MISSION LOCKERBIE. The second part of the Lockerbie-study of MEBO, will be published soon. Here a part of the chronology no. 2:
The criminal manipulation of the police label (Lothian and Borders) was the foundation for the fraud with the MST-13 timer fragment (PT-35):
Court Kamp van Zeist: Day 6, page 966: +++ On the 13th of January 1989, Witness number 257, Mr. Thomas Gilchrist recovered Label 168, which was known as PI-995, a fragment of grey Slalom shirt. +++ end
MEBO uncovers:
1. > The marking PI-995 of a fragment of a grey slalom shirt, was remodeled in a police Label No. PI-995 !
2. > Dr. Thomas Hayes and Allen Feraday (RARDE) needed some similar police Label, with date of January 13th, 1989, also for a criminal act against Libya ! Therefore the original police Label No. PT-95, was changed/falsified as follow:
> This police Label no. PT-95, became Label no. PI-995; > The date, of January 1989 (down left) remained existing and became supplemented with the date, 17th of January 1989; > The word "cloths", (charred), for the Article, became with the word "DEBRIS" (charred) overwritten!
3. > To demonstrate the liabillity the Label was later additionally signed by 5 further officials: Dr. Thomas Hayes; Allen Feraday; Derek Henderson; Ron McManus and Cal Mentoso.
MEBO Question: Did these people had to take the responsibility on themselves, if the criminal fraud would be noticed? And did each official have to secure himself face to face from the others? It is strange and not normal that the altered police Label no. PI-995 was signed by 7 officials... (Lord Advocate Fraser's order was that police Labels must by signed by 2 officials).
4. > Dr. Hayes needed the manipulated police Label PI-995, for his mysterious eximination auxiliary side no. 51, from 12th of May 1989 ! With this Label PI-995, expert Dr. Hayes marked only one plastic bag with contents. From contents inside the plastic bag, Ref. PP'8932, was registered various material, which was found allegedly in Lockerbie by the police:
Among other things, a portion of the ? neckband of a grey? short, severely explosion damage localised penetrations and blackering. etc.; Under the marking PT-35, a) several fragments of black plastics; Under the marking PT-35, b) was an unknown "fragment of a green coloured circuit board", was registered and depictured on Ref. PP'8932, PI-995; Under the marking PT-35, c) small fragments of metal + wire.
5. > On the original photo Ref, PP'8932, PI-995, the red encircled fragment shows not a green MST-13 circuit board fragment designated as PT-35, but a brown coloured fragment from a prototype. The first evidence photography together with photo no. 334, shows the fragment of the circuit board in the original condition, before forensic sawing into two parts. (part. no. 353= PT-35 (b); and part. no. 419= DP-31(a). ) The fragment comes from a MEBO prototype timer MST-13 circuit board, brown coloured and has a in-scratched, well visible letter "M" on it.
6. > The fragment from photo Ref. PP'8932, PI-995 and photo no. 334, was -as can be proved-, (determined of visible technical characteristics) not green coloured, but brown ! The delivered MST-13 timer to Libya were equipped with green circuit boards. Thus the MST-13 fragment (PT-35) cannot be brought in connection with MST- 13 timers, supplied to Libya !
7. > Dr. Hayes needed the altered label PI-995 in his falsified eximination report side no. 51, dated of May 12th 1989, to bring into the MST-13 fragment, as PT-35. The original side numbers, 51 to 55, were overwritten by Dr. Hayes with no. 52 to 56! To the memory: Allen Feraday had discovered the MST-13 Fragment for the first time on 12th of January 1990 and Dr. Hayes booked back the date to May 12th 1989 !!!
The complete study coming soon on our website: www.lockerbie.ch
by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland
Ebol maintains ".... 5. > On the original photo Ref, PP'8932, PI-995, the red encircled fragment shows not a green MST-13 circuit board fragment designated as PT-35, but a brown coloured fragment from a prototype...."
My photo of "PP 8932, PI-995..." shows a green fragment, not a brown.
From the technical characteristics on the MST-13 fragment, MEBO could recognize free of doubts that the fragment descended from a brown hand-made prototype and was from a not functional MST-13 circuit board. Since the fragment (carbonize) had charred black, the brown color can among other things to be determined, by the not perfect soldering courses and the sawn out of the corner = "curve". This original MST-13 fragment was with a letter "M" designated.
Having watched my video of "The Maltese Double Cross" (recorded from the 1994 TV transmission) many, many times I was very surprised to watch the version posted at Ed's blog city. This is far longer and in many respects radically different.
I have no objection at all to the first hour and a half which is actually very good. Cannistraro, for example, makes some fascinating admissions.
My objection is to the fourty minute section from 1hr 36 min. - 2hr -16 min. which concerns the "Drug Conspiracy Theory" in particular the section from 1hr 55 min.on and above all LeWinter's risible "hotel phonecall scene" 02.12.50 -02.15.
As "a lie goes to the heart of the matter" I find it hard to accept evidence that is partially fraudulent.
My point is that even if this story of controlled drug deliveries was true is it related to the bombing? I noted there was not a shred of evidence drugs were recovered at Tundergarth save for a story from "Private Eye".
I was and continue to be very critical of John Ashton and Ian Ferguson's book "Cover-up of Convenience" as most of the book was concerned with trying to "prove", with the most risible "evidence", that this fraudulent fourty minute section was true. I thought it was also pretty cowardly to try and blame one of the victims for his own murder. They also argued that LeWinter (in their own words "a known fabricator") was a witness of truth! This quest to put Khalid Jafaar "in the frame" continues in Private Eye to this day.
(My scorn of Francovich's film was compounded when he wrote to me claiming Pan Am had a facility at Frankfurt to depressurise luggage and the bomb contained not one but two barometric triggers!)
It is such a shame Francovich (and messrs.Ashton and Ferguson) took the "drug conspiracy hoax" seriously or failed to consider that it was from Heathrow that drugs were being smuggled.
Oh, that last bit of the film is barking up the wrong tree, or I think so, certainly. It happens. People pursue their pet theories, sometimes past what the evidence will support. No reason to monster the entire film though.
There must be getting on for a dozen serious documentaries about PA103. Most of them pursue a pet theory, to a greater or lesser extent. Most of them have errors, too. (Levy shows a picture of the wrong circuit board fragment at one point, and introduces spurious information by ambushing protagonists into giving erroneous accounts of 20-year-old events. Another documentary trots up an "expert" who is 100% wrong about alleged discrepancies in the appearance of the MST-13 fragment.) Their utility lies not in their having the right explanation, but in their interviews with protagonists, and in their errors - for it is by picking apart these errors we learn more.
The Maltese Double Cross is no worse than the rest of them, and has valuable material absent from the later productions. Wholesale demonisation of the film is ridiculous.
I agree too the the Frankfurt drugs angle ala Coleman and Aviv is a distraction from the real action. There may be something to it, but it didn't happen at Heathrow, where it seems the bomb went on. I don't know who if anyone was trying to misdirect, but some clues pointed that way, someone has been obfuscating and others following, etc. And here we are with some facts and opinions and other stuff gathered on the way and false leads identified and marked. Just for the interviews with Michael Jones and Denis Phipps I'm happy this video was made and not suppressed clear to oblivion.
Also, Baz, I have no reason to defend LeWinter, who seems an old tired hoaxster to me, who may be right occasionally or whatever. And that pressure box treatment sounds pretty made-up. Maybe you're like me and presume people are too smart for such-and-such error, they must be lying on purpose. Maybe so, maybe not. Give 'em a little leeway and take things one fact at a time.
"No reason to monster the entire film though". This is not a question simply of interpretation but the creation of "evidence". (I certainly agree that there were some interesting to face interviews and that by "picking apart errors we learn more".
As I said I had no objection to the first 96 minutes. However how much fraud and deceit is acceptable?
The "hotel telephone scene" with LeWinter was staged and it was on the basis of this obvious fraud that the Crown Office dismissed the film - is that acceptable?
Is it accepteble to have a blacked-out figure of a "Jafaar family member" making numerous allegations that support this vague "drug conspiracy theory"?
Is it acceptable to have Juval Aviv claim to camera that a 19 year boy was under surveillance by half the world's security services?
Is it acceptable to claim in the same film that (a) a Policeman helpde Khalid Jafaar board PA103A (what help did he need?) and (b) he had a CIA escort from "SPAG"?
Is it acceptable to claim farmer Jim Wilson recovered a suitcase of heroin (a claim repeated in Gareth Peirce's recent treatise) not because Wilson ever said so but because an anonymous article in Private Eye claimed an un-named relative of an un-named victim was told this by Mr Wilson?
The book "Cover-up of Convenience"could have been a good book about Lockerbie. Instead it was an attempt to prove this hoax was true.
A member of the "Justice for Megrahi" campaign recently contacted me asking for my help in an unspecified capacity. He attached to his e-mail the petition to the UN General Secretary whose first signatory is John Ashton and also includes amongst its signatories Ian Ferguson, Heather Mills (who thinks slandering one of the victims is the way forward) and Patrick Haseldine. I think this petition is a daft idea. It will never happen but this isn't about "Justice for Megrahi" but vindication for charlatans and fabricators.
to "Caustic Logic"-
I'm sorry I don't understand what "The pressue box treatment" is.
You did write (about the drug conspircay hoax) "there may be something to it, but it didn't happen at Heathrow".
Two suitcases were placed in AVE4041 by someone other than the baggage handler - did whoever placed them there think perhaps he was smuggling something else?
Actually, there is rather a lot of evidence for the heroin suitcase. As well as Ashton & Ferguson, Frankovich, Coleman, Aviv and Foot; Emerson and Duffy also go into some detail about the heroin suitcase. US "controlled" heroin trafficking by the US was not infrequent in the 80s and there is evidence that Pan Am at Frankfurt was one such route.
Although I agree that the bomb PROBABLY went on board at Heathrow, the break-in and the two mysterious suitcases do not prove that it did. In the 70s and 80s Heathrow was known as Thiefrow for the rampant pilfering of baggage that went onand theft of just about anything not nailed down. Break-ins at airline offices and baggage facilities were commonplace in those days and suitcases are forever being moved around airports by hand for a variety of reasons such as mis-tagging at check-in, falling off the conveyor, missing their designated flight and many other reasons. Luggage containers are also frequently repacked with cases being added and removed, so it is not certain that the Bedford bags actually went on board.
I do support the Heathrow theory but it is by no means proven.
To "Caustic Logic" - I now understand what you mean by the "pressure box treatment" - Francovich's claim of a decompression chamber.
Francovich also argued (in his letters) that his film did not say at which airport Jafaar had a CIA "SPAG" escort to his "keeper" on the plane Matthew Gannon and also claimed the bomb exploded in the First Class passenger compartment. He argued that if Mr Gannon wasn't on board flight PA103A then the passenger lists of the relevant flights were untrue, not his film.
The central point is that in making "The Maltese Double Cross" Francovich knew full well LeWinter was a hoaxer. He had exposed him as one for the BBC in relation to his "October surprise" hoax when he filmed LeWinter with a bag on his head. (LeWinter not Francovich!) That is why I "monster" the film because Francovich set out to present a fraud.
Ashton and Ferguson described LeWinter as a "known fabricator" yet also as a "sophisticated CIA disinformation specialist" and then expected the reader to treat him as a credible witness!
Aku - I have never read Steve Emerson and I don't know who Duffy is. (I note you rightly link the other six together ). I do not deny the CIA smuggled drugs. What I am saying there is no real evidence this has anything to do with the bombing of flight PA103.
In relation to the "two mysterious suitcases" we are not talking about suitcases being mis-tagged or falling of conveyor belts ect. We are talking about bags placed in container AVE4041 where the explosion officially occurred one of these suitcases being identified as a brown or maroon samsonite similar to the "primary suitcase". I believe "Heathrow" to be much more than a probabilty but Orr argued that "on balance of probabilities" the primary suitcase came from Frankfurt!
My article "Lockerbie - The Heathrow Evidence" at http://e-zeecon.blogspot omitted any mention of the "break-in" because (a) I am not sure the Police investigators or the Crown Office knew of it at the relevant time and (b) I do not know if it was relevant. (It is however a very good reason why Heathrow should not have been eliminated.)
My article does point out that CSP Orr claimed that "evidence from witnesses is to the effect that the first 7-8 bags were Interline bags." That is untrue.
The brown samsonite seen by Mr Bedford was not recovered and not linked to a particular "Interline" passenger. It was "eliminated" in theory because it could not be eliminated in fact. If it wasn't the "primary suitcase" whose suitcase was it?
Where a proper investigation would have gone I do not know but the "elimination" of Heathrow marked the end of an objective investigation and allowed the imposition of the "Libyan solution" after the Police were unable to square the circle that one of Khreesat's "barometric" bombs had been introduced at Frankfurt. The "Germans" pointed out that if PA103 was destroyed by one of Khressat's barometric bombs it must have been introduced at Heathrow. They were right but the "elimination" of Heathrow wasn't based on evidence.
My objection to the drug conspiracy theory, unsupported by evidence or supported by fabricated evidence is that it gives credence to the conclusion of the FAI that the bomb arrived at Heathrow unaccompanied from Frankfurt on flight PA103A.
I don't think calling people with different theories about what happened "charlatans and fabricators" is exactly the way to win friends and influence people....
I must say I favour the Heathrow theory. In one sense it almost seems too obvious, but let's face it, in real life (which this is) the obvious is usually the truth. I remember the first time I read the court judgement passages about that - my jaw just hit the floor. I simply could not, and still can't, believe something as blatant as that was just hand-waved away.
One minute the Bedford suitcase can't be the bomb bag, because it was one layer too low. The next minute it was never identified because it was moved to some far corner of the container. Excuse me?? If it was moved (which is obviously possible), is it more likely it was simply moved one layer up, or that a baggage handler shifted it right to the far side?
Want to hear my take on it?
Bedford specifically describes how he stacked the interline bags in the container - on their spines, with the handles facing in. This was apparently standard practice. Did you ever see cases stacked like that actually being loaded on the plane? And indeed all the evidence about AVE4041 indicates that the cases were lying flat.
It seems to me that stacking the few initial items on their spines was good while in the baggage hall, because it would be easy to read the tags on the handles. However, the cases would surely be laid flat by the loaders when the container was being filled in earnest. What would be more probable that some of the initial items would end up on the second layer when that was being done?
However, was the placing of the bag sheer chance? Its arrival in AVE4041 in the first place is of course highly suspicious. So is Mr. Kamboj, of course, but I assume he was checked out and clean - the fact that he showed up to give evidence 12 years later rather supports that. Nevertheless, simply getting the case into the container wouldn't really have been enough. There wasn't that much Semtex in it, and it would have had to be placed very close to the hull of the plane to do enough damage to crash it.
I have to say, I'd like to know more about the antecedents and security clearance of the guys who actually loaded that container on the tarmac, and who inevitably chose the precise placing of that case - intentionally or not.
To Baz: "The "hotel telephone scene" with LeWinter was staged and it was on the basis of this obvious fraud that the Crown Office dismissed the film - is that acceptable?"
I honestly get brain freeze every time I get near those scenes and never even figured out who was supposed to be calling who about what. Always meant to pay attention to that. If what you're saying is true, then it could be said this Maltese sausage is mostly filled with poo, ounce-per-ounce.
Ditto for the other points you're ahead on.
Aku: "I do support the Heathrow theory but it is by no means proven." IMO, proof is always a glimmer on the horizon with something like this with so many variables. It's the most supported alternate narrative is all. Personally I'm not into the quicksand of what did happen and how and who, just in raising the question since what we're told happened didn't.
Baz again: will check the article out. It might shed a little light on an item loaded there I just did some wondering about. See: http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2009/11/lightly-explosion-damaged.html
A lot of "evidence" in the "drug conspiracy" section of "The Maltese Double Cross" was unverifiable. The "hotel telephone scene" was ridiculous in itself the "CIA" man turning of some recording device on his phone and LeWinter assuring the "CIA" man that he wasn't recording the conversation either.
However the crux of the matter is LeWinter's astonishment at being told how Khalid Jafaar was frogmarched onto the plane by his "Special Action Group" escort to his "keeper" on the plane Matthew Gannon.
"No shit" says Le Winter "Gannon was his keeper on the plane?"
"Up there" says the "CIA" man "that big Motherf......... was sitting up there in First Class".
Matthew Gannon flew to Heathrow from Larnaca, Cyprus. He was not on flight PA103A from Frankfurt.
In Cover-up of Convenience the researcher on the Maltese Double Cross, Francovich's "Deputy" John Ashton and Ian Ferguson spent most of this book trying to "prove" the drug conspiracy hoax (describing the "CIA" man as "An anonymous witness"!) and in trying to "prove" Khalid Jafaar was a drug courier (and Hezbollah militant on the evidence of a T shirt recovered at Tundergarth!)
They noted, without a hint of self-awareness, that "LeWinter had made a good living from duping journalists" but more significantly described him as
"A sophisticated CIA disinformation specialist"
What does this say about The Maltese Double Cross and their own rehash of this hoax? Was the "drug conspiracy theory" sophisticated CIA disinformation to give credence to the claim the bomb arrived from Frankfurt? Is this disinformation continuing?
The point about the "pressure box"or decompression chamber was that I put to Francovich the two central flaws in the Francovich/Ashton/Ferguson theory -
(a) who is going to smuggle drugs onto a plane they know is and
(b) How does a Khreesat "barometric" bomb introduced at Frankfurt survive the journey to Heathrow and explode 38 minutes after take-off. The "pressure box" fantasy was all he could come up with. It is an issue "Cover-up of Convenience" or the recent Private Eye article "Other Names in the Frame-up" studiously avoids. I will study the reference you gave - I had not come across it before.
Rolfe: In pointing out what actually happened I have not only had to point out the official versuion is untrue but to show that "the drug conspiracy theory" is also untrue. Messrs.Ashton and Ferguson themselves described LeWinter as "a known fabricator" then expect you to believe his "evidence"! Aviv's "vieo evidence" was the subject of recent discussion. Robert Fisk thinks you put your luggage on a carousel in departures! I'm not trying to win friends.
Baz: (My scorn of Francovich's film was compounded when he wrote to me claiming Pan Am had a facility at Frankfurt to depressurise luggage and the bomb contained not one but two barometric triggers!)
By 1988 Pan Am DID have access to a depressurisation chamber for suspect baggage at Frankfurt airport. Such equipment was (and still is) commonplace at major airports and is used when a first-line X-ray shows complex electrical equipment inside the suitcase. This equipment was developed to counter the use of simple barometric detonation switches in aircraft baggae bombs. Bomb makers such as Khreesat then developed the use of the secondary so-called "ice-cube" timer which would delay actual detonation for around 20 minutes or so after the barometric switch had closed the circuit. The baggage depressurisation chamber would trigger the barometric switch but bags would not be kept in the chamber long enought for the secondary timer to trigger the detonator. Once out of the chamber the barometric switch would return to the open position and the circuit would be broken. In flight, however, once the ambient pressure in the baggae hold dropped to the required level, the barometric switch would close the circuit and the batteries in the circuit would start to charge the secondary timer which was, in Khresat's bombs, a simple capacitor which would slowly charge up with current from the batteries until it reached its dicharge capacitance and would then send a high voltage charge to the detonator in the Semtex which then exploded.
Maybe what Frankovich meant was that there were two timed switching mechanisms in the Lockerbie bomb: one barometric and one "ice-cube". However, this would NOT allow the bomb to travel from Frankfurt to London without exploding. There is a small amount of evidence to suggest that Khreesat's bomb might have been amended to inclulde a third device such as a clock-based timer set to cover the period from ingestion into the baggage system at Frankfurt until being offloaded at Heathrow. I don't really rate this theory myself, but it is possible.
I agree, I don't rate this very highly either. But the MST-13 makes no sense at all as it stands, and if it wasn't fabricated it has to have been for something.
On the other hand, the Bedford suitcase and the Heathrow break-in do rather scream a different explanation.
MISSION LOCKERBIE. The second part of the Lockerbie-study of MEBO, will be published soon. Here a part of the chronology no. 2:
ReplyDeleteThe criminal manipulation of the police label (Lothian and Borders) was the foundation for the fraud with the MST-13 timer fragment (PT-35):
Court Kamp van Zeist: Day 6, page 966:
+++ On the 13th of January 1989, Witness number 257, Mr. Thomas Gilchrist recovered Label 168, which was known as PI-995, a fragment of grey Slalom shirt. +++ end
MEBO uncovers:
1. > The marking PI-995 of a fragment of a grey slalom shirt, was remodeled in a police Label No. PI-995 !
2. > Dr. Thomas Hayes and Allen Feraday (RARDE) needed some similar police Label, with date of January 13th, 1989, also for a criminal act against Libya ! Therefore the original police Label No. PT-95, was changed/falsified as follow:
> This police Label no. PT-95, became Label no. PI-995;
> The date, of January 1989 (down left) remained existing and
became supplemented with the date, 17th of January 1989;
> The word "cloths", (charred), for the Article, became with the word "DEBRIS" (charred) overwritten!
3. > To demonstrate the liabillity the Label was later additionally signed by 5 further officials: Dr. Thomas Hayes; Allen Feraday; Derek Henderson; Ron McManus and Cal Mentoso.
MEBO Question: Did these people had to take the responsibility on themselves, if the criminal fraud would be noticed? And did each official have to secure himself face to face from the others? It is strange and not normal that the altered police Label no. PI-995 was signed by 7 officials...
(Lord Advocate Fraser's order was that police Labels must by signed by 2 officials).
4. > Dr. Hayes needed the manipulated police Label PI-995, for his mysterious eximination auxiliary side no. 51, from 12th of May 1989 !
With this Label PI-995, expert Dr. Hayes marked only one plastic bag with contents.
From contents inside the plastic bag, Ref. PP'8932, was registered various material, which was found allegedly in Lockerbie by the police:
Among other things, a portion of the ? neckband of a grey? short, severely explosion damage localised penetrations and blackering. etc.;
Under the marking PT-35, a) several fragments of black plastics;
Under the marking PT-35, b) was an unknown "fragment of a green coloured circuit board", was registered and depictured on Ref. PP'8932, PI-995;
Under the marking PT-35, c) small fragments of metal + wire.
5. > On the original photo Ref, PP'8932, PI-995, the red encircled fragment shows not a green MST-13 circuit board fragment designated as PT-35, but a brown coloured fragment from a prototype.
The first evidence photography together with photo no. 334, shows the fragment of the circuit board in the original condition, before forensic sawing into two parts. (part. no. 353= PT-35 (b); and part. no. 419= DP-31(a). )
The fragment comes from a MEBO prototype timer MST-13 circuit board, brown coloured and has a in-scratched, well visible letter "M" on it.
6. > The fragment from photo Ref. PP'8932, PI-995 and photo no. 334, was -as can be proved-, (determined of visible technical characteristics) not green coloured, but brown ! The delivered MST-13 timer to Libya were equipped with green circuit boards.
Thus the MST-13 fragment (PT-35) cannot be brought in connection with MST- 13 timers, supplied to Libya !
7. > Dr. Hayes needed the altered label PI-995 in his falsified eximination report side no. 51, dated of May 12th 1989, to bring into the MST-13 fragment, as PT-35. The original side numbers, 51 to 55, were overwritten by Dr. Hayes with no. 52 to 56!
To the memory:
Allen Feraday had discovered the MST-13 Fragment for the first time on 12th of January 1990 and Dr. Hayes booked back the date to May 12th 1989 !!!
The complete study coming soon on our website: www.lockerbie.ch
by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland
Ebol maintains
ReplyDelete"....
5. > On the original photo Ref, PP'8932, PI-995, the red encircled fragment shows not a green MST-13 circuit board fragment designated as PT-35, but a brown coloured fragment from a prototype...."
My photo of "PP 8932, PI-995..." shows a green fragment, not a brown.
MISSION LOCKERBIE, attn Adam:
ReplyDeleteFrom the technical characteristics on the MST-13 fragment, MEBO could recognize free of doubts that the fragment descended from a brown hand-made prototype and was from a not functional MST-13 circuit board. Since the fragment (carbonize) had charred black, the brown color can among other things to be determined, by the not perfect soldering courses and the sawn out of the corner = "curve". This original MST-13 fragment was with a letter "M" designated.
by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland
Never mind the bloody timer fragment!
ReplyDeleteThat blog mostly seems to be a summarising of The Maltese Double Cross.
Cue Baz to denounce in 3.... 2.... 1....
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the point?
ReplyDeleteThe point of what?
ReplyDeleteThe point of pointing out again that The Maltese Double Cross demonstrably a fraud. (Well at least the article was well-written).
ReplyDeleteRolfe:-
ReplyDeleteHaving watched my video of "The Maltese Double Cross" (recorded from the 1994 TV transmission) many, many times I was very surprised to watch the version posted at Ed's blog city. This is far longer and in many respects radically different.
I have no objection at all to the first hour and a half which is actually very good. Cannistraro, for example, makes some fascinating admissions.
My objection is to the fourty minute section from 1hr 36 min. - 2hr -16 min. which concerns the "Drug Conspiracy Theory" in particular the section from 1hr 55 min.on and above all LeWinter's risible "hotel phonecall scene" 02.12.50 -02.15.
As "a lie goes to the heart of the matter" I find it hard to accept evidence that is partially fraudulent.
My point is that even if this story of controlled drug deliveries was true is it related to the bombing? I noted there was not a shred of evidence drugs were recovered at Tundergarth save for a story from "Private Eye".
I was and continue to be very critical of John Ashton and Ian Ferguson's book "Cover-up of Convenience" as most of the book was concerned with trying to "prove", with the most risible "evidence", that this fraudulent fourty minute section was true. I thought it was also pretty cowardly to try and blame one of the victims for his own murder. They also argued that LeWinter (in their own words "a known fabricator") was a witness of truth! This quest to put Khalid Jafaar "in the frame" continues in Private Eye to this day.
(My scorn of Francovich's film was compounded when he wrote to me claiming Pan Am had a facility at Frankfurt to depressurise luggage and the bomb contained not one but two barometric triggers!)
It is such a shame Francovich (and messrs.Ashton and Ferguson) took the "drug conspiracy hoax" seriously or failed to consider that it was from Heathrow that drugs were being smuggled.
Oh, that last bit of the film is barking up the wrong tree, or I think so, certainly. It happens. People pursue their pet theories, sometimes past what the evidence will support. No reason to monster the entire film though.
ReplyDeleteThere must be getting on for a dozen serious documentaries about PA103. Most of them pursue a pet theory, to a greater or lesser extent. Most of them have errors, too. (Levy shows a picture of the wrong circuit board fragment at one point, and introduces spurious information by ambushing protagonists into giving erroneous accounts of 20-year-old events. Another documentary trots up an "expert" who is 100% wrong about alleged discrepancies in the appearance of the MST-13 fragment.) Their utility lies not in their having the right explanation, but in their interviews with protagonists, and in their errors - for it is by picking apart these errors we learn more.
The Maltese Double Cross is no worse than the rest of them, and has valuable material absent from the later productions. Wholesale demonisation of the film is ridiculous.
I agree too the the Frankfurt drugs angle ala Coleman and Aviv is a distraction from the real action. There may be something to it, but it didn't happen at Heathrow, where it seems the bomb went on. I don't know who if anyone was trying to misdirect, but some clues pointed that way, someone has been obfuscating and others following, etc. And here we are with some facts and opinions and other stuff gathered on the way and false leads identified and marked. Just for the interviews with Michael Jones and Denis Phipps I'm happy this video was made and not suppressed clear to oblivion.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Baz, I have no reason to defend LeWinter, who seems an old tired hoaxster to me, who may be right occasionally or whatever. And that pressure box treatment sounds pretty made-up. Maybe you're like me and presume people are too smart for such-and-such error, they must be lying on purpose. Maybe so, maybe not. Give 'em a little leeway and take things one fact at a time.
Cheers
"No reason to monster the entire film though". This is not a question simply of interpretation but the creation of "evidence". (I certainly agree that there were some interesting to face interviews and that by "picking apart errors we learn more".
ReplyDeleteAs I said I had no objection to the first 96 minutes. However how much fraud and deceit is acceptable?
The "hotel telephone scene" with LeWinter was staged and it was on the basis of this obvious fraud that the Crown Office dismissed the film - is that acceptable?
Is it accepteble to have a blacked-out figure of a "Jafaar family member" making numerous allegations that support this vague "drug conspiracy theory"?
Is it acceptable to have Juval Aviv claim to camera that a 19 year boy was under surveillance by half the world's security services?
Is it acceptable to claim in the same film that (a) a Policeman helpde Khalid Jafaar board PA103A (what help did he need?) and (b) he had a CIA escort from "SPAG"?
Is it acceptable to claim farmer Jim Wilson recovered a suitcase of heroin (a claim repeated in Gareth Peirce's recent treatise) not because Wilson ever said so but because an anonymous article in Private Eye claimed an un-named relative of an un-named victim was told this by Mr Wilson?
The book "Cover-up of Convenience"could have been a good book about Lockerbie. Instead it was an attempt to prove this hoax was true.
A member of the "Justice for Megrahi" campaign recently contacted me asking for my help in an unspecified capacity. He attached to his e-mail the petition to the UN General Secretary whose first signatory is John Ashton and also includes amongst its signatories Ian Ferguson, Heather Mills (who thinks slandering one of the victims is the way forward) and Patrick Haseldine. I think this petition is a daft idea. It will never happen but this isn't about "Justice for Megrahi" but vindication for charlatans and fabricators.
to "Caustic Logic"-
I'm sorry I don't understand what "The pressue box treatment" is.
You did write (about the drug conspircay hoax) "there may be something to it, but it didn't happen at Heathrow".
Two suitcases were placed in AVE4041 by someone other than the baggage handler - did whoever placed them there think perhaps he was smuggling something else?
Actually, there is rather a lot of evidence for the heroin suitcase. As well as Ashton & Ferguson, Frankovich, Coleman, Aviv and Foot; Emerson and Duffy also go into some detail about the heroin suitcase. US "controlled" heroin trafficking by the US was not infrequent in the 80s and there is evidence that Pan Am at Frankfurt was one such route.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree that the bomb PROBABLY went on board at Heathrow, the break-in and the two mysterious suitcases do not prove that it did. In the 70s and 80s Heathrow was known as Thiefrow for the rampant pilfering of baggage that went onand theft of just about anything not nailed down. Break-ins at airline offices and baggage facilities were commonplace in those days and suitcases are forever being moved around airports by hand for a variety of reasons such as mis-tagging at check-in, falling off the conveyor, missing their designated flight and many other reasons. Luggage containers are also frequently repacked with cases being added and removed, so it is not certain that the Bedford bags actually went on board.
I do support the Heathrow theory but it is by no means proven.
To "Caustic Logic" - I now understand what you mean by the "pressure box treatment" - Francovich's claim of a decompression chamber.
ReplyDeleteFrancovich also argued (in his letters) that his film did not say at which airport Jafaar had a CIA "SPAG" escort to his "keeper" on the plane Matthew Gannon and also claimed the bomb exploded in the First Class passenger compartment. He argued that if Mr Gannon wasn't on board flight PA103A then the passenger lists of the relevant flights were untrue, not his film.
The central point is that in making "The Maltese Double Cross" Francovich knew full well LeWinter was a hoaxer. He had exposed him as one for the BBC in relation to his "October surprise" hoax when he filmed LeWinter with a bag on his head. (LeWinter not Francovich!) That is why I "monster" the film because Francovich set out to present a fraud.
Ashton and Ferguson described LeWinter as a "known fabricator" yet also as a "sophisticated CIA disinformation specialist" and then expected the reader to treat him as a credible witness!
Aku - I have never read Steve Emerson and I don't know who Duffy is. (I note you rightly link the other six together ). I do not deny the CIA smuggled drugs. What I am saying there is no real evidence this has anything to do with the bombing of flight PA103.
In relation to the "two mysterious suitcases" we are not talking about suitcases being mis-tagged or falling of conveyor belts ect. We are talking about bags placed in container AVE4041 where the explosion officially occurred one of these suitcases being identified as a brown or maroon samsonite similar to the "primary suitcase". I believe "Heathrow" to be much more than a probabilty but Orr argued that "on balance of probabilities" the primary suitcase came from Frankfurt!
My article "Lockerbie - The Heathrow Evidence" at http://e-zeecon.blogspot omitted any mention of the "break-in" because (a) I am not sure the Police investigators or the Crown Office knew of it at the relevant time and (b) I do not know if it was relevant. (It is however a very good reason why Heathrow should not have been eliminated.)
My article does point out that CSP Orr claimed that "evidence from witnesses is to the effect that the first 7-8 bags were Interline bags." That is untrue.
The brown samsonite seen by Mr Bedford was not recovered and not linked to a particular "Interline" passenger. It was "eliminated" in theory because it could not be eliminated in fact. If it wasn't the "primary suitcase" whose suitcase was it?
Where a proper investigation would have gone I do not know but the "elimination" of Heathrow marked the end of an objective investigation and allowed the imposition of the "Libyan solution" after the Police were unable to square the circle that one of Khreesat's "barometric" bombs had been introduced at Frankfurt. The "Germans" pointed out that if PA103 was destroyed by one of Khressat's barometric bombs it must have been introduced at Heathrow. They were right but the "elimination" of Heathrow wasn't based on evidence.
My objection to the drug conspiracy theory, unsupported by evidence or supported by fabricated evidence is that it gives credence to the conclusion of the FAI that the bomb arrived at Heathrow unaccompanied from Frankfurt on flight PA103A.
I don't think calling people with different theories about what happened "charlatans and fabricators" is exactly the way to win friends and influence people....
ReplyDeleteI must say I favour the Heathrow theory. In one sense it almost seems too obvious, but let's face it, in real life (which this is) the obvious is usually the truth. I remember the first time I read the court judgement passages about that - my jaw just hit the floor. I simply could not, and still can't, believe something as blatant as that was just hand-waved away.
One minute the Bedford suitcase can't be the bomb bag, because it was one layer too low. The next minute it was never identified because it was moved to some far corner of the container. Excuse me?? If it was moved (which is obviously possible), is it more likely it was simply moved one layer up, or that a baggage handler shifted it right to the far side?
Want to hear my take on it?
Bedford specifically describes how he stacked the interline bags in the container - on their spines, with the handles facing in. This was apparently standard practice. Did you ever see cases stacked like that actually being loaded on the plane? And indeed all the evidence about AVE4041 indicates that the cases were lying flat.
It seems to me that stacking the few initial items on their spines was good while in the baggage hall, because it would be easy to read the tags on the handles. However, the cases would surely be laid flat by the loaders when the container was being filled in earnest. What would be more probable that some of the initial items would end up on the second layer when that was being done?
However, was the placing of the bag sheer chance? Its arrival in AVE4041 in the first place is of course highly suspicious. So is Mr. Kamboj, of course, but I assume he was checked out and clean - the fact that he showed up to give evidence 12 years later rather supports that. Nevertheless, simply getting the case into the container wouldn't really have been enough. There wasn't that much Semtex in it, and it would have had to be placed very close to the hull of the plane to do enough damage to crash it.
I have to say, I'd like to know more about the antecedents and security clearance of the guys who actually loaded that container on the tarmac, and who inevitably chose the precise placing of that case - intentionally or not.
To Baz: "The "hotel telephone scene" with LeWinter was staged and it was on the basis of this obvious fraud that the Crown Office dismissed the film - is that acceptable?"
ReplyDeleteI honestly get brain freeze every time I get near those scenes and never even figured out who was supposed to be calling who about what. Always meant to pay attention to that. If what you're saying is true, then it could be said this Maltese sausage is mostly filled with poo, ounce-per-ounce.
Ditto for the other points you're ahead on.
Aku: "I do support the Heathrow theory but it is by no means proven."
IMO, proof is always a glimmer on the horizon with something like this with so many variables. It's the most supported alternate narrative is all. Personally I'm not into the quicksand of what did happen and how and who, just in raising the question since what we're told happened didn't.
Baz again: will check the article out. It might shed a little light on an item loaded there I just did some wondering about. See: http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2009/11/lightly-explosion-damaged.html
A lot of "evidence" in the "drug conspiracy" section of "The Maltese Double Cross" was unverifiable. The "hotel telephone scene" was ridiculous in itself the "CIA" man turning of some recording device on his phone and LeWinter assuring the "CIA" man that he wasn't recording the conversation either.
ReplyDeleteHowever the crux of the matter is LeWinter's astonishment at being told how Khalid Jafaar was frogmarched onto the plane by his "Special Action Group" escort to his "keeper" on the plane Matthew Gannon.
"No shit" says Le Winter "Gannon was his keeper on the plane?"
"Up there" says the "CIA" man "that big Motherf......... was sitting up there in First Class".
Matthew Gannon flew to Heathrow from Larnaca, Cyprus. He was not on flight PA103A from Frankfurt.
In Cover-up of Convenience the researcher on the Maltese Double Cross, Francovich's "Deputy" John Ashton and Ian Ferguson spent most of this book trying to "prove" the drug conspiracy hoax (describing the "CIA" man as "An anonymous witness"!) and in trying to "prove" Khalid Jafaar was a drug courier (and Hezbollah militant on the evidence of a T shirt recovered at Tundergarth!)
They noted, without a hint of self-awareness, that "LeWinter had made a good living from duping journalists" but more significantly described him as
"A sophisticated CIA disinformation specialist"
What does this say about The Maltese Double Cross and their own rehash of this hoax? Was the "drug conspiracy theory" sophisticated CIA disinformation to give credence to the claim the bomb arrived from Frankfurt? Is this disinformation continuing?
The point about the "pressure box"or decompression chamber was that I put to Francovich the two central flaws in the Francovich/Ashton/Ferguson theory -
(a) who is going to smuggle drugs onto a plane they know is and
(b) How does a Khreesat "barometric" bomb introduced at Frankfurt survive the journey to Heathrow and explode 38 minutes after take-off. The "pressure box" fantasy was all he could come up with. It is an issue "Cover-up of Convenience" or the recent Private Eye article "Other Names in the Frame-up" studiously avoids.
I will study the reference you gave - I had not come across it before.
Rolfe: In pointing out what actually happened I have not only had to point out the official versuion is untrue but to show that "the drug conspiracy theory" is also untrue. Messrs.Ashton and Ferguson themselves described LeWinter as "a known fabricator" then expect you to believe his "evidence"! Aviv's "vieo evidence" was the subject of recent discussion. Robert Fisk thinks you put your luggage on a carousel in departures! I'm not trying to win friends.
Baz: (My scorn of Francovich's film was compounded when he wrote to me claiming Pan Am had a facility at Frankfurt to depressurise luggage and the bomb contained not one but two barometric triggers!)
ReplyDeleteBy 1988 Pan Am DID have access to a depressurisation chamber for suspect baggage at Frankfurt airport. Such equipment was (and still is) commonplace at major airports and is used when a first-line X-ray shows complex electrical equipment inside the suitcase. This equipment was developed to counter the use of simple barometric detonation switches in aircraft baggae bombs. Bomb makers such as Khreesat then developed the use of the secondary so-called "ice-cube" timer which would delay actual detonation for around 20 minutes or so after the barometric switch had closed the circuit. The baggage depressurisation chamber would trigger the barometric switch but bags would not be kept in the chamber long enought for the secondary timer to trigger the detonator. Once out of the chamber the barometric switch would return to the open position and the circuit would be broken. In flight, however, once the ambient pressure in the baggae hold dropped to the required level, the barometric switch would close the circuit and the batteries in the circuit would start to charge the secondary timer which was, in Khresat's bombs, a simple capacitor which would slowly charge up with current from the batteries until it reached its dicharge capacitance and would then send a high voltage charge to the detonator in the Semtex which then exploded.
Maybe what Frankovich meant was that there were two timed switching mechanisms in the Lockerbie bomb: one barometric and one "ice-cube". However, this would NOT allow the bomb to travel from Frankfurt to London without exploding. There is a small amount of evidence to suggest that Khreesat's bomb might have been amended to inclulde a third device such as a clock-based timer set to cover the period from ingestion into the baggage system at Frankfurt until being offloaded at Heathrow. I don't really rate this theory myself, but it is possible.
It mught be what the MST-13 was for.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I don't rate this very highly either. But the MST-13 makes no sense at all as it stands, and if it wasn't fabricated it has to have been for something.
On the other hand, the Bedford suitcase and the Heathrow break-in do rather scream a different explanation.