For ease of reference by those interested, I am providing here links to the correspondence between Justice for Megrahi's secretary, Robert Forrester, and the Scottish Government relating to JFM's complaints of criminal misconduct in the course of the Lockerbie investigation and prosecution.
1. The complaint letter can be read here, redacted to remove the names and official positions of those accused. In the version submitted to Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill (and now submitted to Dumfries and Galloway Police) the relevant names and official positions are disclosed.
2. The Scottish Government's response to JFM's complaint letter can be read here (page one) and here (page two).
3. JFM's reply to the Scottish Government's response can be read here.
Excellent complaint letter. Clear and, as far as I recall, all accusations are well documented.
ReplyDeleteThe reply was just as could be expected. We could all have written it. Yawn.
Except - I am a bit surprised about the sentence
"If you believe criminal offences have been committed you should provide any evidence ... to the police..."
Not even in Scotland you report complaints about the police to the police itself.
At least not according to
http://www.pcc-scotland.org/making_a_complaint
where it says you have a Police Complaints Commissioner.
Then, near the bottom of at that page it says:
"The PCCS does not have the power to review a complaint which suggests that a police organisation, police officer or civilian staff member has committed a crime. These complaints will continue to be considered by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service."
The Crown! Damn!
What the hell is it with Lockerbie?
ReplyDeleteThe original investigation, presided over by a Conservative government, is incredibly botched. Clear and compelling evidence that could have led to the perpetrators being identified and apprehended at an early stage is ignored, and the investigation chases off down a blind alley where it finally fits up a couple of people who obviously had nothing to do with it.
The trial at Camp Zeist, presided over by a Labour government in Westminster and a Labour/LibDem coalition in Holyrood, is a kangaroo court. A show trial. Clear exculpatory evidence is ignored, and a heap of inferential candy-floss held to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The immediate appeal is no better.
In 2007, under an SNP government in Holyrood, Megrahi's second appeal is shamefully delayed, even when it becomes clear that a dying man with strong grounds of appeal is scheduled to stay in prison awaiting the conclusion of the apeal process for longer than the doctors believe he still has to live. Although it can't be proved, there are persistent allegations that Megrshi's compassionate release was only allowed on condition that he dropped the still-outstanding appeal.
Who will take an honourable position on this? The Monster Raving Loony Party?
The problem with Lockerbie is that America would not permit a public enquiry because it would have revealed the truth about a faulty cargo door opening resulting in explosive decompression with the cockpit detaching at high altitude in 3 seconds.
ReplyDeleteFrom the beginning an American Senator told Martin Cadman, “America knew but would not disclose the truth”.
Instead we have had the phoney criminal investigation that becomes ever more ridiculous because it cannot conclude its investigation without admitting there was no bomb.
And it will never conclude because as Robin Cook said there will be no public enquiry until the criminal investigation is concluded.
The problem now is that because the initial cover-up has resulted in so many lies and crimes against humanity, who in Government is prepared to tell the truth without bringing down the Temple and the wrath of America?
Sadly the official truth must await the retreat of the American Empire to avoid Britain and Scotland suffering a similar fate to Libya and Iraq.
This is why realistically the Lockerbie Case should also be promoted as an educational campaign, along with the missing WMDs as a warning against government lies and the need to restore democracy.
The problem with Lockerbie is that America would not permit a public enquiry because it would have revealed the truth about a faulty cargo door opening resulting in explosive decompression with the cockpit detaching at high altitude in 3 seconds.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know this how? Oh that's right you don't. You read it on the web site of the guy who made it up.
Air accidents happen. And when they happen, they are investigated. Even when the cause is a design fault or equipmment failure or pilot error, it's published. Any of these causes is vastly preferable in everyone's minds to an act of terrorism.
Take a look at what happened to Air France 447 some time, and how it was investigated and how it happened. An extraordinarily embarrassing sequence of events for all concerned, but they didn't cover it up.
The amount of actual physical evidence that Pan Am 103 crashed because of an IED inside a suitcase in baggage container AVE4041 is absolutely incontrovertible. The amount of actual physical evidence that the suitcase in question was present in the baggage container at Heathrow before the feeder flight from Frankfurt landed, is also absolutely incontrovertible.
Everything else is negotiable.
I only say this for the benefit of other readers. Because I know it's impossible to reason someone out of a position he didn't reason himself into in the first place.
Dear Rolfe, I appreciate you have lived with a fixed view of the what and who of Lockerbie that you are loath to change.
ReplyDeleteBut your defence of the official IED conspiracy-theory, despite all the lies that permeate this case, is odd considering the absence of evidence.
Unless you believe the IED ‘evidence’ presented at Zeist was reliable, except for the bit about Megrahi!
JfM’s focus on the miscarriage of justice has been effective, but it will require a public enquiry, rather than a phoney criminal investigation to deliver the truth.
I've looked at the evidence. The idea that the huge volume of physical evidence of an IED in a suitcase in a baggage container, and the extremely large number of diverse witnesses who testified to aspects of that story, was fabricated, is ludicrous. It's on about the same plausibility level as the troll on another forum yesterday who suggested there had been no storm in New York this week and all the evidence of storm damage was faked.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that this impossible undertaking was accomplished to cover up for a mere accident is just insane. The idea that such an undertaking could have been whipped up from nowhere with no warning for this purpose, with some the physical evidence being brought in from the fields witin three days of the crash - well, what colour is the sky on your planet?
There is no evidence for your fantasy about the cargo door failure. You seem to cling to it despite the absence of evidence because it makes you feel clever, or superior, to pretend to know something others don't.
Well, you don't. You have become the acolyte of an internet fraudster, that's all. Get down and study the primary evidence, and stop peddling nonsense.
A broken cargo door could truly have caused a crash, as the UA-811 matter sadly demonstrated.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811
The theory is hard to prove in any case. I have not seen any evidence. For the explosives-were-used theory it has been provided.
Then again, this De Brackeleer's report (I believe he is dead wrong, though) talks about 30 times the explosives needed.
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1367/Explosives_analysis_concludes_semtex_theory_%22scientifically_implausible%22_in_Pan_Am_103_explosion.html
All in all, based on my own limited knowledge about the evidence, I don't think that the broken cargo door theory is totally discardable.
Rolfe is right, that it takes something unusual to swallow that the provided evidence for explosives is false or misinterpreted.
Then again, the corruptness of the investigators makes it a lot easier. How about that timer fragment? At current, it takes a lot (closes ears and eyes is recommended) to believe that it is genuine
At current, I'd offer a 50:1 bet that the cargo-door theory is false. With another investigative force it could - and it should - have been 10,000:1.
SM you give remarkable odds!
ReplyDeleteThe official explanation alleges that half a kilo of explosive made a small hole in the frame and destroyed the plane in 3 seconds?
It also alleges that after this catastrophic event the clothing from the IED suitcase survived and was identified as coming from Mary’s House?
Alternatively an open cargo door made a large hole in the frame and destroyed the plane in 3 seconds and explains why no one has claimed responsibility for the ‘bomb’.
This rational explanation could be tested at a public enquiry.
It may be wrong, but to call it crazy is irrational and colludes with the phoney criminal investigation, that is designed to avoid holding a public enquiry!
It's wrong, because if that had happened there would have been evidence for it, as there was on the other occasions when it happened.
ReplyDeleteThe timer fragment is an oddity, but the same oddness is not shared by the rest of the evidence for the explosion. That evidence was brought in from the fields within days or at most a few weeks of the disaster, by a bunch of diverse helpers including mountain rescue teams. The first conclusive item was brought in on 24th December, just day 3 of the search, while they were still mainly gathering up bodies.
So are we supposed to believe that some covert operation was launched within a day of the crash, to scatter faked evidence of an IED explosion all over the Scottish countryside? Or did they have all that stuff ready, just in case there might be an accidental plane crash they happened to want to pass off as terrorism?
Come to that, how did "they" know within a day or two of the crash that the cause really was an accidental failure they were going to want to cover up?
The more you think this through the dafter it gets. Just because one very very singular piece of evidence looks pretty dodgy doesn't mean the rest of it is.
de Braeckeleer is pretty much a maverick on this. Huge numbers of aeronautics and explosives experts have studied this disaster, and almost none has any trouble believing that a small IED in just the wrong place caused sufficient damage to allow explosive decompression and wind resistance to do the rest. For goodness sake, you can even see what happened in the photos of the reconstructed airliner.
And so far as I know, there isn't a cargo door on the left-hand-side.
Actually, it's quite funny. There is clear and incontrovertible evidence that there really was a cover-up in the Lockerbie inquiry. A cover-up of the actual introduction of the bomb at Heathrow airport. Possibly to protect Mrs. Thatcher's recently-privatised BAA from blame.
ReplyDeleteNow that seems to me to be quite a big enough conspiracy theory to keep anyone occupied for a bit. And it has the inestimable advantage of having actual evidence to support it. In fact, either that's what happened or the cops were dumb as a bag of hammers that failed hammer school, and completely missed evidence that was more or less sitting up holding a big sign with an arrow pointing "bomb over here!"
But no, that's not good enough for some people, they have to dream up something even madder.
Dear Rolfe, the ‘evidence’ presented at Zeist was some burnt clothing and a fabricated bit of circuit board.
ReplyDeleteYou say “the timer fragment is an oddity” - so that just leaves the burnt clothing?
Dave, you seem to have absolutely no idea of the extent of the evidence in this case - both what was presented at Zeist and the stuff they sort of "forgot" to show to the court. Why don't you go find out?
ReplyDeleteDear Rolfe, you say a pound of explosive was sufficient to destroy the plane in 3 seconds.
ReplyDeleteI invite readers to imagine the size of the plane and to count those 3 seconds out to realise how doubtful such a claim is.
This doubt is shared by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer and others who say the necessary explosive ‘would have to fit inside a trunk rather than a tape recorder!
You dismiss him as a maverick, but do not name the authors of your one pound claim?