[This is the heading over a post published today on bensix's blog Back Towards The Locus. It reads as follows (full references and links in the original, but omitted here):]
Richard Marquise, the FBI investigator into the Pan Am bombing, is, as far as I’m aware, the only public figure who’s tried to defend the prosecution. It’s interesting, then, that he does it rather badly.
Anyway, in an interview with OhmyNews, back in 2009, Marquise addressed the evidence that crucial (if unconvincing) witness Tony Gauci was rewarded for his testimony in the form of loadsamoney…
"I can assure you that no witnesses were ever offered any money by anyone…"
When he was interviewed for Gideon Levy’s documentary Lockerbie Revisited Marquise seems to have been more equivocal…
"Richard Marquise states categorically that no money was paid to any of the witnesses before the trial. In relation to witness Tony Gauci, Marquise refuses to say whether any money was paid out after the trial."
After the Al Jazeera documentary – which provided a sceptical view of the investigation – Marquise popped up in the comments at Robert Black’s blog and gave an even weirder response…
"I believe that I and any of my Scottish colleagues could well have testified in Zeist that no witness asked for, was promised or paid money in exchange for saying anything anything."
Let’s all play a game where we answer the relevant question! Was money offered? Given? It seems so…
"Presented with documents showing that Scottish police officers and FBI agents had discussed as early as September 1989, ‘an offer of unlimited money to Tony Gauci, with $10,000 being available immediately’, Lord Fraser said: “I have to accept that it happened. It shouldn’t have and I was unaware of it.”
"The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission conducted its own investigation into the case, which resulted in it being referred back for a second appeal – abandoned when Megrahi was freed. Unlike the trial court, it required police officers to produce notebooks and diaries.
"Harry Bell’s diary reveals that reward money was discussed from September 1989 onwards, within days of Gauci being traced.The Commission also reported that Gauci’s brother, Paul, who made important witness statements, ‘had a clear desire to gain financial benefit’, and that ‘the US authorities offered to make substantial payments to Tony Gauci at an early stage’."
Witness payments have typically been an issue when the media has offered witnesses moolah for their tales. It’s so controversial that the practice was nearly banned, and is subject to a host of regulations. (One of them, which might interest Lord Fraser, is that any payment or offer of payment must be disclosed to the prosecution and defence.) They’re concerned that the idea of cash might sway the witnesses’ judgements.
Hmm.
Seems like Mr Marquise has some ‘splaining to do.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMISSION LOCKERBIE, 2011, doc.nr. 1309.rtf:
ReplyDeleteEx FBI Spezial Agent Richard A. Marquise, wo led the U.S. Task Force which included the FBI, Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency , exposed himself with his own justifications ! He is still defending and protecting FBI forensic expert Tomas Thurman, who was meanwhile convicted in the United States for having tampered with forensic evidence. Was he possibly the crucial perpetrator behind the conspiracy against Libya in the Lockerbie-Affair ?
Before the US/UK indictment against the Libyan officials Fhimah and Megrahi was published on the 14th/15th of November 1991, a further decisive US meeting with Abdul Majid took place. Libyan Spy and witness number 684 was in sold of CIA !
Mr Giaka received the following sums from the CIA, part cash, part via his bank account:
On Fiscal Year 1989: US$ 29,460; 1990: $ 20'000; 1991: $ 26'000; and 1992:
$ 26,000. Official records until October 1999 show that the US Justice Department had payed US$ 324,000 in connection with Giaka for accommodation, travelling, etc. (Code "Puzzle Piece" WF 140440).
In Mr. Marquise's book, SCOTBOM: 'Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation' pinpoints that Marquise played a active role at the trial in Kamp van Zeist (2000). After legal condemnation Abdelbaset Al Megrahi's to lifelong prison, in August 2001, Mr. Marquise received the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service, following the successful resolution of the trial...
Its book is a "logbook", with important data of meetings etc. in the Lockerbie Investigation.
For example writes Mr. Marquise:
+++ Bollier was in financial difficulty and might be willing to take risks to solve his money problem. Bollier was not controllable and Commissar. Hans Knaus was reluctant to make him a double agent to work against the Libyan government. Knaus said, he is a risk to all of us. Knaus wondered if Bollier could be convinced to have Megrahi meet him in Tunesia but noted that if we were not there to control him, it would be difficult to know what Megrahi said.
continuation below >>>
continued from above >>>
ReplyDeleteKnaus was of the opinion Bollier would offer to do an undercover operational role so further the interests of the investigation. He reiterated his concern that Bollier would be killed and the blame would come back to law enforcement.
Knaus wanted to make it clear to Meister and Bollier if they did anything unilaterally with Libyan officials, no one was encouraging them to do it.
The Swiss wanted guidance in the event any of the people we were looking at came to Switzerland, including Megrahi. Nothing could be done at this time because no one is prepared to issue arrest warrants. No one could predigt when or if that would be done. Knaus provided with the circuit boards which Bollier had turned over to them so these could be given to Henderson along with the Togo timer.
Henderson and I (Marquise) had discussed showing the Swiss authorities "PT-35". We wanted them to tell Meister and Bollier, who had only seen photographs, that they had seen the chip and the evidence was real...+++
***
In 1991 Bollier was invited to the FBI Headquarter in Wahington and Commissioner Richard Marquise offered him up to US$ 4 million and a new identity in the States if he would confirm in a police statement that the allegedly found MST-13 timer fragment originated from one of the 20 timers delivered to Libya between 1985 und 1986.
Now there was no more doubt for Bollier that a huge conspiracy against the Gadhafi-Regime in Libya was on the way...
Contrary to the Libyan crown witness against Libya, Abdul Jiacha, - an agent in the sold of the CIA – Bollier rejected the offer. Jiacha is currently living in the USA under a new identity...
The sheer mockery:
FBI Task Force Chief Richard Marquise answered Gideon Levy's question: R.M.: 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...
Please watch the full documentary film "Lockerbie revisited" by Regisseur Gideon Levy, shown to Scottish members of Parliament:
http://www.123video.nl/playvideos.asp?MovieID=593392
by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Switzerland. URL: www.lockerbie.ch
.
Contrary to EBOL's claim Thomas Thurman was never convicted of anything.
ReplyDeleteAttn. baz:
ReplyDeleteMISSION LOCKERBIE, 2011: doc. nr.1310.rtf.
All his forensic information appears to have come from Tom Thurman, proven to be a manipulator of prosecution reports by the US Department of Justice in 36 out of the 52 Thurman cases that they investigated. ...
Into the documentary film "Lockerbie revisited" by producer Gideon Levy, is shown one crucial *film-sequenz from the FBI laboratory with expert Tom Thurman which bring him definitive in a Criminal Offence ! (Video sequence no.*30-23).
http://www.123video.nl/playvideos.asp?MovieID=593392
Part of ex Geocities: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/criminal.html#lex
+++ Where did the tiny circuit board fragment come from ? Someone might say "it came out of the blue", but the first person to "discover" the fragment was FBI's forensic "expert" Thomas James Thurman. Why are we putting" around the words expert and discover ?
Already while Thurman was working on another case, along side with the Lockerbie Case, his collegue at the FBI's Scientific Analysis Section (SAS), Frederic Whitehurst, wrote a memo to his chief:
"SSA Tom Thurman, the principle examiner of evidence in this matter, circumvented established procedures and protocols in the assignment of evidence to examiners in the SAS, testified to areas of expertise that he had no qualifications in therefore fabricating evidence in his testimony, in order to prove the guilt of Walter Leroy Moody instead of establishing the true significance and weight of the scientific data.
Thurman was fully aware of the fact that he was in violation of procedures and protocols of the FBI laboratory and did knowingly and purposely commit perjury and obstruction of justice in this matter."
...and that was one case, Thurman was working with. More perjury and obstructance of justice followed after the Leroy Moody case. And since the indictment, Thurman has been suspended from the FBI after his laboratory was suspected of falsifying evidence.
Later on Whitehurst testified to these points in a court of law:
"Thurman is simply fabricating evidence as he sits on the stand to make evidence fit." " Mr. Thurman is not an explosives residue expert. He is not a chemist.
His opinion is not an experts opinion but personal conjecture." "During a recent investigation while conducting tests at Quantico, Virginia, both I and SSA Steven Burmeister had to explain to Thurman in the most elementary terms the significance of the presence of nitrate oxidizers in explosives.
Thurman had no idea what an explosive material was composed of or how the different components functioned in the chemical reaction of the explosion. He expressed his belief that the "nitrogen content" of the explosive was the factor which controlled its power." +++
Thurman today does not work at the FBI as forensic "expert" anymore.
by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Telecommunication Switzerland. URL: www.lockerbie.ch