Sunday 5 January 2014

UK and US geopolitical interests could derail fresh Lockerbie inquiry

[This is the heading over a letter from Joan S Laverie in today’s edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]

In a sudden conversion on the road to Damascus, the UK and United States governments, joined by the fledgling administration in Libya, have pledged to uncover the truth about Lockerbie (Lockerbie disaster: 25th anniversary, News, December 22). [RB: What the US and UK governments have pledged to do is to seek evidence against Libyans supposedly involved in the Lockerbie bombing along with Abdelbaset Megrahi.  This is far removed from uncovering the truth.  The truth about the Lockerbie bombing is the last thing the US and UK governments (and, apparently, the Scottish Government) want to be uncovered.]

This collective resolve, however, may have been derailed in its infancy by a ruling last week by a High Court judge in England. In a case brought by a Libyan dissident, abducted and tortured when rendered to Tripoli in 2004 as part of a joint MI6-CIA operation, the judge - according to reports - instructed the plaintiff to abandon his quest to sue both MI6 and the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, on the grounds that to pursue it would damage Britain's relationship with the US and therefore the "national interest".

If this same principle of "state doctrine" superseding the criminal law of the land was also applicable in May 2000 when the trial - under Scots law - began at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands of the two suspects rendered by Colonel Gaddafi, it is no wonder any attempt to obtain a safe conviction, albeit in the absence of a jury, was doomed to failure.

The United Nations observer at the trial described the verdict as "arbitrary, even irrational" and said: "Proper judicial procedure is simply impossible if political interests and intelligence services from whatever side, succeed in interfering with the actual conduct of a court."

It would seem that then, as now, the financial and geopolitical interests of the Western powers, and in particular those of the US, continue to preclude the pursuit of justice.

[UK government interference in judicial proceedings relating to Lockerbie on the pretext of "national interest" is, of course, nothing new. Regular readers of this blog will remember, for instance, the public interest immunity (PII) certificate signed by the then Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, during the second appeal in 2008. The sorry saga of the PII claim can be followed in these blogposts (amongst others):]

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/12/second-procedural-hearing.html

3 comments:

  1. MISSION LIFE WITH LOCKERBIE, 2014 - Go to new facts on ground ... google translation, german/english):

    The right way is reciprocal between the lines: At the beginning of 2014, "Libya Now", wants to actively help the last suspicions against Abdelbaset al Megrahi and Libya, in the matter - Attack on "Pan Am 103" - after 25 years to clarify.

    According to a statement by the Libyan Justice Minister Salah Marghani, is the former intelligence chief Abdullah Sanussi, available for personal linterviews. Additional be used two extraordinary prosecutors, in order to cancel the suspicion against Al Megrahi and Libya, because they have nothing to do, with the bombing of "PanAm 103".

    Mutually in cooperation, the Scottish and U.S. investigating authorities, need also to bring true factual information and "clean" evidence on the "Libya Table" - for example. the real, crucial MST-13 timer fragment (PT-35).

    Only with a compelling exoneration of Al Megrahi and Libya, can be determined against other groups in the bombing of PanAm 103, which would be high time ...

    by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Telecommunication Switzerland. Webpage: www.lockerbie.ch

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  2. All,

    I have said it before here and I'll say it again. One simply does not mess with Iran. They owe us nothing. They have never harmed us. Yet, since the Second World War, we have sought to extort their life blood. I lived opposite Evin prison for two years. A prison, thoughtfully designed by the US, from which the inmates were lucky if they came out in one body bag. Finally, albeit that kettle, pot, black and frying pan to fire are words that spring to mind, they stood up and rejected some thirty years of western motivated murder and torture.

    The strange thing is that they don't actually need nukes. Perhaps it's an ego thing. They can shut down the Straits of Hormuz in minutes and have stockbrokers jumping from on high if they really wanted to. If that happened, the US would go into twitch mode and brandish its armoury. What then? Moscow and Peking would step in - end of.

    We are all hugely grateful, I am sure, to the US tax payer for maintaining, with their massive navy, the sea lanes of the world that carry some 80 to 90% of global trade. However, frankly, we really need to wake up, and the sooner the better.

    In terms of Zeist: a diversion to a more convenient target.

    Robert.

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  3. The idea that the PtB have "pledged to uncover the truth about Lockerbie" is quite bizarre. In their world, the truth is that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence operative, together with some other unidentified Libyans, managed to introduce the bomb as unaccompanied luggage on to KM180, from where it was eventually transferred to PA103. They did this on the orders of Gaddafi, mainly in revenge for the US bombing of Benghazi about two years earlier.

    What "truth" are they trying to uncover? Finding the supposed others who were involved, or proof that Gaddafi ordered the bombing (which really wouldn't be disputed in this secnario), don't quite seem to qualify. That's just finicky extra detail. If we believed the Megrahi/Malta fairy-tale, we wouldn't be clamouring for "the truth" to be revealed.

    I think the language is intended as a smoke screen. As a way to hint that they're aware there are problems with the story as it stands at present and of course they're right on the case.

    That'll be the day.

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