteThere are two distinct yet intimately related criminal aspects to the Lockerbie case. There is the bombing itself and the criminal conspiracy to implicate Libya and Al-Megrahi (for intelligible reasons largely but not entirely unrelated to the bombing see Lockerbie - Criminal Justice or War by Other Means at http://e-zeecon.blogspot.com )
ReplyDeleteWere these two aspects carried out by different groups (say the PFLP-GC and the "intelligence" agencies) or by essentially the same people?
One key to understanding "Lockerbie" may be that the bomb-maker Marwan Khreesat, a terrorist with blood on his hands was smultaneously a "CIA asset".
The "Vincennes Incident" gave Iran a motve for revenge - it also gave the West a motive to collude in a proximate response, blame somebody else and "move on".
I believe the Reverend Mosey's suspicions may be largely misdirected.
Patrick Haseldine quotes Foreign Secretary David Milliband that
ReplyDelete"we have always said that this is something that happened over Scottish soil."
The "actus reus" the smuggling of a bomb onto a civilian airliner took place in England.
You completely reject the Lester Coleman version then, where it was put aboard at Frankfurt with the co-operation of Turkish baggage handlers? This being connected to a drug-smuggling operation the US authorities knew about?
ReplyDeleteThere was some sort of cover-up going on at Frankfurt, anyway. Once Pan Am went bankrupt and was removed from the scene, this received little attention though.
Yes.
ReplyDeleteWhat personal knowledge did Lester Coleman have?
What evidence is there of a drug-smuggling operation involving Turkish baggage handlers?
Even if evidence of a drug-smuggling operation existed how is it related to the bombing?
If the bomb incorporated a barometric trigger how come it didn't explode between Frankfurt and London?
Isn't the evidence the primary suitcase was introduced at Heathrow overwhelming?
Who says - "there was some sort of
cover-up going on at Frankfurt?"
Please see the brilliant article "Lockerbie - The Heathrow Evidence" and the comments on Coleman in the article "The Mysterious Life and Death of Ian Spiro" at http://e-zeecon.blogspot.com. I'm sure comments posted on these articles would be responded to!
My understanding of the "Lester Coleman version" is that the bomb loaded on Pan Am Flight 103A at Frankfurt was a Khreesat-designed device, which would have exploded 40 minutes after take-off.
ReplyDeleteThe feeder flight would therefore have been sabotaged, rather than the transatlantic flight.
PS. I wrote the above before sighting porkylinda's immediately-preceding comment. (Couldn't have put it better myself!)
Dear friends, your argumentation seems to be somehow static. Since Marwan Khreesat was no robot he was surely capable of producing various timers and bombs for different purposes.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that the radios which were found in Germany had an in built barometric device that would trigger an explosion on the Frankfurt feeder plane. At least we are so told by the German police. But the radio that exploded in the hands of the police experts was not on a flight, it was down on earth level. So what triggered that bomb? As far as I know nobody has ever asked that question.
A baromtric trigger would fit
the original idea of the PFLP-GC to blow up an American plane on a direct flight from Frankfurt to the USA.
If (!) they then changed that idea they certainly were capable of using another triggger.
PS: ...or the bomb was smuggled into Heathrow from Frankfurt and then activated.
ReplyDeleteI've read the two articles as suggested. The Heathrow one doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know except a bit more clarification about the ownership of the other interline bags in AVE4041. There's no doubt the evidence for a Heathrow loading is strong. You have to postulate either that Bedford was completely mistaken (maybe mixing up with a different day), or that the suitcase he saw wasn't actually a brown Samsonite, to discount it.
ReplyDeleteIt's beautifully simple. Heathrow loading of Khreesat device with ice-cube timer, explosion right on cue 38 minutes later. You can even postulate that the very very unlucky positioning of the suitcase in exactly the place it would do most damage wasn't an accident.
However, although there's good reason to look at that MST-13 fragment with a very fishy eye, we can't be certain it was fabricated. Remember, the 12-5-89 photograph of the thing appears to be genuine, which does give it quite early provenance within the evidence.
Another possible explanation for the MST-13 is as a way to prevent a Khreesat device loaded at Frankfurt from exploding on the first leg of the flight. Once that was achieved, the ice-cube mechanism took over. Just because there's no evidence Jibril ever had any MST-13s doesn't mean he didn't. Libya was supplying everybody and his auntie with munitions in the 1980s.
Granted Coleman's version is very questionable, but I'm not sure a Frankfurt introduction can be categorically excluded. What was the vanishing baggage records and the Erac printout all about, after all?
Maybe it is only me who is confused when it comes to the ice cubes. So if somebody could enlighten me: We only know about ice cubes from the Neuss catch of the German police. The German police also tells us that the Khresat-IEDs were fitted with a barometric trigger.
ReplyDeleteBut an ice cube cannot be a barometric trigger, as we all know when we drink our whisky after take off. An ice cube can and should melt - nothing else. So it may be used as a short time timer. In a plane on tour (about 10.000 meters) it is cold, I suppose below 0, in the luggage rooms. Outside it is minus 40. Then an ice cube timer stops. The stupid thing about an ice cube timer is furthermore that you have to install it just ahead of take off.
If we believe in ice cube timers we must admit that the bomb must have been placed in the plane at Heathrow.
My problem is that I do not believe in ice cubes (if not in my whisky).
The term "ice cube timer" refers to the appearance of the device, not to the material.
ReplyDeleteMr Miliband's statement "this was something that happened over Scottish soil" is perhaps not true in all relevant respects. Was the plane over England or Scotland when the first destructive event occurred?
"Ice cube" is just a name, to describe the general appearance of these timers. The type of ice-cube timer being referred to in this context is a rather crude analogue timer with a maximum countdown of about 30 minutes. They were used in conjunction with altimeters - aneroid barometers - which ensured that they wouldn't start their conttdown until a certain height had been reached.
ReplyDeleteIt takes 7 minutes for a jumbo jet on that course to reach the required height for the ice-cube timer to start its countdown. Give or take. Then 30 minutes of countdown - again, give or take.
Maid of the Seas blew apart exactly 38 minutes after takeoff from Heathrow.
This is actually an insane scenario in conjunction with the MST-13 timer used simply as a pure countdown, especially if the bag came through the system from Luqa. These timers could be set for weeks in advance. That plane had 4 or 5 hours of Atlantic in front of it when it blew to bits. Why set the timer on such a short fuse?
It has been said that PA103 was late, and if it hadn't been, the plane would have been way out over the ocean. This is false. The plane left the gate on time. It was only delayed on the tarmac by about 10 to 15 minutes. It could barely have cleared land before the explosion even if it had been absolutely sharp.
In fact, given the time of day and the time of year, the chances of a plane still being on the ground an hour after its scheduled departure time is not negligible. And that would have been useless to the bombers, as it's possible nobody would even have been injured. (Not a risk for the Khreesat ice-cube/barometer models, which would always go off 35 to 45 minutes after takeoff no matter how late the plane was.)
Not only that, the explosion over land allowed the police to collect shed-loads of evidence, which would not have been available from a crash in mid-Atlantic. And another point, if the plane had been merely damaged, not blown to bits, it was still within easy range of three large airports at the time, and an emergency landing might have been achieved.
So if you were a terrorist with an MST-13 timer intent on wrecking PA103, when would you set the timer for? 19.00 GMT (when it actually blew up)? Or say 23.30 GMT, when the plane would be well out over the Atlantic even if it had left two or three hours behind schedule?
The 38-minute detonation is a HUGE pointer to a Khreesat device, and requires the postulation of an enormous coincidence (on top of either malfunction, misdirection or mind-numbing stupidity) to be consistent with an MST-13. Which is why that timer fragment is being looked at so suspiciously.
However, while it certainly might have been planted (early in the investigation, certainly before mid-May 1989), it's impossible to prove that. It could be real.
It seems to me that in that case, the most reasonable explanation is that Jibril got his hands on an MST-13 (Libya didn't exactly have them under lock and key) and decided to use it to prevent the standard Khreesat device from exploding on a feeder flight from Frankfurt, allowing the analogue timer to function normally after the Heathrow take-off.
There are problems with that scenario too of course - it's not quite that simple. But it's the best theory I can come up with that explains both the presence of that timer fragment in the wreckage, and the 38-minute detonation.
The official story faces probability hurdles in respect of bomb placement as well as bomb timing.
ReplyDeleteGiven the arrangement of baggage, containers, air and structure in an initially enclosed space, it is hard to guess what we might call the route of the blast.
However, in the simplest model for an explosion in air, blast force lessens by the inverse of the cube of the distance.
In air, the effect means: if three times the distance, then twenty-seven times less force.
It is hard to believe that anyone with relevant practical experience of dealing with explosives would not know that with a small amount, you need to put the material close to what you want to destroy.
The AAIB report has the bomb close to what appears to be an optimum position within the container for maximum damage to the fuselage. It is perhaps not implausible that left to chance through being placed on a feeder flight, a bomb could easily have been three times further from the skin of the plane. In fact at the trial Mr Protheroe of the AAIB said they had made a mistake and it was much nearer the skin than they had reported.
There is also the question of whether the destructive effect might have been different if a bomb had ended up in a different container.
We might ask three main questions.
1. Suppose a bomber leaves placement up to chance by using a feeder flight. How likely is it that the bomb will end up close to the fuselage as the AAIB report says?
2. How likely is it that Libyan secret service personnel, who perhaps would not be refused access to expertise on simple bomb physics, would, when using a little bomb, take the chance of random placement?
3. If we think about those two questions along with the evidence of the Heathrow baggage handler that a Samsonite suitcase was already in the container before the feeder flight arrived, how likely is it that a bomb was not deliberately placed in the container at Heathrow?
...................................
By the way, the State Department said there was "clear evidence" of a plan to set the timer for about an hour!
From http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/briefing/dispatch/1991/html/Dispatchv2no46.html:
US Department of State Dispatch,
Vol 2, No 46, November 18, 1991
Title:
Fact Sheet: Additional Information on the Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
... The charges are based on clear evidence that al-Maqrahi, Fhimah, and
other unidentified co-conspirators planned to bomb Pan Am 103 by:
... -- Setting the timer that activated the device so that the
bomb would explode about 1 hour after Pan Am 103 was scheduled
to depart Heathrow Airport in London ...
Nent mich einfach Adam wrote:
ReplyDelete"The original idea of the PFLP-GC to blow up an American plane on a direct flight from frankfurt to the USA"
Who says this was the "original idea." The Autumn Leaves plot appears to be a plan to blow up several planes in the days before the US Presidential Election but who knows the real truth?
Rolfe wrote "The Heathrow one (article Lockerbie the Heathrow Evidence) doesn't tell me anything I didn't know already." well it contains a lot of things people have chosen to ignore and explains the spurious grounds on which Heathrow was "eliminated" in the face of evidence to the contrary.
Why do you have to postulate that Bedford was completely mistaken? His evidence wa accepted but deemed to be irrelevant. Did he misidentify the bag as a brown Samsonite. (Presumably he is an expert in the field). It doesn't matter - the questions remain the same who put those two bags there and who did they belong to? Why was it not recovered and linked to a specific Interline passenger.
It is absolutely incredible that 20years on the Police are purporting to examine new lines of enquiry when the most promising line of enquiry was closed off by the Police a month after the bombing (in order that the Scottish Police retain control of the investigation.) No wonder they kept the "Manley break-in" to themselves! Had they not been so stupid they might have actually solved the case!
Did the bomb incorporate a barometric trigger or was this or a second device operated by remote?
Ice cube or MST-13 timer? We don't know. The key question is whether a fragment of timer could have survived the blast. Rolfe I think misses the point abaout a timer. In order to exploit the bombing it was necessary for the plane to be brought down on land.
Matt Berkely makes some good points - if the "primary suitcase" had come from Frankfurt it's postion was fortuitous. But Bedford saw it at Heathrow in the exact position of the explosion!
Coleman and his fellow dimwits, charlatans and fabricators have created a popular myth but it simply isn't true. If the IED was contained within a brwon Samsonite it is irrefutable it was introduced at Heathrow.
I'm not ignoring anything, I'm keeping an open mind.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the evidence that the device was introduced at Heathrow is extremely suggestive. I'm not sure about the "irrefutable" part, but certainly quite compelling. That was my point about Mr. Bedford. In order to dismiss the Heathrow evidence you'd have to postulate that he was either complately mistaken (such as mixing up two different days), or that he misidentified the suitcase. However, his evidence was tested in court and none of that stuck.
The illogicality of the judges was breathtaking. First they decided that the Bedford suitcase couldn't have been the bomb bag because the Bedford suitcase was on the bottom layer. Then it was poonted out that the Bedford suitcase wasn't among those identified as being close to the explosion, which it would have been if it had been in the position originally indicated. So then they just decided that it could have been moved within the container when the Frankfurt baggage was being loaded, and went on ignoring it.
Huh?
Yes, it could have been moved at that point. But what is more likely? That it was moved a small distance and ended up on the second layer rather than the bottom (i.e. in the "bomb bag" position), or that someone inexplicably decided to shift it right to the far end of the container?
It's the fact that the judges published their report as they did, with this huge question just hanging there unanswered, that convinces me more than anything that they were psychologically primed to make every assumption possible that would allow them to convict. (Well, that bit and the bit when they decided that the orphan bag at Frankfurt must have come off KM180, despite the fact that the loading of KM180 was as tight as a duck's arse and it's the one place were we can be reasonably certain the bomb didn't go on!)
Actually, think about what Bedford said. How were the handful on interline bags arranged in the container? On their spines, handles pointing outwards. He said that was his normal practice. But how are bags usually stacked in these containers? The ones I've seen have all had the bags lying flat.
Stacking them as Bedford did is good if you might want to check the tags at some point. But surely, the loaders are going to lay them flat when they finally pack the container? If I'm right here, these interline bags would inevitably have been moved by the loaders, to place them flat. It's quite possible they were tossed on top of a single layer of Frankfurt bags when that happened.
I'd be awfully suspicious of the loaders packing that container out on the tarmac. Who were they? How long had they been employed? Anyone with Palestinian or Arab sympathies? Subverting someone with that job, or placing someone in that position, could be the key to getting 450g Semtex in exactly the right place in the hold.
I agree, eliminating Heathrow so early was madness. Yes, the evidence suggested that the bomb bag was not checked in by a passenger starting their jouney at Heathrow, but that's a far cry from saying the bag couldn't have gone on there.
"But the radio that exploded in the hands of the police experts was not on a flight, it was down on earth level. So what triggered that bomb? As far as I know nobody has ever asked that question."
ReplyDeleteThe device was being examined by police and bomb disposal experts when it blew. It's probable that the forensic manipulation triggered the explosion. It's only a matter of completing a circuit, and low atmospheric pressure isn't the only way that could have happened.
"A baromtric trigger would fit the original idea of the PFLP-GC to blow up an American plane on a direct flight from Frankfurt to the USA.
If (!) they then changed that idea they certainly were capable of using another triggger.
It has been suggested that the conundrum of the MST-13 timer and the 38-minute explosion can be explained by the device actually having been meant for an earlier direct flight to New York, which was indeed way out over the Atlantic at 7pm GMT. The device, in this version, was mistakenly loaded on to PA103A. The fact that PA103, with the device on board, happened to be exactly 38 minutes after take-off when the 7pm explosion happened is thus just coincidence.
I have, however, not encountered any evidence to support this version.
Thank you to all who have helped me out of my stupid error concerning the ice cubes. It had irritated me all the years. Obviously I missed the trial when the ice cubes were on the agenda.
ReplyDeleteEven if the timer had been set for another plane leaving two hours earlier, there would still be a low likelihood that a delay set by accident or design by someone intending to cause an explosion over the ocean would coincide exactly with the few minutes' range of possibilities for a barometric timer.
ReplyDeleteOf the order, perhaps, of these hypothetical figures:
Bomb on the intended plane, even allowing for some delay in departure:
200 available minutes, out of which number, according to the official story, the actual minute for which the timer was set happened to be within the 10-minute range of variability for a barometric timer;
Wrong plane:
Over 80 available minutes, versus 10 for the barometric timer.
I'm not following your logic.
ReplyDelete"Right plane", MST-13 timer = no sense. Fair chance of the explosion happening on the ground, and even if the plane is reasonably up to time still a chance of evidence all over the place or even a successful emergency landing if the damage isn't catastrophic. Oh yes, and also a big coincidence.
"Wrong plane", MST-13 timer = big coincidence. The device could have been meant for a plane that was well out over the Atlantic at 7pm, and it was pure chance that the plane it was erroneously loaded on happened to be exactly 38 minutes after takeoff at the crucial moment.
I don't see how you can work out actual probabilities on this.
I'd also point out that weird coincidences do happen, and that some must inevitably have happened in this case. I do feel the 38 minutes is an awful stretch to be coincidental though.
While the debate about how the IED was triggered is interesting I was merely making the point that Coleman and other proponents of the "drug conspiracy" or "Frankfurt" theory (Aviv, Francovich, Ferguson, Ashton and whoever wrote the recent garbage for Private Eye) seem to claim that a Khreesat "barometric" bomb was introduced at Frankfurt (as did the Police in the early stages of their "investigation".)
ReplyDeleteThis gives credence to the "official scenario" that a bomb incorporating a timer arrived on the feeder flight PA103A from Frankfurt when the evdence is that the primary suitcase was at Heathrow before PA103A arrived.
The article "Lockerbie - The Heathrow evidence" focused on the two "extra" suitcases that appeared in AVE 4041 at the Interline.
Rolfe wrote "In order to dismiss the Heathrow evidence you'd have to postulate that he was either completely mistaken (such as mixing up two different days) or that he misidentified the suitcase".
This was not how the evidence was dismissed. CIO Orr claimed "evidence from witnesses was to the effect that the first 7-8 bags in the container were Interline bags". This was untrue. The two bags were dismissed on a theory that the "primary suitcase" was amongst the Frankfurt baggage a theory later endorsed by the FAI. The Judges speculated that the Samsonite seen by Bedford had been moved "out of harm's way."
No difficulty would have arisen if the brown Samsonite seen by Bedford had been recovered and linked to a specific Interline passenger. Then it would have been "eliminated". But it was never recovered - unless it was the "primary suitcase". It was eliminated in theory because it couldn't be eliminated in fact!
Well, I was assuming a rational evaluation of the evidence when I said you'd have to decide Bedford was mistaken (as to the day or the appearance of the suitcase) to dismiss his evidence. Their noble lordships weren't being very rational.
ReplyDeleteAs I pointed out above, the judges decided that bag was on the bottom layer, therefore it couldn't have been the bomb bag (which was on the second layer). Then, when the defence asked where that suitcase ended up then, they decided it must have been moved from its original position.
Like, maybe to the second layer up, guys?
Rationally, as the bag wasn't matched up to a passenger, it was the bomb bag or it didn't exist - that is, what Bedford saw wasn't a brown Samsonite, or it was, but he saw it the previous day or something. However, Bedford's evidence wasn't knocked down at the trial.
I think it's very likely the Bedford suitcase was put on the second layer when the PA103A bags were loaded, when the first few bags (which had been placed spine-up) were shifted to lie flat.
On the other hand, since it's quite difficult to budge that pesky MST-13 timer fragment despite its incongruity and all the dodgy characters testifying to it, I do wonder if it's possible Jibril's group got hold of such a timer and used it together with an ice-cube array to prevent the latter activating on the Frankfurt leg of the flight.
Well yes - the point is the "elimination" of Heathrow wasn't rational. It was done on a theory in the face of the evidence to resolve the thorny issue of Police and Legal jurisdiction and to pretend security at Heathrow hadn't been breached.
ReplyDeleteIt was based on a theory of the position of the "primary suitcase" within AVE 4041 and by claiming the two "extra" bags were Interline bags without linking them to a specific passenger.
Their Lordships recognised the problem posed by the failure to recover a bomb-damaged brown Samsonite (other than the "bomb" suitcase) and speculated the bags were moved "out of harm's way". But the problem remains - the bag wasn't recovered. Even in the unlikely event Bedford had misidentified the bag it still needed to be recovered and linked to an Interline passenger.
Do you really think Bedford would mix his days up and implicate Kamboj if he wasn't sure what he had seen? Do you not think he recalled the incident when he watched the news the same night?
The forensic tests that purported to "eliminate" the bag (after it was "eliminated" in Orr's theory) were conducted by the non-scientist Thurman. Were the results valid? The centre of the explosive event was only 10.5" from the ground. The idea that the bag was on the second layer laid flat has considerable merit.
Could a fragment of mst-13 timer survive the explosion? Is the solution to the bombing a different issue to the bombing itself? I believe "Plan A" was to blame the two Libyans arrested in Senegal in possession (or rather in proximity to) MST-13 timers. (See "The Revelations of Vincent Cannistraro" in "The Bombing of UTA 772" at Part X of "The Masonic Verses".)