[On the website of the Swedish newspaper Expressen today there appears an article based on an exclusive interview with Lamin Fhimah, the accused who was acquitted at the Zeist trial. It reads as follows:]
Expressen has met with Lockerbie bombing suspect Lamin Khalifa Fhimah who was tried on suspicion of involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Daring to speek openly about the Libyan dictator for the first time, Fhimah says Gadhafi "should be tried in court" in regards to whether he ordered the bombing and that he had his life taken away from him by the regime. "I don't know whether Gadhafi had anything to do with Lockerbie or not. There is a court and he is the one to explain whether he is innocent or not. He has to." Fhimah says.
Expressen met with Lamin Khalifa Fhimah in his home in Tripoli on Thursday. With the Libyan regime toppling, he feels that he is able to speak his mind on Muammar Khadaffi for the first time.
Fhimah was suspected of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, tried and found not guilty.
His arrival in Libya following the trial became a spectacle of large proportions and one of the four times Fhimah met with Gadhafi.
Despite being given a hero's welcome and what seemed like special treatment by Gadhafi, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah is now siding with the Libyan rebels.
Gadhafi made a show out of my arrival. We didn't say anything to each other. He welcomed me and nothing more. After that I stopped hearing from them.
He considers himself one of the victims of the Gadhafi regime.
I lost my travel agency in Malta. I had a farm that I was forced to sell in order to provide for myself and my family. I haven't received any compensation from the regime. The only thing they did after welcoming me was confiscating my passport. I dont't know why. They claimed that when the sentence against Al Megrahi would be repealed by them, I had to be here to testify.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi was found guilty of the Pan Am bombing but was set free in 2009 due to severe illness.
When he arrived in Libya, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah was one of the first to welcome him and news footage of the two, arm-in-arm at the airport, raised suspicion against the aquitted Fhimah.
"Al Megrahi was a friend and a colleague of mine. I don't know if he has anything to do with Lockerbie. There was a legal process and he was sentenced by a court," he says.
Lamin Khalifa Fhimah describes the fall of Gadhafi as a "blessed moment".
I was never a part of the regime. I am an ordinary citizen, who was connected to a crime I had nothing to do with and I don't know who made that connection.
In an interview with Expressen in February of this year Gadhafi's former Minister for Justice Mustafa Abdul Jalil now one of the integral forces of the ongoing revolution claimed that the Lockerbie bombing was in fact executed on Gadhafi's orders. [RB: But Mr Jalil has never supplied the evidence that he then promised.]
Who really did it? Nobody close to events following the bombing seems to know, including Fhimah. We desperately need some new hard facts before the trail is completely erased.
ReplyDeleteStrange that Kassem Hamadé's February interview with Abdel-Jalil in Expressen hit the headlines all over the world, yet this one with Fhimah has caused hardly a ripple!
ReplyDeleteIn March, the Daily Record reported:
"The man cleared of the Lockerbie bombing could face a second trial for mass murder.
"MSPs last night scrapped Scotland's 800-year-old double jeopardy law, which prevents someone standing trial twice for the same offence.
"And that has opened the door for a second trial for Libyan Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah.
"Legal sources claim there is 'new and compelling evidence' linking him to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103.
"And if Colonel Gaddafi's regime collapses, law chiefs will try to bring Fhimah back to Scotland for a retrial.
"A top level source told the Record: 'Fhimah is very much on the radar but everything depends on what happens in Libya in the coming days and weeks'."
It will be interesting to see what this 'new and compelling evidence' against Fhimah turns out to be!
Charging someone with murder with no real evidence is a crime in itself, only slightly less serious than murder in my book.
ReplyDeleteFhimah deserves some compensation.
MISSION LOCKERBIE, 2011, doc.nr.7015.rtf. (google translation, german/english):
ReplyDeleteLamin Khalifa Fhimah's words, "I am an ordinary citizen, who was connected to a crime I had nothing to do with and-- I don't know who made that connection"--is the Key for the truth in the "Lockerbie-Affair" and indicates that Libya and Abdelbaset Al Megrahi have nothing to do with the bombing of PanAm 103... why ?
This is the question which can be answered by opening of the SCCRC-files !
+++
Lamin Khalifa Fhimah,s Worte, "ich bin ein normaler Bürger, welcher nichts mit diesem Kriminalfall zutun hatte-- und Ich weiss nicht wer mich mit dieser Angelegenheit in Verbindung brachte"-- ist der Schlüssel für die Wahrheit in der "Lockerbie-Affäre" welcher zeigt, dass Libyen und Abdelbaset Al Megrahi nichts mit dem Attentat von PanAm-103 zutun haben...wieso ?
Das ist die Frage, welche durch die Öffnung der SCCRC-Akten beantwortet wird !
by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Switzerland. URL: www.lockerbie.ch
I don't think we can really rely on Fhimah telling the truth in this instance, he seems to be stating his his opinion, based on what he has heard and what he has been told, as opposed to things and events that he witnessed or was party too directly - plus, he has more than enough reason to despise Gaddafi and therefore more than sufficient motivation to falsely implicate him now that it's safe again to do so. Plus, he has more reason than most to lie, of course.
ReplyDeleteWasn't the original suggestion that Libyan agents (Fhimah, Al-Megrahi or others) visiting Malta on false passports placed the case on the plane on behalf of the PFLP cell in Germany? Once the Wesr German police in Frankfurt had raided the cell and seized all but one of their prefabricated bombs (supposedly), a bomb of supposedly nearly identical design ends up apparently being placed onto a connecting flight from Malta, possibly by Libyan nationals or agents who must have somehow taken delivery of the remaining device.
If the intent was originally to place the bomb into the luggage system at Frankfurt before the Frankfurt cell was compromised, is it possible that Fhimah, al-Megrahi or Libyan persons unknown could have taken delivery of the bomb case pre-armed and packed, primed to go off and placed it on the flight without knowing what it was?
If Libyan agents did indeed place the case, acting essentially as couriers or facilitators to get the case on the flight and introduced into the inter-line system, might they have thought they were moving something else for someone? Gaddafi supposedly nursed a formidable marching-powder habit for years and his agents presumably had to move drugs, hard currency and other things as well as bombs, guns and ammo around the world fairly discreetly all the time.
That either Fhimah and/or al-Megrahi placed the case on the flight in Malta is a fairly persuasive line of arguement, it fits with most of the known facts, as well as the allegations levelled at them in court, although given that they were both supposedly in Malta on false passports, there's no way to be certain unless they happen to have been caught on film clearly somewhere.
What I'm not at all convinced of is any suggestion that they placed the bomb on the plane knowing what it was, or even if they did, that they were acting on instructions, rather than essentially freelancing for some extra quick cash on the side by helping out their ideological brothers in the PF-LP. Certainly, Gaddafi wouldn't necessarily know or aware of such an arrangement further down the food chain.
If my understanding of those aspects is true, then the question is, what happened to the remaining device not seized by the German Police in the raid between that raid taking place and it supposedly being placed on the flight from Malta by Libyan agents? Presumably, someone had to have taken it on a flight to Malta from Frankfurt or elsewhere as an accompanied bag for the Libyans to take delivery of the bomb case there and get it into the system unaccompanied.
Assuming that's true, eliminating the small likelihood of it somehow arriving in Malta via sea, presumably it would have been X-rayed, logged and scanned on it's way TO Malta and therefore probaly slipped through the net once again in the process, albeit with passenger accompaniment.
If that could be the case, then my question is this - to date, has anyone been able to locate a trace or documentary clue relating to the not-yet-primed bomb's passage TO Malta before it was sent back as an unaccompanied bag?
Might be worth taking a fresh look at the names of those flying in to Malta from mainland Europe in those weeks, rather those coming from Africa. One of them might pop up and tally somewhere else.