Sunday 16 October 2011

Libya and Lockerbie: A questioned past, an uncertain future

[This is the heading over an item posted today on Caustic Logic's blog The Lockerbie Divide.  It reads in part:]

My two big thoughts on Lockerbie these days are:

1) It's odd how even the new government is willing to cause some friction with its European sponsors to insist the Lockerbie case is closed and no one's going to be re-tried or re-jailed. The oil is negotiable, and resistant loyalists can be slaughtered on sight, but apparently handing Mr al-Megrahi back to the Brits or anyone else is such a sore spot that they'd better not try it.

2) With no Gaddafi regime left to hang the crime on, and Iran coming into the limelight again, along with its proxy Syria, the truth may be allowed to emerge now of the Iranian-Syrian(?)-PFLP-GCplot that actually did destroy Pan Am 103. It would be for all the wrong reasons, however - mainly to "justify" the next regime change project(s) of an increasingly bold and desperate grab for the world's oil reserves.

Anyway, on the justifications for destoying Libya this year, old and new, I have discovered a prominent ally. I recently ran across a video interview, in French, with Yves Bonnet, a French terrorism expert and former high counter-terror official [RB: Director of the DST, 1982-1985].  From the text summary of the September 1 [2009] interview, and what I can make out, he's explaining how Gaddafi's Libya wasn't so bad from a terrorism point of view, and didn't do Lockerbie, at least. I can make out the name Ahmed Jibril being mentioned.

Bonnet is a co-founder of CIRET-AVT (International Center for Research and Study on Terrorism and Aid to Victims of Terrorism), along with a Belgian parliamentarian and a former Algerian government minister. With this intriguing genesis, CIRET-AVT has gone on to do unusually brilliant things. Along with another group (CF2R - Center for Research on Intelligence), they wrote a rare, really good report on the Libyan Civil War and the "uncertain future" of the country after the violent, NATO-backed Islamist uprising there (see "Un Avenir Incertain" in Libya)

Unlike most who traveled to Libya on fact-finding missions, their team actually talked with Tripoli and took them seriously, allowing their report to wind up making sense.

5 comments:

  1. MISSION LOCKERBIE, 2011, doc. nr. 7045.rtf. (google translation, german/english):

    With one piece of evidence, a manipulated fragment of a MST-13 timer circuit board (PT-35) Libya has been made legally responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103...
    If the Scottish Justice would be willing to help the Libyan's NTC in the truth-finding in the "Lockerbie Affair", could do with a new forensic examination of the "MST-13" timer fragments: "PT-35" - "PT-35 (b)" and DP -31 (a) -- within 10 minutes the exoneration of Libya can demonstrated !
    The testimony at Kamp van Zeist, of witness nr. 335, Allen Feraday, should be considered as fact in the follow-up, for example:
    Q- I see. Could we then, whilst keeping that photograph on the screen, look at photograph 334. And is it possible to have 330 as well. And if it's possible, could we magnify 330. If we look at 334, Mr. Feraday, what does that show us?
    A- That's a photograph of fragment PT/35 as recovered in the laboratory.
    Q- Is that prior to the removal of any samples?
    A- That is correct. Yes, sir.

    Result: the 20 MST-13 timer *(with green coloured circuit boards) which MEBO Ltd. have delivered to Libya, was constructed with *9-layers of fiberglass.
    The original proof fragment from the MST-13 Timer: (PT-35) (ex-brown coloured ) were from a Prototype and later in the Siemens company split in two parts: PT-35 (b) = nr. 353 and DP-31 (a) = nr. 419; this circuit boards was constructed with 8- layers of fiberglass. This can be tested, in the Scottish Justice Archive by the preserved original fragments nr. 419 and nr. 353.
    Such prototypes of MST-13 timers were not delivered to Libya, therefore Libya can not be associated with the bombing of Pan Am 103 !
    The libyan official Abdelbaset Al Megrahi and Libya have to do nothing in the Lockerbie-Tragedy !
    by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Switzerland. URL: www.lockerbie.ch

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  2. I don't see how the report can be so good if it gets fundamentals wrong. The uprising was overwhelmingly NOT an Islamic uprising though there were Islamic factions. The east of Libya was a tinderbox - the French with US support triggered it.

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  3. Ruth, hi.

    "Islamist uprising" is my characterization, and perhaps a bit flippant. There are quite a few modern, liberal types involved, but also a very strong Islamist aspect to it, especially among the bearded front-line shock troops responsible for the worst human rights abuses. And temporary or not, the NTC's legal code until taking Tripoli was Sharia law, perhaps just to keep the Islamists on board for the duration of fighting. The report takes great interest in that pandered-to portion, and for good reason.

    Adam

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  4. 'And temporary or not, the NTC's legal code until taking Tripoli was Sharia law, perhaps just to keep the Islamists on board for the duration of fighting.'

    Where on earth do you get this from?

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  5. Excellent Libyan civil war reporting, Adam: here, here, here, here, here and here. If ever Muammar and Saif al-Gaddafi, and Abdullah al-Senussi are brought before the International Criminal Court, those well-researched and informative articles ought imho to be adduced in the three Libyans' defence.

    I found the video interview with former French Intelligence chief Yves Bonnet very interesting. Bonnet maintained that Gaddafi was wrongly blamed for both Lockerbie and Ténéré (UTA Flight 772): both were down to Iran and Ahmed Jibril, according to the former DST chief. (Though, as you know, I believe apartheid South Africa had a hand in Lockerbie - see Ayatollah's Revenge Exacted by Botha's Regime.)

    Ruth is querying the provenance of some of what seems to be classified information in your article, Adam: you don't happen to have a US Intelligence background, by any chance?

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