Monday 31 January 2011

Ten years of injustice

It was ten years ago today that the judges of the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist delivered their verdict of Guilty against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (and Not Guilty against Lamin Fhima) for the murder of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie. The Opinion of the Court justifying the verdicts can be read here. In the version originally issued on 31 January 2001, in the very first sentence, their Lordships mis-stated the date of the disaster. This is symptomatic of the quality of the Opinion as a whole.

An article marking the anniversary appeared on page 8 of yesterday's edition of The Sunday Post but does not feature on the newspaper's vestigial website. Justice for Megrahi's secretary is quoted as follows:

"Justice for Megrahi secretary Robert Forrester admits their petition, still being considered by Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee, could run out of steam after the election.

"He said, 'This is far from the end of the story, though, as we have at least two contingency plans to take the matter further.'

"He said they were ready to go outwith Scotland to achieve their aim but he wouldn't give details.

"'If we have to, we will go to the next resort which will be very public and not Scottish.' he warned.

"'If it's successful, the Scottish authorities won't be able to say no -- they'll have to do what they're told.'

"He said the group was waiting to see what answers the Petitions Committee gets to questions it's preparing to ask after a second meeting with the campaigners last week."

47 comments:

  1. The mis-stated date, 22 December 1988, was the day on which the Namibian Independence Agreement was signed at UN headquarters in New York. Bernt Carlsson, UN Commissioner for Namibia, was poised to assume charge of the illegally-occupied country on behalf of the United Nations. But Carlsson died when Pan Am Flight 103 was sabotaged over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.

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  2. Professor Black: have you ever accepted any payments from the Libyan government, their operatives or any other source associated with the "Justice for Megrahi" initiative or group?

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  3. Have any family members, friends, institutions of any kind received compensation in any form, cash or otherwise, from Libya or their agents, for your efforts, or anyone elses efforts, to lead this campaign?

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  4. Would you be willing to subject your personal financial records to an independent audit, whereby the results would be made public, to verify your assertions?

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  5. Hmmmm........ Would you like to reconsider your prior responses?

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  6. As you stand for a man that was convicted of murdering 270 people by three judges, had the verdict sustained in an appeal by five judges and you want to ensure the highest level of integrity and transparency in the judicial process, yet refuse to allow independent verification that would answer the question as to your potential pecuniary interest in this terrorist mass murder cover-up, I suppose that we will never know your truthful and complete motivations. What a pity 270 times over. Thank you for honoring your promise to allow dissenting comments.

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  7. Peter, I accept Professors Black's answers unquivocally. However, even if he had accepted reward (if someone in his postion had, it would hardy be into traceable personal accounts....), that in no way alters the extent of the evidential flaws in the case. Consider the evidence my friend...... it is a more difficult task than accepting the verdict, also more enlightening....

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  8. Tim, I understand what you are saying. I do not share your level of comfort about renumeration. With a case of this magnitude and complexity, there are bound to be some holes. But, three judges found beyond a reasonable doubt, that Megrahi was guilty. The evidence supports that it is likely that no other person on the planet could have perpetrated this mass murder. It reminds me of a book, 12 Angry Men, which nothing to do with your, or anyone else's, disposition but rather how circumstantial evidence can impact a verdict. The accused in the book, was not guilty, unlike Megrahi, but with his strange release, has accomplished essentially the same. Accepting the obvious can also be enlightening.

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  9. Thanks Peter. I agree that circumstantial evidence should be admissable evidence, and is often be compelling. An objective analysis of the circumstantial evidence in this case is, in my view, anything but compelling. May I respectfully suggest that if you have concerns on how financial reward might affect someones objectivity, and indeed truthfulness, then the renumeration of key witnesses in this case would be a more enlightening place to begin... particularly when you consider where the burden of proof should rest.

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  10. Tim has essentially covered what I was going to say, but perhaps more politely. These insinuations that Professor Black is presenting a cock-and-bull case for money are not simply baseless, they are offensive. The suggestion that anyone who is not prepared to open their entire personal finances to "independent scrutiny" by unidentified busybodies may be assumed to have taken bribes is inexcusable.

    If we are to examine monetary gain from the Lockerbie affair, then the Gauci brothers and Abdulmajid Giaka are the obvious candidates for scrutiny. The sorry tale of Giaka is clear from the Zeist transcripts themselves. A nonentity currying favour with the CIA first for a generous salary, and then in fear of being cut off without a penny, invented "evidence" to order to implicate Megrahi and Fhimah. The US prosecutors knew very well that he was making it all up to order, for money, but they presented him as a credible witness regardless.

    The Gauci brothers were traced as the vendors of the clothes in the bomb suitcase through a textile manufacturer. They gave the investigators no new leads, they simply tried to describe the date of the sale and the purchaser when the police came calling. The "rewards for justice" programme was not set up to make people millionaires simply by being traced as material witnesses by the police, but that's what happened in this case. Why? Maybe because by the time of the Zeist trial Tony Gauci had no memory at all of what the purchaser looked like, and might have said so without appropriate inducements?

    Giaka's evidence was rejected by the court, but it seems he got to keep his US citizenship and his new identity and his millions anyway. The Gauci "identification" was soundly trashed by the SCCRC, as it should have been much earlier. The Gaucis are living in luxury in Australia.

    It's the blatant bribery of these key witnesses by the CIA and the US DoJ that should concern the honest enquirer, not baseless smears against Professor Black.

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  11. The evidence supports that it is likely that no other person on the planet could have perpetrated this mass murder.

    Excuse me, Peter, but that is an extraordinary assertion. The fact is that there is precisely NO evidence that Megrahi had anything at all to do with the bombing and every opportunity for almost anyone who was within reach of Heathrow airport that day (which Megrahi wasn't) to have planted the bomb, so how you can assert that nobody else could have done it is a complete mystery to me.

    There is no evidence at all that the bomb was ever within a thousand miles of the island of Malta. There is no evidence at all that there was any unaccompanied luggage on KM180. There is no evidence that Megrahi did anything at all at Luqa airport that morning other than catch his flight for Tripoli.

    If you dispute this, then some specifics would be welcome.

    Clearly, whoever actually bought these clothes from Tony Gauci was connected to the bombing in some way. However, examination of the identification evidence makes it equally clear that the purchase took place on a day Megrahi was nowhere near the Gauci shop, and the purchaser was a taller, older, more heavily built man who at best had no more than a vague facial resemblance to Megrahi.

    Again, if you dispute that, specifics would be welcome.

    In my experience it is far more effective to rebut spurious arguments by reason, logic and facts, than to cast aspersions on the motives and honesty of the proponents. I find Professor Black's reasoning compelling. If you do not, then I would have much more respect for your position if you were to explain why you doubt his reasoning, rather than demanding to examine his bank accounts.

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  12. Lots of extraneous Aunt Sallys being set up by newcomers on this thread, only to be mown down by Rolfe (welcome back incidentally).

    Strange that neither Peter S. Sr. nor Tim knows how to spell remuneration!

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  13. Peter......the only bodies which "refused to allow independent verification that would answer the question" were the Scottish and UK political and the Scottish legal establishments. The independent verification came from the SCCRC and the question concerned serious doubt about Megrahi's guilt. Had they allowed the second appeal to proceed I suspect the outcome would have been far more interesting than detail surrounding Professor Black's finances.

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  14. Professor Black - who paid for your travel and expenses when you went to Libya?

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  15. Er, who cares? Doesn't sound like much of a jolly to me, I have to say. Libya's tourism industry has a lot of work to do before Tripoli is going to feature in the top ten places for a luxury holiday in the Arab world.

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  16. Rolfe: If you want to continue to play JFM enforcer, please try to stay on point at least. Who cares whether Black and cohorts have been on the Gaddafi dole? Excuse me? Maybe you don't, but the question is legitimate. Back in the days of the trial, Gaddafi tool Ibrahim Legwell once told the press that the expenses of the Lockerbie legal effort were covered NOT by the Gaddafi regime but by an "independent legal consortium." Of course, Prof. Black did his part in supporting this myth of independence when he volunteered his testimony about how surprised the Gaddafi goons were when Legwell and the other goons announced they would not turn over their clients. Yes, like Legwell, Black wants people to believe that the legal team was independent of the regime. It is possible that Prof. Black's "expenses" were "reimbursed" by Legwell's legal consortium. In my own view, however, Gaddafi did not have to pay directly, he could do it through intermediates and surrogates like Qatar, or even some of the enriched/compensated Lockerbie families, because that has a higher chance of meeting the Western standard of "plausible deniability." That is exactly what Salmond sought in his dealings with Qatar, but of course he did not call it by its name. He would say, everything had to appear (plausibly) consistent with Scottish law. The Scottish government medics took care of that.

    If anyone wants to investigate fishy connections, they should look to the Scotland based subsidiary of Nine-One Petroleum which figured prominently in the WikiLeaks cables. I also would like to know about a certain Mr. Bob Watts who co-founded JFM then went under cover, along with another co-founder, Abdulla Swissy. I know the latter is a member of Gaddafi's Revolutionary Forces, and I can see why the JFM wants him under wraps, but I would like to know more about Mr. Watts and his business dealings.

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  17. Suliman, your placing of the word expenses in scare-quotes demonstrates what you are trying to do. You are trying once again to imply that Professor Black is making up porkies because he has been bribed.

    Frank's question was specifically about travel and expenses. If someone asked me to travel to an African country in a professional capacity, I'd be rather hoping they might pay my air fare and my hotel bill, I have to say. So as I said, I wouldn't be particularly surprised or concerned if Professor Black didn't pay for these items out of his own pocket.

    You appear to be insinuating that "expenses" covers far greater remuneration than simply reimbursing these essential items, and is a cloak for bribery. It appears that you have no evidence at all to support this veiled allegation.

    We know that gross, blatant bribery took place in the Lockerbie case, but you seem unconcerned by this. Well, bribery of witnesses to induce them to lie in court is a different matter, perhaps better discussed elsewhere. But it did happen.

    We also know that the families of the deceased were made rich by the payments forced from Gadaffi after these same families engaged in a vigorous campaign to have the US law changed to allow them to sue the Libyan government for damages. How that might or might not be influencing the current debate I don't know, but one question you might like to ask is, how much is Mr. Frank Duggan, the spokesman for the US families who himself did not lose anyone on Pan Am 103 being paid to spew his bile and lies on their behalf?

    However, it's a simple fact that Frank Duggan's "arguments" can be recognised for bile and lies even if he's doing it completely free gratis. It's also a simple fact that Professor Black's position stands logically on the facts that are in the public domain.

    It is very telling that you choose to try to smear Professor Black personally, rather than counter his arguments with factual arguments of your own. Have you any evidence the Lockerbie bomb was ever anywhere near the island of Malta? Do tell.

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  18. Suliman: "Stay on the point".? Is that a feeble attempt at humour by someone who persistently ascribes scurrilous allegations and engages in non sequiturs which bear no relation to this blogs contentions? Or are you merely supporting the old adage that 'Americans don't do irony'?

    So while you and a number of other certain commentators here are seemingly content to blithely ignore the clear and blatant bribes and rewards that were used, by the US, UK and Scottish authorities, to induce witnesses to secure the conviction of Mr Megrahi, they revel in the hapless and diversionary tactics of insinuation and innuendo against Prof Black and Dr Swire. Quite lamentable really.

    Perhaps commentators such as Suliman, Peter S, or Frank, in their piously infinite wisdom, would like to share their reasons why they choose to ignore the debate at hand, namely: that a miscarriage of justice occurred in the conviction Mr Megrahi in 2001, and would like to enlighten everyone as to their, presumably strongly held, confidence he was correctly found guilty of the crime?

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  19. Insinuate money = money = opinions impure, arguments incorrect. That seems to be about it, as Rolfe has it.

    Why take the back door always, rather than just prove the case by showing how his bogus lobbying doesn't comport with the facts?

    P.H. - Good catch.

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  20. First, please accept my apologies for misspelling remuneration, as trivial as that may be. I have yet to see Professor Black’s response to the question that Frank wrote about compensation for his trip to Libya. Skepticism will prevail until an honest answer is given. I believe that Black’s intentions are germane to the discussion as Professor Black has chosen to put himself in the limelight and a prudent person might wonder what his motivation really is. Could he just be a truth-seeker that chose to side with a murderer that was “wrongfully convicted” in the Lockerbie bombing versus putting his efforts into finding the murder in the OJ Simpson case? Maybe. It would be interesting to know if witnesses were paid for their testimony in the trial but that does not remove the question of Black’s motives; by his choice. When it comes to the question as to who perpetrated the Pan Am 103 bombing and murder, all I hear is “anyone but Megrahi.” Who, pray tell, did it if it was not Megrahi and Fimah? Please come forward with your evidence that can withstand the test of a Scottish trial by three judges and an appeal with five judges so that we can get this behind all of us and sleep well tonight.

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  21. Professor Black: you responded "NO" to the question "have you ever accepted any payments from the Libyan government, their operatives or any other source associated with the 'Justice for Megrahi' initiative or group?"
    So, who paid for your travel and expenses when you went to Libya? A response from you would be preferable to those attempting to support your statements.

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  22. Dear All,

    What a delightful little exchange. I was getting concerned at the lack of comment on the blog over the last couple of weeks, but it is so refreshing to see things returning to normal what with Suliman sticking his/her oar in again. Quite inspirational stuff 'Suli'!

    It truly uplifts my spirits and optimism for the ultimate outcome of the JFM campaign to see that our detractors are either so ignorant of the case or so afraid of confronting its discrepancies that the only resort they have is to indulge in unsubstantiated, grubby surmise about where JFM gets its funding from. I realise how inconvenient it must be, however, like it or not, the burden of proof is on the accuser. There's that irritating little word 'proof' getting in the way again and spoiling a jolly spiffing conspiracy theory. It is such a damnable nuisance. The fact is folks, you don't have it and you won't find it either. Furthermore, JFM is not beholden to you, and, if truth be told, we'll derive no end of amusement in watching you scrabbling about trying to find it.

    Finally, might I suggest that you, 'Suli', old bean, are suffering from symptoms of amnesia? You have clearly forgotten what you were told on a prior post concerning Messrs Watts and Swissy, two individuals whom JFM still maintains in the highest regard. Strange that you limit your speculation to this particular pair and never raise questions over any other one time members of JFM. But, there we are, we aren't all blessed with such a selective imagination. Perhaps next time, if it's not too much trouble, you could give us a few pearls of wisdom you might be holding back vis-à-vis the Lockerbie/Zeist case itself. I imagine you're just biding your time, aren't you? What a naughty little tease you are, you are.

    I did rather promise myself not to indulge in a response on this thread, but found myself at a loose end this afternoon and thought "What the Hell, have a bit of fun, spoil yourself, you deserve it now and then after all."

    Toodle pip,
    Robert Forrester (JFM).

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  23. Dear Peter S Snr, it appears you may have not understood what this blog, the JFM group and many others are expressing. The question is about belief in Megrahi's guilt. Not about theories regarding who was really guilty.

    Who was guilty? Well, that is stage 2 you're leaping into. For it is the police and other investigative forces, possessing the power and apparatus to do such, to find such evidence - if it exists. Let us deal with stage 1 shall we? The guilt or innocence of Mr Megrahi.

    This blog and many other people dispute the conclusions reached by the judges at Zeist. For many reasons, not least the lack of evidence.

    There is no evidence whatsoever that the bomb was loaded at Luqa, Malta, and the evidence provided by Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper, was utterly demolished by the SCCRC. Furthermore, the exposing of paid informants being liars in the Zeist courtroom (with the authorities full knowledge of this and attempts to conceal it), the efforts by investigators to induce witnesses also revealed at Zeist, and the latterly revealed, by the SCCRC, 'compensation' paid to another witness for testimony. While his brother also received a substantial sum for support.

    So, can you please tell us what evidence convinces you of Megrahi's guilt? As you are the one supporting the Lordship's conclusions at Zeist, while seemingly ignoring the conclusion by the SCCRC, perhaps you can show and explain your methodology?

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  24. A lot of people have made a lot of money out of Lockerbie. I am particarly interested in a US Government Official who played an admitted role in the investigation whose family made millions of dollars from the creation of the "Libyan solution".

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  25. Eddie is correct, although I would argue that the stage two "If it was not Megrahi, then who?" horse may have bolted all these years later (although I remain hoepful). Nevertheless, Peter, it is worth noting that not everyone who advocates for Megrahi is a card holding life time member of the Megrahi is innocent club. I don't know if he is innocent or not. The fact remains, the evidence on which he was convicted was spurious, at best, and the fact he was convicted on such weak evidence gives rise to all sorts of doubts about the integrity of the process...

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  26. I for one cannot wait to see what JFM's next moves that may be "very public" and may go "outwith Scotland" will be. Obviously such moves will have to be made when the time is right, which doesn't appear to be far off.

    Denying justice is not supposed to be very Scottish either so whatever these well-intentioned persons have to do to in their attempts to restore justice, provided their actions are legal, is more than justified in this particular matter.

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  27. ...three judges found beyond a reasonable doubt, that Megrahi was guilty...

    I can't know for sure that sceptics of Megrahi's guilt haven't been compensated by Gaddafi, Libyan agents or, well, any bugger with an interest in him and some cash to spend. (This, naturally, doesn't mean that I've been given cause to suspect they have.) If, however, there's something inherently suspicious about questioning Megrahi's guilt does this take in the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, politicians like Ms Grahame, judges such as Messrs Hamilton and Thompson, lawyers such as Mr Mansfield and Ms Pierce, churchmen like Cardinal O'Brien and Reverend Tutu and, well, hundreds of others? Either Libyan tentacles spread further than I'd guessed or there's compelling grounds for this belief.

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  28. Maybe we should start stalking Frank Duggan, demanding that he open his personal bank accounts to independent scrutiny to show that he hasn't accepted any payments for his perpetual media presence insisting that Megrahi's guilt is self-evident?

    On second thoughts, let's not bother. We don't need to know how much the Lockerbie millionaires are paying him to manipulate the media to their advantage, to know that he's talking mince. I don't think I've ever heard him get a verifiable fact about Lockerbie right.

    His communications are so riddled with demonstrable inaccuracies that he is either woefully unfamiliar with the case he's being paid to support (and if I was one of the US families I'd want to know why), or he does know the real facts but doesn't care, and just says whatever he thinks will suit his side best at any given moment.

    I could chew Duggan up one side and down the other, on the facts of the matter. It doesn't matter whether or not he's being paid for his lies, it's obvious he's lying. So I don't need to make an issue of the money he's making.

    If Professor Black's facts and reasoning are in error, then show the error. Unsubstantiated smears are no substitute for critical thinking.

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  29. Peter, if you want "honest answers" I suggest you start with a little honesty yourself and reveal your own identity. Its an important thing to do when you accuse someone publicly of taking bribes. It also takes courage.

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  30. Maybe. It would be interesting to know if witnesses were paid for their testimony in the trial....

    Maybe? Which planet have you been on for the past ten years? The payments given to Giaka to make up his lies about Megrahi and Fhimah have been in the public domain for at least that long. Vincent Vassalo was also offered inducements to make similar stuff up, but he didn't go for it. That's in the public domain too.

    The payments to the Gauci brothers were only made public relatively recently, but again they're common knowledge and have been for some time.

    "Maybe", my eye.

    When it comes to the question as to who perpetrated the Pan Am 103 bombing and murder, all I hear is “anyone but Megrahi.” Who, pray tell, did it if it was not Megrahi and Fimah? Please come forward with your evidence that can withstand the test of a Scottish trial by three judges and an appeal with five judges so that we can get this behind all of us and sleep well tonight.

    Do you know who killed Jill Dando? Who, pray tell, did it if not Barry George?

    Oops, that doesn't work. Barry George was wrongly convicted of that murder, and at his second appeal it was shown that the conviction was unsound. He was freed and the conviction was quashed. Without anyone having the first idea who actually committed the crime.

    It is not necessary to know who committed a crime to believe beyond reasonable doubt that the man convicted was set up. It is not necessary to have another suspect for a conviction to be declared unsound and quashed.

    Who else might have planted the Lockerbie bomb? Anybody within striking distance of Heathrow airport that day, frankly. Which includes me, come to think of it. It doesn't include Abdelbaset al-Megrahi though.

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  31. "The Libyan government asked me to be present in Tripoli while the team was meeting so that the government itself would have access to independent Scottish legal advice should the need arise." When Prof. Black said this, he would have you all believe he received no remuneration for his advice, travel and expenses.
    This "independent Scottish legal advice" convinced the Libyans that there was not enough evidence to convict.
    "As the trial was ending in January 2001, the Libyan Ambassador to the Netherlands smugly predicted an acquittal (to a) British newspaper... and Robert Black... went so far as to tell journalists, 'A conviction is - I kid you not - impossible.'" Page 284, The Price of Terror, Adler and Gerson, HarperCollins.
    Perhaps this is why he doesn't admit to you all that he got paid for this advice to the terrorist government of Libya.
    So, dear readers, this is enough bile and lies from me. I have no interest in responding to Rolfe or the others attempting to defend Prof. Black.

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  32. Mmmmm. Are you Frank Duggan, "Frank"? Care to tell us how much money you've been paid for your advocacy of the "Megrahi is a murdering bastard" line? Would you open your personal bank accounts to independent scrutiny for this purpose?

    I get paid for my professional opinion all the time. I'd have to get a job flipping burgers if I wasn't. Sometimes I do stuff pro bono, but I wouldn't class having my travel and subsistence expenses covered as "receiving remuneration".

    I don't think I ever encountered the accusation that I must be making stuff up to order, because I didn't pay my own travel expenses. Maybe that's how people behave in your country, Frank, and maybe it's how people behave in your line of work. Maybe it's how you behave, with your repeated lies and inaccuracies about the Lockerbie facts. It's not how people behave here though, in general. Don't judge others by your own grubby standards.

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  33. Rolfe I don't think we should speculate about who this person is. That has backfired before. It isn't worth even listening to the contributions from "Frank".

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  34. Fair comment. It hadn't even crossed my mind until "Frank" posted "So, dear readers, this is enough bile and lies from me."

    I had of course accused Mr. Frank Duggan of "spewing bile and lies", in an earlier post. It occurred to me, therefore, that by this follow-up post "Frank" was confirming that he is in fact Frank Duggan.

    Apologies if this is not the case.

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  35. He goes by Frank. I think that is him, but possibly not. After all Ebol wasn't ebol.

    What a lame effort that was, for the money he's been paid. If it was him.

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  36. Whether it was Duggan or not (he has posted here as "Frank Duggan" before, but sock puppetry in this blog is childishly simple), his final word was

    I have no interest in responding to Rolfe or the others attempting to defend Prof. Black.

    I wasn't aware that I was "defending Professor Black". I'm not aware he needs defending. The remarkably similar and concerted attacks in this thread by Peter S. Snr., Frank and Suliman (see above remarks about sock puppetry) were unprovoked and unsubstantiated.

    What I thought I was doing, actually, was challenging these three(?) posters to desist from smearing Professor Black and address the actual arguments being made (by others, more than by him). I asked for evidence that the bomb was ever within a thousand miles of the island of Malta, or that an unaccompanied suitcase was carried on Air Malta flight 180, or that Megrahi did anything that morning other than catch his flight to Tripoli. I asked for comment on the SCCRC demolition of the Gauci identification.

    These are the issues, not whether anyone has been paid money. We know Frank Duggan has been well rewarded for saying nothing either true or relevant about the matter. Far better to discuss the lameness that is his presentation than how much the Lockerbie millionaires are paying him.

    Frank has no interest in discussing the issues, only in insinuating that Professor Black received some money from someone, therefore he must be lying.

    Pot. Kettle. Black...? I don't think so.

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  37. Rolfe, I agree. We were aware of what you were doing. You were facing down the allegations and dealing with them. You did it very well. But you have to remember that it isn't what people like that are here for; they aren't here to engage. You have asked them before to put their case, to discuss.......they can't. They don't want to. They probably don't have one.

    All they wish to do is attempt to smear others with unsubstantiated drivel.

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  38. Just double-checked Blogger profiles. A Frank signed an old comment here as Mr. Duggan
    http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2009/12/another-call-on-malta.html
    Both Franks have "profile not available," so I'm pretty sure it's one person, the PCAST's manager of the U.S. families. Talk about ulterior motives, this time illustrated with his on-record handling of the facts.

    But apart from who's who, it's what's said that matters for both sides. Compelling legal arguments, actual evidence being considered in detail, etc. vs. smears, innuendo, and evasion otherwise. And, yes, bile and lies.

    Rolfe: your mission to change their tack was doomed to failure, but necessary to try. Thanks, now I don't have to do it.

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  39. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  40. Oh, I wasn't trying to change anyone's tack. The agenda was obvious from the first post (though I have to admit to being inexcusably slow on the uptake in not putting "Frank" and "Frank Duggan" together until he made his post accepting the "bile and lies" accusation to himself).

    The agenda was to catch the attention of anyone reading the thread and suck them into the concept that Professor Black is dishonest and telling lies for money. My objective, as with other posters on the thread, was to dispel that smear.

    It's interesting that the only thing the man who is being paid to tell lies about Lockerbie can think of to counter the truth, is to smear the truth-teller with the accusation that he is being paid to tell lies!

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  41. Returning swiftly to this thread's first (and only on-topic) comment:

    The mis-stated date, 22 December 1988, was the day on which the Namibian Independence Agreement was signed at UN headquarters in New York. Bernt Carlsson, UN Commissioner for Namibia, was poised to assume charge of the illegally-occupied country on behalf of the United Nations. But Carlsson died when Pan Am Flight 103 was sabotaged over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.

    Is it too much to ask that we all now make an effort to comment sensibly and relevantly on The Sunday Post's "Ten years of injustice"?

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  42. Yes I will comment. I think the injustice has been going on for about twenty years, not ten.

    There was a lot of injustice long before the Zeist trial: House arrest, sanctions, trial by media, misleading government statements, etc., etc.

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  43. Just a quickie...

    Rolfe said above, "If someone asked me to travel to an African country in a professional capacity, I'd be rather hoping they might pay my air fare and my hotel bill, I have to say."

    Your placing of the qualifier "African" is really telling to me. It is not unlike clerks who say to customers, "If you need help, my name is X," which would leave one to wonder what the name would be if the customer did not need help. Likewise, I wonder what your position on reimbursement would be, if you were asked by a non-African country, perhaps a European country or Asian, or even Apartheid South Africa. And by the way, don't try to dress me up in Frank Duggan's or anyone else's garb. Your problem with Duggan is yours, not mine. And, in any case, Duggan and the US families don't protest the court ruling and pocket the loot at the same time. That level of "dignity" is exhibited only by your side. How many millions do you hold at the JFM? We know about Swire's ten million. I understand that JFM co-founder Fr. Keegans suffered personal injury in the Lockerbie bombing, but did he get any compensation, and if so how much? I am not interested in Duggan, and Malta, and all your little Monday morning quarterbacking. Why won't your campaigners for justice give back the money they say they received through injustice? Explain that to me, please, using any standards of dignity you like, Scottish, Belgian or even Swiss.

    Caustic Logic: Instead of wasting your time and going through contorting yourself to give credence to Gaddafi's agents, why don't you go update your blog on John Wyatt. Tell your readers about his little explosives detector scam. Of course we don't see that sort of news because it reinforces Duggan's reference to certain "cranks."

    I'll be back...

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