[For those who enjoyed Dr Morag Kerr’s piece posted yesterday, there is more from her that is just as good in the comments following Police investigations in Lockerbie case "moved very quickly away from Heathrow". And here is a comment from Dr Kerr on yesterday’s article:]
Two different states investigating the bombing, with different agendas. Not necessarily conflicting, but separate. The Brits don't want their favourite airport to be blamed - far better if the security lapse was somewhere else. The Yanks don't want it to have been Iran, because if it was that means that their mishandling of the IR655 disaster has caused the loss of another 270 lives. Far better if it was the catch-all blame-taker, Gaddafi.
At first it looks as if the Yanks are on a loser, but the British machinations prevent the case being solved the easy way, and in the end the Americans get the chance to put their agenda back on the rails.
That's kind of the easy bit.
There's also the positive misdirection. It looks very much as if someone was laying a trail of sweeties to Malta, which was only picked up on because there was a police force happy to look anywhere but where the real evidence pointed. It also looks as if someone might have been laying a trail pointing to Libya. PT/35b and so on. The catch-letter too, possibly.
Is this again confusion caused by two separate agencies pursuing different agendas? Perhaps the real culprits laying the trail to Malta, and the CIA slipping in evidence to point to Libya? Could the latter even have prepared one or two things, just in case the Ayatollah somehow succeeded in doing what he was threatening to do?
But Malta is very close to Libya, ain't that convenient. And somehow the clothes purchaser managed to leave the impression he was Libyan, as he was acquiring the eminently traceable clothes pointing to Malta. So were the two exercises entirely separate? Bearing in mind that the PFLP-GC appeared to have been infiltrated and Khreesat was a Jordanian asset?
And then again, was Megrahi's presence at the airport at just the right time yet another convenient coincidence, or was that somehow factored in? What was Abu Talb doing with all these Maltese clothes, in his flat in Sweden?
All moonshine, probably. But the bomb being introduced at Heathrow and the Scottish police and English authorities walking straight past a mountain of evidence to that effect isn't moonshine. It's a howling scandal.
Jings. I toss off a few rambling, semi-literate BTL comments and suddenly they're up there with the big boys.... Saves me having to refine my deathless prose, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteIt's a conspiracy theory. I don't really do conspiracy theories, but the circumstantial evidence in this one is a wee bit too strong to dismiss with a superior sneer. On odd-numbered days, like today, I take the view that it's incompetence all the way down. The senior Scottish police were incompetent, the RARDE scientists were incompetent (that last is pretty much irrefutable, irrespective of what else was going on), and the BKA were incompetent (that's irrefutable too, just examine the investigation of the Frankfurt baggage records, and the Keystone Cops day that ended up with Jurgen Sonntag lying dead).
So why on earth assume that there was some sort of devious mastermind behind all this, misdirecting the inquiry? Is it not possible that this bunch of amateurs could have misdirected themselves without outside help? Is it not also possible that the CIA were just as bungling as everyone else?
Yes it is, and I will not die of shock if that turns out to be what happened. But at the same time it's dangerous to allow scorn of the "conspiracy theory" to deflect inquiry away from real evidence suggesting official wrongdoing or cover-up.
I see this as being a bit like a dissection. You uncover the outside bits first, and park suspicions about what might be lurking in the liver until you get there in due course. In this case, the overlooking, burying, whatever of the Heathrow evidence is the outside part. It's the ur-screw-up. It's the point where the entire case was catastrophically derailed. It's essential to get that tidied up and dealt with before we have a hope of finding out what else was going on.
In a decent society, the authorities would examine the evidence that the bomb was in the Bedford suitcase and take it on board. We'd be dealing with a Crown Office prepared to accept that the entire case was built on a completely false premise, and beginning the task of putting that right.
We don't live in that sort of decent society. We live in one where the Crown Office is insisting that none of this is happening, and by the way who wants this month's jolly to Tripoli to see if they can track down Megrahi's accomplices?
So I go on speculating, and brain-storming, because it's never a waste of time to try out various possible explanations for size so that you have some sort of framework to evaluate the significance of any new information that comes in. I've had lots of good ideas that turned out to be wrong. They weren't wasted though, because working them through refined my knowledge and thinking about the case.
So it may be with the conspiracy theories about deliberate misdirection by the real terrorists, or by the US authorities. I don't know. Today is the 7th, so my official position is that everyone was just bungling along, more concerned to get a conviction than about whether the right man was convicted, but no worse than that. Tomorrow is a different day of course.
But 365 days in the year and 366 in leap years, I am absolutely certain that the bomb was in the case Bedford saw.
"I am absolutely certain that the bomb was in the case Bedford saw."
ReplyDeleteSo am I. Moreover, I am so glad that my entreaties to you worked in the end. It is a rare occasion when I beg on hand and knee. You are continuing to do a diamond job. Keep those teeth sharp.
Yours,
Robert.
MISSION LIFE WITH THE LOCKERBIE AFFAIR, 2014 - google translation, german/english:
ReplyDeleteAlias Rolfe - the clever cat - knows best that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's visit to Malta, was planned exactly by one intelligence service. Together with Al Megrahi, was also Edwin Bollier, booked on the same flight with - Air Malta, KM-231, on 20th December, at 16:30 clock.
The almost perfect "intelligence exercise" was failed because Bollier traveled with a SwissAir (direct flight) from Tripoli, to Zurich, on 20th Dec. - and the agent ("third man") , which Bollier visited on 30th Dec. 1988, with MEBO Ltd., was not informed of his "colleagues", that Bollier was not in Malta, on 20th/21st December...
Today we can understand the abominable whole planning (H) as the "Lockerbie Affair" against Libya.
Abdelbaset al Megrahi, have with the crash of Pan Am 103, over Lockerbie nothing to do absolute - consist "special reasons". Justice for the late Mr Abdelbaset Al Megrahi.
+++
In German language:
Alias ROLFE - die clevere Katze - weiss am besten, dass Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's Besuch in Malta, von einem "intelligence" Dienst - exakt geplant war. Zusammen mit Al Megrahi, wurde auch Edwin Bollier auf den selben Flug mit - Air Malta, KM-231, am 20. Dez. 1988, um 16:30 Uhr gebucht.
Der fast perfekte, "intelligence" Plan scheiterte daran , weil Bollier mit einem Swiss Air, direkt Flug, von Tripoli nach Zürich reiste - und der Agent ("Dritte Mann") welcher Bollier am 30. Dez. 1988, bei MEBO Ltd besuchte, von seinen "Kollegen" nicht darüber informiert wurde, dass Bollier, am 20./21. Dez. nicht in Malta war...
Heute können wir das ganze abscheuliche "Manöver" (H) als "Lockerbie-Affäre" gegen Libyen nachvollziehen. Abdelbaset al Megrahi kann aus "speziellen Gründen", mit dem Absturz von PanAm 103, über Lockerbie - absolut nichts zu tun haben.
Gerechtigkeit für den verstorbenen Mr. Abdelbaset Al Megrahi.
by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd, Telecommunication Switzerland. Webpage: www.lockerbie.ch