Sunday 8 January 2017

There is no excuse whatsoever for more time to pass

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of Scotland on Sunday. It reads in part:]

One of Scotland’s leading filmmakers is to tackle the Lockerbie disaster, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald plans to lift the lid on the “unanswered conspiracy” behind Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity.

It will chart events from the day of the 1988 tragedy, which claimed 270 lives, to the present day with relatives of the victims still campaigning for justice.

The script is being developed by one of Scotland’s most acclaimed playwrights, David Harrower. It will be produced by Christopher Young, who created the Gaelic drama Bannan for BBC Alba.

The film, casting for which is expected to get under way within months, will depict the only man convicted over Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity as innocent and raise fresh questions about his controversial release from behind bars in Scotland and his return to Libya. It is hoped the film, expected to have a budget of at least £10 million, will be shot in the UK, including Lockerbie itself.

Film4 and the BFI are funding the Lockerbie film, which had been under discussion between Macdonald and Young for several years before Harrower was signed up for the project in early 2016. Filming could begin this year, ahead of a possible release in 2018, coinciding with the disaster’s 30th anniversary.

Glasgow-born Macdonald won an Academy Award for One Day In September, a documentary about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Macdonald also directed The Last King Of Scotland, which saw Forest Whitaker win the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Ugandan president Idi Amin. (...)

News of the Lockerbie feature film has emerged less than a year after a controversial book by former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill. MacAskill decided to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds in 2009 – eight years after his conviction following a historic trial under Scottish law in the Netherlands. A co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty.

Megrahi launched a second appeal when he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer in 2008. He abandoned his appeal in August 2009, and two days later MacAskill ordered his release amid predictions he had three months to live. He died in May 2012. Relatives of victims failed in a bid to pursue an appeal two years ago, but have vowed to continue to “fight for justice”.

Macdonald said: “I’ve been thinking about a film on Lockerbie for around 10 years.

“It feels like one of those huge events that sort of casts a shadow over Scottish life. It seems like it is Britain’s JFK in some ways – a looming unanswered conspiracy. There has been so much speculation and it is fascinating that more than 25 years later nobody seems to know for certain the answers to a lot of questions. There are very few events like that.

“We’ll be telling the whole story in the sense we’ll going from the day of the bombing up to the present day. It’s very hard because there is just so much in there. That’s one of the things that’s flummoxed a lot of writers before.

“One of the things that JFK, Oliver Stone’s film, does very well is to have layer upon layer upon layer of characters and testimony to create this atmosphere of complexity and yet at the heart of it is a very straightforward emotional story.

“We’re trying to be faithful to the complexity of Lockerbie by telling a simple story.

“It’s a very delicate thing trying to make a film based on real events. A lot of people out there were affected by Lockerbie and lost loved ones. There is a great sense of responsibility and of wanting to contribute in a positive way rather than doing anything that’s going to cause any more pain.”

Young added: “As far as we’re concerned we don’t believe Megrahi was responsible. To me, it is as clear as day, but I suspect the general public assume Megrahi did it.

“We’re interested in telling a story about what we think really happened and also the extent to which people who want to know the truth have been, in all kinds of ways, blocked from that, most obviously by governments. It suited everybody really well that Megrahi went home and died.

“There are a number of people in Scotland who feel very strongly that justice was ill-served. If we are to have any faith in our justice system we need to know the truth.

“Given that is the largest mainland terrorist attack in our history, given it was also the prelude to 9/11 and everything that followed, and given the incredible mess we are in now, it seems to us that there is no excuse whatsoever for more time to pass.

“Any miscarriage of justice on this scale is an urgent matter. If the only way of bringing these things to light is to make a film then so be it.”

8 comments:

  1. DOSSIER LOCKERBIE 2017
    The instruction for use to understand the Lockerbie Affair - (not the bombing):

    The „Lockerbie Affair“ is the work of misinformation and reverse engineering that went wrong. As the case is still open in United Kingdom, the authorities will sooner or later accept the fact that the "Evidence Fraud" around the Timer and the "Toshiba" Radiorecorder is real and not fiction or just another weird conspiracy theory.

    4 steps which lead to the „Lockerbie Affair“.

    Step 1: It became uncomfortable for a „grey eminence group“ that Gaddafi successfully built a rising economy in Libya, mainly based on the rich oil reserves of the country. Libya was in the strong position to control all aspects of their oil business and fixed the conditions. The „grey eminence group“ was determined to get Gaddafi out and their target was a change of regime. The winner would then control the business under their own terms…

    Step 2: After a misterious attack on a Boeing 747 (PanAm flight 103) over Lockerbie, experts from the „security branche“ organized specific fragments from an explosive device (IED) in order to lead the responsibility for the desaster directly to the Libyan regime.

    Step 3: With a crucial fragment (PT/35) of an MST-13 timer, of which 20 were delivered by MEBO Ltd (1985) three years before the "Pan Am 103 bombing" to the Libyan military - and fragments (AG/145) of a radiorecorder brand "Toshiba" which was sold in Libya - the Libyan regime was intentionally entangled in the Lockerbie tragedy! The MST-13 timer fragment PT/35 was not descended from a timer supplied to Libya (prototype)...

    Step 4: Thanks to unprofessional manipulated evidence, Libya and Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, can definitely not be blamed for the „PanAm 103 bombing“. Also Mebo Ltd must be cleared from the unfair and damaging allegations.

    Thank GOD – that on June 22nd, 1989, ex-engineer Ulrich Lumpert (Mebo Ltd) did not hand over a green Thüring MST-13 circuit board (9 layers of fiberglass). Instead he gave a brown prototype circuit board with 8 layers of fiberglass to an official oft the Swiss Federal Police (BUPO).
    This will turn out to become the key for the truth!
    Those who belonged to the "grey eminence group" /-.. /. / still under entcode...

    by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd Telecommunication Switzerland. Please visit our webpage, updated: 3 Jan. 2017: www.lockerbie.ch

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    Replies
    1. How were the prototype boards made on Mebo's own premises tinned, Edwin?

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  2. This is indeed welcome news, and will hopefully, go some way to increasing public awareness about this scandal and its associated injustices, not only to the victims & their families, but to Mr Magrahi and his family too.

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  3. Hmmm. Depends what's in it. This is about the fourth different film I've heard of that's supposedly under construction but these things don't always come to fruition.

    If it's just vague suspicions and rumours and platitudes it won't do much. If it promotes dodgy or disproven conspiracy theories then it will be positively unhelpful. If it actually presents the positive evidence that has emerged during the ten years that MacDonald says he's been thinking about it, it could be very good indeed.

    Several other parties have approached me about other films, recognising the importance of the Heathrow evidence. I've not heard from this outfit though.

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  4. Dear cat Dr. Rolfe,
    You can watch now on our webpage, a video statement additional to Al Jazeera's report, from Engineer Ulrich Lumpert; new facts, translated into English language.

    The important question is ? Which officials, from Switzerland and Scotland - in the autumn before Christmas 1989, had brought the MST-13 Timerfragment (PT-35) from a prototype, to Eng. Ulrich Lumpert, in the MEBO laboratory -
    and how could this happen, because the MST-13 Timerfragment was first found in January 1990, in a Slalom shirt by expert Allen Feraday at RARDE -
    and not found on on 12 May 1989, as writing on RARDE report 181, on the manipulated page nr. 51 ?? !!!

    Yes the solder on the charred fragment (PT-35) is from MEBO's lab. SIO Chief Stuard Henderson, said in a statement, that the orginal fragment was abroad always under the custody of Scottish Police; if this statement correct then a Scottish official must have witnessed the "scratching session (M)" in Zürich...

    Ex Eng. Lumpert and Assistant Chief Constable Kate Thomson, in Scotland, must be the most crucial witness in the new Lockerbie - PanAm 103, investigation - also in "Operation Sandwood"!

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



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Scratching session. M. I'd forgotten about that one. For goodness sake, give it a rest.

      But are you saying that prototype boards made on your own premises used the electroless liquid tin method for tinning?

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  5. It would not matter how many conspiracy theories are thrown out there because there was DEFINITELY a conspiracy. The catalyst for a new investigation will be to exonerate Megrahi regardless if opinions concerning conspiratorial intent.

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  6. “Any miscarriage of justice on this scale is an urgent matter. If the only way of bringing these things to light is to make a film then so be it.”

    People have been making films about this since 1994. There must be dozens. In spite of al the hoo-hah, they never seem to make a blind bit of difference. I'm not sure in what way this one is likely to be different, but we live in hope of course.

    ReplyDelete