Saturday 25 June 2011

SCCRC Megrahi report discussed on Newsdrive

Steven Raeburn, editor of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm, was interviewed yesterday on BBC Radio Scotland's Newsdrive programme about the reasons for the non-disclosure of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's report on the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. The interview can be heard here, 45 minutes into the programme.

8 comments:

  1. I am sure the SCRCC did an excellent job of work. I was very heartened that they dismissed the numerous claims associated with the "drug conspiracy theory" that Khalid Jaffar was something other than an innocent victim of the bombing. I am sure many other pedlars of bizarre theories made similar unfounded claims in their submissions.

    However the SCRCC was by no means in possession of all the facts and some people felt it was not appropriate to make submissions to such a body.

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  2. The thing is, it's not up to the SCCRC to decide who actually did it - or even to identify probable suspects. It's up to them to decide whether there really is evidence beyond reasonable doubt that Megrahi did it. Which seems a bit of a no-brainer, really.

    As regards Khaled Jafaar, well, obviously I don't think he was carrying the bomb bag, because I think the evidence that it was introduced at Heathrow is compelling. But on the other hand there's so much smoke there that I'd be very surprised indeed if fire was entirely absent. And just what is being covered up, anyway?

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  3. MISSION LOCKERBIE, 2011:

    The naive humor of the day in the "Logbook" of ex FBI Spezial Agent Richard A. Marquise, led the U.S. Task Force which included the FBI, Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA):

    Scottish police officer William Williamson said to Richard Marquise that Allen Feraday, the forensic examiner, had sent a fax to Henderson in January 1990 about items he found blasted into a Slalom shirt. The most significant item was a fingernail size circuit board. This MST-13 Timer-fragment became known as PT-35, the evidence designation placed on it by the Scots.
    He spoke of the efforts which led us to MEBO, one familiar to the Swiss.
    Swiss police officer (alias Cretton) expressed his conserns and those of Bollier:

    The first was that the CIA had planted the chip in the wreckage found at Lockerbie. Henderson and I told him this thought had also crossed our minds.
    Neither of us believed the CIA or any government official would do such a thing, but we had discussed the possibility...
    hi, .
    by ebol

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  4. Baz it was the job of the SCCRC to do exactly what it did. It reviewed the case and found six grounds suggesting there could have been a miscarriage of justice.

    It did its job as an independent body.

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  5. I still don't understand why Megraghi's consent is required if new legislation is being enacted to get round that barrier, especially given that Professor Black has already explained that even this is not required.
    And am I right in saying that Megraghi has not stated that he will not give permission to have the SCCRC report made public but that this is simply the interpretation of a previous statement that he wanted all information relating to Lockerbie made public?
    Is he really making this a condition for release?

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  6. The three paragraph statement from Megraghi's lawyers seems self contradictory. Do they fully understand the question asked of them? It seems not.

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  7. Grendal, everyone's consent is required because Kenny MacAskill inserted a consent clause along those lines.

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  8. Sorry Jo, my understanding was that MacAskill was introducing legislation to bypass the need for the consent of all contributing parties. I must have misinterpreted the reports at the time. Never did understand all that primary/secondary legislation stuff anyway!

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