Monday 29 September 2014

Inherent improbability of Malta ingestion of Lockerbie bomb

[What follows is an article by Maltese journalist, author and lawyer Joe Mifsud published in September 2000, while the Zeist trial was in progress, on TheLockerbieTrial.com, a website edited by Ian Ferguson and me. In it he points out the inherent improbability of Malta’s being the place of ingestion of the Lockerbie bomb.]

A terrorist, like any other criminal, will do what he can to cover his tracks.  The Maltese origin of clothing in the bomb suitcase does not establish that either the suitcase or the bomb was once in Malta.

The clothing in the bomb suitcase, which was identifiable as having been manufactured in Malta, bore labels to this effect, enabled Royal Armament Research and Development (RARDE) to determine the country of origin as Malta.  So these labels had not been removed by the terrorists.

The Lockerbie investigators established that six items of the clothing and an umbrella, which originated in Malta were new and had been purchased new from the same shop in Malta on the same occasion.

These items of clothing had been purchased from Mary’s House in Sliema, weeks not days before 21st December 1988.  The prosecution is claiming that the clothes were bought on the 7th December, while the defence is suggesting the 23rd November 1988 as the date.

In my opinion the facts and matters set out above are consistent with an attempt by the terrorists to distract the attention of the investigating authorities away from Frankfurt or Heathrow to Malta in the event of the bomb being detected or as in fact happened of the bomb exploding above land and debris from the bomb and the bomb suitcase being recovered.

It is inherently unlikely that terrorists would have tried to place the bomb suitcase on board Air Malta KM 180 on the 21st December 1988 for the following four reasons.

1.  Terrorists do not expose themselves and their plans to any unnecessary risk of detention or of error.

2.  Accordingly the terrorists responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103 would not have routed the bomb suitcase through Frankfurt and chosen to run the risk of it passing undetected through the security systems of three different airports on two different airlines when Air Malta during that period flew only three flights each week to Frankfurt but ten flights each week to Heathrow.

3.  Further if the bomb consisted of a timer device, terrorists would not have run the unpredictable risk of the passage of the bomb suitcase being delayed in one or more of the following ways:

a)  on the ground at Luqa as a result of mechanical failure, poor weather, security alert, air traffic control or any other reason;

b)  by being diverted away from Frankfurt for any of the reasons at above;

c)  above Frankfurt as a result of air traffic control delays for incoming flights (as in fact happened);

d)  by missing the interline connection at Frankfurt as a result of the bomb suitcase being lost, mishandled or detected in the course of x-ray or baggage reconciliation procedures;

e)  on the ground at Frankfurt for any of the reasons at (a) above;

f)  by being diverted away from Heathrow for any of the reasons at (a) above;

g)  above Heathrow as a result of air traffic control delays for incoming flights;

h)  by missing the interline connection at Heathrow for any of the reasons at (d) above;

i)   on the ground at Heathrow as a result of the connecting transatlantic aircraft being delayed, mechanical failure, poor weather, security alert or any other reason.

4.  Further if the bomb consisted of a barometric pressure device triggered by altitude which itself triggered a timer, terrorists could not have avoided (alternatively would not have risked) the bomb being prematurely triggered on board KM 180 or on board Pan Am 103A from Frankfurt to Heathrow, and then detonating on board either of these flights or on the ground at Frankfurt or at Heathrow.

No terrorist could have predicted in advance the exact altitude at which either flight would have flown or, if such a prediction had been made, no terrorist could have guaranteed that the aircraft would have remained at that altitude and would not have been ordered away from it by air traffic control.  The bomb on board Pan Am 103 exploded approximately 35 minutes after take-off from Heathrow.

It is not clear for me why the Lockerbie investigators choose to blame Malta and Air Malta in this case, when it is so clear that we are the scapegoats for others that lacked security at their airports.

Joe Mifsud is currently following the Lockerbie Trial at Camp Zeist for ONE News and Kullhadd.

5 comments:

  1. As someone else remarked on this blog, it looks as if someone was laying a trail of sweeties pointing to Malta, for the cops to follow.

    The clothes are the most obvious thing, and clearly in that case one would postulate a red herring devised by the terrorists. There are other sweeties in the trail though, and it's unclear just how much of this was ever coincidence.

    Mysteries make my head hurt.

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  2. Woodentops, or co-conspirators, the lot of them. A disgrace to the police service.

    Robert.

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  3. It's tray 8849 that gets me. OK, there were multiple unidentified trays on the printout, but that's the hardest one of all to explain. And it points straight at KM180. Maybe if the holzkopfs hadn't lost all the computer data it WOULD have turned out to have been coded in the middle of the KM180 batch.

    I can think of a way that could have been engineered by anyone familiar with the Frankfurt baggage system, and there is a small piece of evidence that might indeed have been done. The question is, would Dalkamoni and his mates have been familiar enough with the system to figure out how to do it (I suppose all they had to do was buy a baggage hander a pint), and would they really have gone to all that trouble?

    It suggests a lot more complicated a plot than terrorists usually bother with, including Jibril's gang. Get the job done, yes, but lay an elaborate false trail? Incorporating both a conspicuous purchase of easily-traceable clothes and sending a spurious piece of luggage through the Frankfort baggage system? There's something about this that doesn't feel right.

    Then there's Abu Talb's autum collection of fetching Maltese-manufactured apparel. What was that all about?

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  4. Dear Rolfe,

    The folk that did this weren't daft.

    They were as intelligent and well-trained as any whom one provides with a uniform, cause and a gun.

    Baset was nothing more or less than a convenient 'set up job'.

    These are smart cookies. They actually got the entire Western establishment to swallow the whole deception hook, line and sinker because they knew full well how compromised their opposition was at the time.

    The problem I have with war is its indiscriminate quality. But Hell, I went native yonks ago.

    Robert.

    PS

    The person I feel for most is Kurt Maier.

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  5. If someone really did go to all that trouble to introduce a decoy bag at Frankfurt so it was coded for 103 to Heathrow along with the KM180 luggage, they must have been fit to be tied when the investigators managed to allow all the computer records to be wiped.

    Except, there was Bogomira Erac, wasn't that lucky.

    You know, if someone wrote this up as a fiction novel, it would be laughed at for being way too far-fetched and implausible.

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