[I am delighted to report the appearance of a new blog by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer. It is entitled PT35B and will be devoted to material about the dodgy timer fragment. Dr De Braeckeleer is the author of (amongst other Lockerbie-related pieces) the magisterial 174-part series on OhmyNews entitled Diary of a Vengeance Foretold. The first item on his new blog reads as follows (illustrations and references omitted):]
On 21 December 1988 Pan Am flight 103 fell out of the sky. All 259 passengers and crew members died. Eleven residents of Lockerbie were killed.
A strong westerly wind spread the debris over two trails stretching from the south of Scotland through the north of England and out into the North Sea.
On 28 December 1988, Michael Charles, Inspector of Accidents for the AAIB, announced that traces of high explosive had been found on two pieces of metal. On that date, a criminal investigation was officially launched. The crime scene covered about 845 square miles.
On 13 January 1989, Detective Constables Thomas Gilchrist and Thomas McColm found a fragment of charred clothing in search sector I, near Newcastleton. This piece of charred grey cloth was bagged, labelled “Charred Debris” and given a reference number: PI/995.
On 17 January 1989, it was registered in the Dexstar log.
On 6 February 1989, PI/995 was sent to the Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent for forensic examination.
On 12 May 1989, Dr Thomas Hayes examined PI/995. Inside the cloth, Dr Hayes found fragments of paper, fragments of black plastic and a tiny piece of circuitry. Dr Hayes gave to these items the reference number PT/35 as well as an alphabetical suffix to each one of them. The fragment of the circuit board was named PT/35(b).
In June 1990, with some help from the FBI, Allen Feraday of the Explosives Laboratory was able to match PT/35 (b) to the board of a Swiss timer known as a MST-13 timer.
Two MST-13 timers had been seized in Togo in September 1986. BATF agent Richard Sherrow had brought one of these back to the US. Two Libyan citizens were caught in possession of an other MST-13 timer in Senegal in 1988.
An analysis of the Togo timer led the investigators to a small business named MEBO in Zurich. The owners of MEBO told the investigators that these timers had been manufactured to the order of two Libyans: Ezzadin Hinshiri, the director of the Central Security Organisation of the Libyan External Security Organisation and Said Rashid, the head of the Operations Administration of the ESO.
On 14 November 1991, the Lord Advocate and the acting United States Attorney General jointly announced that they had obtained warrants for the arrest of Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah.
On 27 November 1991, the British and United States Governments issued a joint statement calling on the Libyan government to surrender the two men for trial.
On 21 January 1992, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 731 calling on Libya to surrender Megrahi and Fhimah for trial either in the United States or in the United Kingdom.
On 31 March 1992, the Security Council passed resolution 748 imposing mandatory sanctions on Libya for failing to hand over Megrahi and Fhimah. On 11 November 1993, the Security Council passed resolution 883 that imposed further international sanctions on Libya.
On 31 January 2001, a Court found Megrahi guilty and Fhimah not guilty.
On 28 June 2007, the SCCRC announced that Megrahi may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Accordingly, the SCCRC decided to refer the case to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
On 25 July 2009, Megrahi applied to be released from jail on compassionate grounds. On 12 August 2009, Megrahi applied to have his second appeal dropped. Megrahi was granted compassionate release for his terminal prostate cancer. On 20 August 2009, Megrahi was released from prison and returned to Libya.
Today we know that PT/35(b) is a forgery. We also know that at least one witness was well aware that PT/35(b) could not have been part of the MST-13 timers delivered to Libya and that this witness deliberately withheld this information from the court. At this point, one can reasonably infer that this so-called evidence was planted.
How do we know that PT/35(b) is a forgery? Who could possibly have committed such a crime and for what possible motives? Where, when and by whom was this forgery fabricated? These are some of the questions that this blog intends to discuss and will hopefully answer.
Living with the "Lockerbie Affair", 2015 >>> only in German language:
ReplyDeleteEine Strafuntersuchung in einer potenziellen kriminellen Handlung im kausalen Zusammenhang mit der 'Lockerbie Affäre', gegen einen offiziellen Mitarbeiter des schweizerischen Nachrichten Dienst des Bundes (NDB), muss nach Edwin Bollier & MEBO AG, ' an die Hand genommen werden, sonst könnte dem Schweizer Staat zusätzlich schwere Vorwürfe wegen Vereitelung zur Wahrheitsfindung vorgeworfen werden ?
In einem Zeitfenster zwischen 22. Juni 1989 (MEBO's, Ing. Ulrich Lumpert's, unerlaubte Übergabe der MST-13 Timerplatine an einen bekannten schweizer Offiziellen) >>>
bis zur Anklage 14./15. November 1991 - (USA / UK Indictment, gegen die Offiziellen von Libyen, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah und Abdelbaset al Megrahi) >>>
zeigt sich, wie der potenzielle Beweisbetrug im kausalen Zusammenhang mit der 'Lockerbie Affäre' heran gebildet wurde.
Dabei spielen - die dem Gericht in "Kamp van Zeist", unterschlagene offiziellen Beweisdokumente, welche zur Entlastung der beiden Angeklagten und Libyen geführt hätten, eine entscheidende Rolle !
Der ausserordentliche Staatsanwalt Felix Bänziger, verpflichtet durch die Aufsichtskommission des Bundes über die Bundesanwaltschaft ('AB -BA'), hatte eine autorisierte Ermächtigung des Eidgenössischen Justiz- und Polizeidepartement's (EFPD) - für eine Strafuntersuchung, im Zusammenhang mit dem "Sachkomplex Lockerbie".
Diese Perspektive wurde von Staatsanwalt Bänziger, wegen angeblicher Verjährung, nicht an die Hand genommen... (Nichtanhandnahme)!
Zur Zeit warten Edwin Bollier & MEBO Ltd. vom Bundesstrafgericht Bellinzona /CH, auf einen Gerichtsentscheid wegen der "Nichtanhandnahme" (17. Nov. 2014) einer von Bollier & MEBO AG, geforderten Strafuntersuchung gegen einen Bundesbeamten des 'NDB'.
by Edwin Bollier & MEBO Ltd, Telecommunication Switzerland. webpage: www.lockerbie.ch
That's interesting and I'll follow the blog. It's a shame he's not allowing comments though. It seems he's just going to tell us what he knows or thinks he knows, without making any provision for corrections, additions or constructive discussion.
ReplyDeleteHe states that PI/995 was found in the field by Gilchrist and McColm. I think this is almost certainly not true, and I think that is important. McColm didn't go out on field searches; his job was in Dextar, sorting out stuff that had been brought in by others. Gilchrist, in the witness box, very conspicuously did not testify to having been in that field on 13th January, and his nervousness before giving that evidence is legendary. The line of questioning by the Crown seems designed to allow him to imply he found the collar in the field without actually perjuring himself.
I think that field was cleared of debris on 13th January right enough, but we have no idea who picked the stuff up. It appears that the haul of litter was probably taken back to Dextar in a single bag on the Friday afternoon (possibly as dusk fell), labelled only with the grid reference for the centre of the field and the date, and it lay like that all weekend right through till the Tuesday when McColm got round to sorting out the contents and bagging the separate items individually.
This doesn't really explain the alteration on the label, which might be innocent anyway, but it does explain why Gilchrist was so nervous before testifying. Did he sign the label on the 17th, or was the whole thing regularised later when it was realised that the item was going to be of major evidential importance? There is evidence of labels and entries for some items being tidied up and missing signatires filled in months or even years later.
I think it might be very important that the collar was in a bag that lay unsorted for several days.
There will probably be more debatable points in this blog. I know the author has made a particular study of the item in question, but so have other people. There's a big danger in setting himself up as the oracle without any medium for queries or corrections.
I see the comments are open now on the blog. This might get extremely interesting. I've already learned something I didn't know.
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