tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10730213518045327982024-03-17T16:58:42.090+00:00The Lockerbie CaseA commentary on the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the murder of 270 people in the Pan Am 103 disaster.Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.comBlogger4744125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-86917778017464727132024-02-17T06:18:00.000+00:002024-02-17T06:18:02.703+00:00Jim Swire is a force of nature<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from a <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/25996653/lockerbie-bombers-jim-swire-daughter-flora-drama/" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published yesterday evening on the website of <i>The Sun</i>:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Retired GP Jim Swire is a force of nature – a man with balls of steel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">His search for justice after his daughter was murdered in the Lockerbie bombing has been so intense that at times he has put his own life in danger.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The 87-year-old campaigner faced down the late “mad dog” Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s guards armed with AK-47s, sneaked a fake bomb on a plane to expose security flaws and fears he could be a target for Iranian assassins.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But 35 years after 270 people were murdered in the attack over Scotland, on the Pan Am passenger jet flying from London to New York, thoughts of his 23-year-old daughter Flora break his indomitable spirit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When Jim tries to remember the last words he said to medical student Flora before she left to catch the plane, tears flood his eyes and we pause the interview.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We are speaking in the conservatory of his Cotswolds home because he hopes an upcoming TV drama about the terror bombing will create the same public outcry seen when ITV’s <i>Mr Bates Vs The Post Office</i>, starring Toby Jones highlighted the organisation’s IT scandal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth will play Jim in the Sky series, <i>Lockerbie</i>, which is being filmed now. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Apart from his grief — and bravery — there is also anger at the bungling officials who failed to stop the fateful bomb getting on to the Boeing 747 on December 21, 1988, at Heathrow Airport before it exploded shortly after 7pm. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He tells The Sun: “I am satisfied Colin will do his utmost to portray someone who has been searching diligently for the truth in the name of the murder of his daughter and all those other people.” getting on to the Boeing 747 on December 21, 1988, at Heathrow Airport before it exploded shortly after 7pm. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jim, a BBC soundman turned GP, believes documents are still being withheld from relatives which could reveal either a cock-up in the investigation or a cover-up.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The worst terror atrocity ever to be visited upon the UK is still shrouded in mystery and controversy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Only one person has been convicted of carrying out the attack — Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. His country-man <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Masud&max-results=20&by-date=false" target="_blank"><b>Abu Agila Mohammad Masud</b></a> is awaiting trial.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A call had been made to the US embassy in Finnish capital <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-helsinki-warning.html" target="_blank"><b>Helsinki warning</b></a> that a bomb would be loaded on a Pan Am flight in Frankfurt, Germany, bound for Heathrow then New York.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That information was not passed on to regular travellers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The threat should have been taken seriously because in October that year terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command were found with <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2016/10/operation-autumn-leaves.html" target="_blank"><b>bombs in Neuss, Germany</b></a>, designed to trigger once a plane reached a certain height. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Understandably, Jim cannot hide his rage over this fatal delay. He says of the bomb: “It was in the baggage compartment, almost beneath the feet of my daughter and all of those innocent passengers. It exploded almost 48 hours from the warning having been passed on by the Department of Transport. Have we had an apology? No, we have not.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“Whatever you believe about Libya or all the rest of it, that’s where the explosion occurred, that was the warning they had and that was the way they handled it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“If that doesn’t make a relative of anyone murdered in that atrocity angry, it bloody well should.” (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The late <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2015/03/george-h-w-bush-margaret-thatcher-and.html" target="_blank"><b>Paul Channon</b></a>, Transport Secretary at the time, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, denied there had been a security failure but lost his job.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the wake of Lockerbie, airlines claimed far more stringent inspections of luggage were put in place.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Keen to put that promise to the test, Jim, who had explosives training during a stint of military service, built a replica of the Lockerbie bomb with the Semtex explosive replaced by marzipan.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He managed to get it past Heathrow’s security even though a member of security found the Toshiba tape recorder containing the fake device.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jim recalls: “The lady who opened up the suitcase said, ‘Sir, have you taken out the batteries?’ and I said, ‘Yes’, and she put it back.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“That poor lady had not been trained in what might and might not be dangerous.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Lockerbie crime scene was the largest ever in UK history. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Initially, the finger of suspicion pointed toward Iran, because it had close links to the PFLP-GC and its leaders had sworn revenge for the accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet in July 1988 by a US warship.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Then the FBI investigation, carried out in unison with Dumfries and Galloway Police, pivoted instead toward Libya.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Detectives concluded that Libyan Arab Airlines security chief Al-Megrahi and his colleague Lamin Khalifah Fhimah were responsible for the atrocity. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">[F]ollowing pressure from sanctions, the two Libyan suspects were tried in Holland in 2000. As the trial went on Jim started to doubt they had been responsible for Flora’s murder. When Al-Megrahi was found guilty — although Fhimah was cleared and let go — he collapsed from shock.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jim says: “My son sitting next to me in the courtroom thought that I had died.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He now believes the late PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril was the true mastermind of the horror that claimed his daughter’s life.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jibril died of heart failure in July 2021 in Syrian capital Damascus, and Jim says: “I can’t conceal from you I am delighted he is dead.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He suspects that Jibril’s ultimate paymasters were Iran’s security services.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Pointing the finger at Tehran’s murderous ayatollahs shows how fearless Jim is. He says: “It has often occurred to me that I might get bombed. The more the truth comes out the more possible it is that I might get killed by Iran for wanting revenge.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“It seems to me the direct line came from Iran.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But Scottish judges have twice upheld the murder convictions of Al-Megrahi, who died from cancer in 2012.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Next year US prosecutors will bring Masud to trial, accusing him of making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Whatever any court decides, nothing will take away the pain from Jim and his wife Jane.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As Jim puts it: “When someone close to you in your family gets murdered, you get handed a life sentence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“Jane and I will go to our graves still mourning the loss of Flora.”</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-26464406769948547742024-01-18T09:33:00.003+00:002024-01-18T09:34:47.749+00:00MacAskill reiterates belief Megrahi involved at "low level"<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from a long <a href="https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,kenny-macaskill-taking-the-radical-road" target="_blank"><b>article</b></a> about former Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill published on the website of <i>Holyrood</i> magazine on 15 January:]</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">MacAskill was perceived by some as a solid pair of hands in justice, to others as far too close to its institutions, but he came to global prominence in 2009 when he made the decision to release the so-called ‘Lockerbie bomber’, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, from prison on compassionate grounds so he could return to Libya to die having been diagnosed with prostate cancer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">MacAskill took sole responsibility for the controversial decision and delivered it to a specially recalled parliament with all the gravity of a Presbyterian minister giving a sermon. He said Megrahi faced a sentence imposed by a “higher power”, adding: “It is one that no court, in any jurisdiction, in any land, could revoke or overrule. It is terminal, final and irrevocable. He is going to die.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It felt at the time that the decision to free Megrahi was a truly momentous one and that the eyes of the world were on Scotland. Opprobrium was heaped on the justice secretary from the relatives of the US victims of the bombing and political figures, including President Obama and the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spoke out against it. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Almost 35 years to the day that Pan Am Flight 103 came down over Lockerbie, I ask MacAskill how heavy that decision had weighed on him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“It didn’t, I just did what was my job to do,” he says, dismissively, in his distinctive sing-song tone. “I remember going to speak to special advisers when we found out Megrahi was ill and it was all agreed this would be my decision alone, you could lose a cabinet secretary, but you cannot lose the government. So that put a firewall around it in terms of the correct procedures. You also have to remember, it was actually a very short period of time because although he was diagnosed earlier, there was a frenetic summer that basically went, June, July, and that was it, it was over. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“At the end of the day, I stand by the decision I made. I think history has proven that, and <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Masud&max-results=20&by-date=true" target="_blank"><b>Abu Agila Masud</b></a> is currently in a US prison having been charged with making the bomb. The only thing that continues to irritate me is those that view Megrahi as some, you know, Arab saint – he was involved. He was low level, he was the highest-ranking Libyan that the Libyans were prepared to hand over, and he was the lowest down the rung that the West was prepared to accept. But he was released following all the rules and guidance and on a point of principle. He lived longer than expected, which caused some difficulties, but equally, that was because he was getting treatment that we didn’t offer on the NHS and, more importantly, as everybody knows, if you’ve got a reason to live, then you do live longer, as opposed to being sad in a lonely prison cell on your own and you turn your face to the wall. I’ve seen that with family in hospital, they just decide life isn’t for them, and so that’s what happened. I have no doubts that the right decision was made, none.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">[RB: Kenny MacAskill's contention that Megrahi was involved in the Lockerbie bombing, albeit at a low level, has been advanced by him before. A detailed rebuttal can be found here: <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-unravelling-of-kenny-macaskill-and.html" target="_blank"><b>The unravelling of Kenny MacAskill ... and the case against Megrahi</b></a>.]</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-1544030640853330722023-12-27T06:40:00.006+00:002023-12-27T06:48:29.865+00:00Masud's family says lawyer believes he can be acquitted<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from a <a href="https://libyaobserver.ly/news/abu-agila-masuds-family-says-lawyer-believes-he-can-be-acquitted" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published yesterday on the website of <i>The Libya Observer</i>:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family of Abu Ajila Masud al-Marimi, the Libyan citizen suspected in the Lockerbie case, said that the defense team tackling the case file reviewed its details and expressed satisfaction at the possibility of Masud's being found not guilty of the charges against him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family said in a press statement that the court postponed the ruling in the case until mid-2025, citing the short time to follow up on the case in detail, listen to witnesses, and inform the team of all the documents, announcing the final formation of the team to defend the case, awaiting the [disbursement] of its fees from the [Benghazi-based] government (...).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Federal Court announced May 12, 2025, as the date for the trial of Abu Ajila, who faces three charges, including his participation in manufacturing the bomb that was on board the Pan Am plane that crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Regarding Abu Ajila's health condition, the family indicated that the defense team will submit a request to the court to consider the possibility of transferring him to house arrest outside the prisons, as he suffers from chronic diseases.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, the American lawyer [<a href="https://browngold.com/news/kobie-flowers-leading-litigators-2024/" target="_blank"><b>Kobie Flowers</b></a>] of <a href="https://browngold.com/" target="_blank"><b>Brown Goldstein [& Levy]</b></a> visited Abu Ajila in prison and listened to his health conditions and his treatment inside the prison.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family stated that the team will also submit a request, immediately after starting its work, for them to attend the trial session, similar to what the <a href="http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2023/10/legal-bid-to-give-lockerbie-families.html" target="_blank"><b>families of the plane victims requested</b></a>, pointing out that the US Congress had passed a law allowing attendance at the sessions before the federal court rejected their request.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-51491797869902520122023-12-20T14:13:00.005+00:002023-12-20T14:15:22.008+00:00"The final mysteries of the Lockerbie terrorist attack"<p><span style="font-size: large;">[This is an English version of the headline over a <a href="https://www.krone.at/3197349" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published today on the website of the Austrian newspaper <i>Kronen Zeitung</i>. The report, translated into English, reads as follows:]</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">On December 21, 1988, a jumbo jet belonging to the iconic American airline Pan Am crashed into the small Scottish town of Lockerbie after a bomb exploded on board. 270 people lost their lives in a cruel way three days before Christmas. A Libyan was convicted of this terrorist attack, but not least thanks to the work of the Tyrolean university professor <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Hans+K%C3%B6chler&max-results=20&by-date=false"><b>Hans Köchler</b></a>, who critically observed the trial for the UN over 20 years ago, it is now considered very likely that a scandalous miscarriage of judgment was made at the time. The real perpetrator or perpetrators may still be at large. On the 35th anniversary of the attack, a book about this tragedy has now been published for the first time in German. It's called [translation from German] <a href="https://www.amazon.de/dp/3758447585" target="_blank"><b>"Pan Am Flight 103: The Lockerbie Tragedy - Christmas Voyage to Death."</b></a> It was written by the Austrian aviation photographer and flight expert Patrick Huber. Krone+ publishes excerpts from it and spoke to the author.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The airline Pan American World Airways, better known as Pan Am, which slipped into bankruptcy in 1991 after 64 years of operation, was considered a pioneer of scheduled air travel and an American institution par excellence for decades. Whether New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Berlin, Frankfurt, Beirut, Johannesburg, Salzburg, Vienna or Sydney - the aircraft with the distinctive blue and white globe and the US flag on the vertical tail were a familiar sight at airports all over the world.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The other side of the coin: as a prominent figurehead of the US, Pan Am was also a ‘popular’ target for terrorists. The worst attack on society occurred 35 years ago, on December 21, 1988, and simultaneously sealed its demise.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">[A <a href="https://www.austrianwings.info/2023/12/35-jahre-lockerbie-anschlag-erstes-deutsches-buch-zum-thema-erschienen/" target="_blank"><b>longer description of the book</b></a>, also in German, appears on the <i>Austrian Wings</i> website. What follows is a translation into English:]</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">On December 21, 1988, a cold, inhospitable Wednesday three days before Christmas, a bomb exploded over Lockerbie at 7:02:50 p.m. in the front cargo hold of a Pan Am jumbo that was at an altitude of around 9,450 meters on the night flight from London Heathrow New York JFK was located. Some of the debris from flight PA103 fell directly into the residential areas of the small Scottish town of Lockerbie. The huge explosion of almost 100,000 kilograms of kerosene when the center part of the fuselage and the wings with the fuel tanks hit the ground set numerous houses on fire in a fraction of a second and ignited a veritable sea of flames in the small community. In addition to the wreckage of the plane, passengers' luggage, freight containers and more than 200 human bodies fell from the dark sky and landed in meadows, in forests, on roofs, in garden hedges, on fences or in the middle of the front gardens of Lockerbie houses.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Inferno on the ground</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It took the fire department until the early hours of the morning to put out the fires. Their use was made more difficult, among other things, by the fact that numerous power and telephone lines were destroyed when the plane crashed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In addition to all 243 passengers and 16 crew members on board the Boeing 747-121 with the illustrious name “Clipper Maid of the Seas” (...) 11 residents also died in the incident. The youngest victim of this disaster was just 2 months old, the oldest was 82 years old. For some of the unfortunate, the flaming inferno left only ashes and charred bones. Since these dead could no longer be identified, their remains were finally buried in a common grave.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">While the cause of the crash was quickly determined, it is still not clear who was actually behind the bomb attack. Although the Libyan Abdel Basit Ali al-Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment for the terrorist act in 2001, this guilty verdict was met with sharp criticism from both experts and many of the victims' relatives. The Austrian UN trial observer Hans Köchler, for example, immediately spoke of a “miscarriage of justice”. Nevertheless, the convicted man was imprisoned in Great Britain, and an initial appeal was promptly rejected.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Convicted Libyan probably victim of a miscarriage of justice</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Around six and a half years after the guilty verdict, on June 28, 2007, a Scottish commission for the review of criminal convictions, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), declared that there was a “possible miscarriage of justice” in this case. cannot be ruled out. The widely accepted view is now that Al-Megrahi's conviction represents a miscarriage of justice. The SCCRC therefore authorized Al-Megrahi to bring new legal remedies, which he did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In 2008, Al-Megrahi, who was still in prison at the time, was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer. Officially for “humanitarian reasons,” he was offered release in 2009, but only if he withdrew his second appeal beforehand - which the desperate man then did so as not to have to risk dying in a Scottish prison without his To see his children and his wife in freedom once again. Shortly afterwards, the father of five, who was already severely affected by his illness, was actually released and was able to return home to his family in Libya.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Al-Megrahi died there of cancer on May 20, 2012, in the midst of the turmoil of the Libyan civil war - not without first protesting his innocence on his deathbed. He has not yet been legally rehabilitated. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But if Al-Megrahi actually had nothing to do with the terrorist attack on Pan Am 103 - and there is indeed a lot to be said for his innocence - then who was it? Iran, as numerous indications pointed to? After all, the radical Islamic mullah regime had sworn bloody revenge for the accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane (290 fatalities) by the American warship <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Vincennes" target="_blank"><b>“USS Vincennes”</b></a> in the summer of 1988 - six months before the attack on the Pan Am Jumbo. The Palestinians? Syria? Maybe Libya? Or was it ultimately about secret drug shipments from the Middle East to the USA, which were supposedly tolerated by the US authorities out of intelligence interests? There are witness statements that drugs were found at the scene of the accident. In any case, it was noticeable that a number of important politicians, military officials and secret service employees did not board flight PA103 at short notice that day, including the then South African Foreign Minister <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Pik+Botha" target="_blank"><b>Pik Botha and his 22-member delegation.</b></a></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The non-fiction book “Pan Am Flight 103: The Tragedy of Lockerbie - Christmas Voyage to Death” meticulously traces the last flight of the “Clipper Maid of the Seas” and illuminates the biographies of crew members, passengers and residents of Lockerbie down to the smallest detail. The author also focuses on the accident experts' investigations, the work of the judiciary and those people who did not take flight Pan Am 103 or who missed it by lucky coincidence - including the well-known British actress Kim Cattrall ("Police Academy", "Sex and the City”). The technical aspects of the accident are also discussed in detail.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-52001940954972319632023-11-24T08:17:00.000+00:002023-11-24T08:17:00.845+00:00The conspiracies are as plausible as the official explanation<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is a <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/lockerbie-on-sky-review-b1122413.html" target="_blank"><b>review</b></a> published in yesterday's edition of the London <i>Evening Standard</i>:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For a disaster that happened 35 years ago, the story of Pan Am Flight 103’s destruction over Lockerbie has a very 21st-Century feel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This bombing, which caused the deaths of 270 people over a quiet Scottish town, has a confused and controversial epilogue. Moving from the attack itself and the immediate aftermath, this four-part Sky documentary traces the hunt for the bombers and the personal and public struggles of the victims’ families. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This sense of protracted tragedy is entangled with espionage and geopolitics of the most amoral and conflicted kind, where concepts of national interest supersede individual human lives, so it was inevitable that the bombing has become a focus for conspiracy theories. That the conspiracies are as plausible as the official explanation only makes it murkier. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">At 7.03pm on 21 December 1988, residents of Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway heard the explosion. Those out in the fields would have seen a fireball falling to earth. Those unlucky enough to have been in its path were vaporised by exploding aviation fuel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Boeing 747 crashed through the edge of the town spraying debris and the dead over many miles. All 259 on board died that night along with 11 on the ground. Even given the sensitivity of the producers, the cumulative grief is hard to watch and harder to forget.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Viewers have no reference point for a golf course strewn with a hundred corpses or bodies rained on to the roofs of terraced houses. The image of a red suitcase embedded in Scottish mud and the sound of screaming families at JFK airport conveys the unimaginable.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The intimate stories begin with the families and Lockerbie residents, traumatised yet finding an odd comfort in communal loss. Among them is the English doctor Jim Swire, who has spent his life since the crash in pursuit of the truth about those responsible for the death of his 23-year-old daughter Flora.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Swire’s grief evolves into obsession (in 1990 he <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2017/05/airline-security-tested-and-found.html" target="_blank"><b>smuggled a fake bomb on to a flight</b></a> to New York to prove the inadequacy of Heathrow security) and his testimony, including how his interpretation of events changed over time, provides the moral frame of the film and a necessary touchstone of human dignity and love amid realpolitik at its most cynical. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The film talks to FBI agents who began their investigation at the end of a decade of state-sponsored terrorism linked to anti-American regimes in the Middle East. The agents are led away from the prime suspects, Iranian proxies the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Council (PFLP-GC), towards Libyans via Malta and Frankfurt.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It had been suggested that Iran used this Palestinian group based in Lebanon (where US and UK hostages had been taken) to exact revenge for the accidental <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2013/07/remembering-iran-air-flight-655.html" target="_blank"><b>shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by an American warship</b></a> a year before, but evidence from the crime scene lead the FBI to two Libyan intelligence agents, including the man eventually convicted of mass murder by Scottish judges in a Netherlands court, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For eight years the Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi (“Mad Dog”, as Ronald Reagan called him), refused to hand over the two suspects. Swire went to see him in an extraordinary act of recklessness. “I was pretty crazy because of the freshness of the bereavement and I’d have done anything I could.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In Tripoli, surrounded by Gaddafi’s female bodyguards with AK47s, he showed the dictator a briefcase full of pictures of his daughter and he asked him to allow the two men to go on trial, before pinning a badge that said “Lockerbie, The Truth Must be Known” on Gaddafi’s lapel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">By the time of the trial in 2000, the consensus about who was guilty had collapsed. The CIA and the FBI operated in suspicion and sometimes outright contempt for each other, a Libyan supergrass was discredited, the shopkeeper who sold clothes in which the bomb was wrapped was paid $2m by the FBI and the Swiss manufacturer of timers allegedly used in the bomb changed his testimony at the trial.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That Gaddafi’s son Saif stated Libya <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2013/02/lockerbie-gaddafis-son-saif-holds-cards.html" target="_blank"><b>accepted responsibility but didn’t admit to actually doing it</b></a> does lend credence to the view that they paid $2.86bn in compensation as the price of readmittance to the global oil trade after years of crippling US sanctions. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What is left behind are two starkly defined camps who believe either justice was served or there was a cover-up – and between them are families in a state of purgatorial uncertainty. Among the politics, the film shows one of the recurring visits to Scotland of the Ciulla family from New York, who come to remember Frank Ciulla and to be reunited with the Lockerbie couple Hugh and Margaret Connell who discovered Frank’s body still strapped to his seat. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Many of these families, predominantly American, mix their anger with suspicion about the conduct of their own government. Swire says he believes the al-Megrahi trial was a sham and the PFLP-GC were responsible. Rev John Mosey from Birmingham, whose 19-year-old daughter Helga died, says he is 99.9% certain al-Megrahi was innocent. The FBI insist they got their man. An <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2020/12/majid-giakas-cia-handler-speaks-out.html" target="_blank"><b>ex-CIA operative</b></a> says they were wrong all along. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The moral authority of Swire is so powerful it is almost overwhelming – he is only really challenged once to which he reacts with the anger of a man who has spent more than 30 years fighting for something not yet realised. Lockerbie plays to the idea that government agencies are incapable of telling the truth, something corroding trust in institutions in the US and increasingly in Britain. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This is a poised and sensitive documentary. It’s moving in so many ways that at times it’s hard to ready yourself for the blows, even when you know they’re coming. What is left are open wounds: grief that does not rest and no sense of an ending.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Lockerbie</b></i> is available to watch on <i>Sky Documentaries</i> and <i>Now</i> from 25 November</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-33367543896953678672023-11-16T07:13:00.001+00:002023-11-16T07:13:36.164+00:00Dismayed by a 35-year-long miscarriage of justice<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/15/lockerbie-bombing-1988-jim-swire-search-truth-libya-iran/" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published yesterday evening on the website of <i>The Telegraph</i>:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Ever since Flora was killed on Pan Am Flight 103, Dr Jim Swire has been searching for answers – and says the FBI has the wrong man</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Flora Swire is everywhere in her parents’ home. There are sketches and photos of her pinned to a board in the kitchen, on the mantelpiece, on the cover of a book; her portrait fills the wall across from their bed. There remains too a lock of her hair – a heartbreaking keepsake taken when the Swires saw her last, almost 35 years ago, after a bomb exploded beneath her feet in the Lockerbie disaster.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It was on 21 December 1988, the eve of her 24th birthday, that Flora, a promising neurology student who had just been accepted to do a PhD at Cambridge, took her seat on a plane bound for New York. She had hoped to spend Christmas with her boyfriend, but would never make it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Thirty-eight minutes after taking off at Heathrow, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in the sky over the town of Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway, with such force on a windy night that the debris landed across an 845-square-mile radius from southwest Scotland to the east coast of England. The fairylights on Christmas trees all over Lockerbie blew their fuses, along with the rest of the grid; smoking orange flames illuminated the town, which quickly filled with the stench of jet fuel. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The investigation has remained open ever since, with one man, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan national, the only person ever to be convicted of the atrocity. He was convicted in 2001 and given a life sentence, and died in 2012. But in February this year, the case returned to the courts for the first time in more than two decades.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Another Libyan national, <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Masud&max-results=20&by-date=true" target="_blank"><b>Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi</b></a> (known as Mas’ud) has been accused of making the Lockerbie bomb, and is now awaiting trial (he has pleaded not guilty). The development should offer some shred of hope for the families whose lives irreparably changed that night. Yet Dr Jim Swire, Flora’s father, ‘has no interest’ in the prospect of Mas’ud’s conviction.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘I know he didn’t make the bomb,’ Jim tells me. ‘I know who made the bomb.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As such, the official criminal verdict on events to date – upcoming trial included – is, in his view at least, nothing more than ‘twaddle’.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jim, now 87, had been writing Christmas cards on that December night in 1988 when his wife Jane told him that a plane had just come down over Scotland. He tried calling Heathrow, where Flora had been dropped off by her younger sister, Cathy, a few hours earlier – he spent five hours on hold to Pan Am as news coverage blared, showing body parts hanging from a roof, the 30ft hole a chunk of the 747 had left in a Lockerbie street, and relatives howling in anguish at JFK Airport. When he finally got through, staff confirmed the worst possible news: Flora had been on the flight. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jim, an old Etonian who went to Cambridge, is still spry in his late 80s – part-raconteur, part activist, wearing a sharp grey suit and trainers. Today, Jim, who became a GP but ultimately left the profession after his daughter’s death, and Jane, 84, take turns bustling between the kitchen and back garden of their home in the Cotswolds town of Chipping Camden with offers of cheese sandwiches and cups of tea. It is a cosy idyll that conceals the sea of names and dates and evidence-tag numbers still etched on their minds.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Some 35 years on, the Swires’ agony remains barely beneath the surface, the memories of their eldest child both a precious gift and cruel reminder of what they have lost. ‘To lose a close family member gives you a life sentence immediately,’ Jim says. ‘Your whole life is altered. And you have to start asking yourself how, how can you go on living, or how can Jane go on living, with a loss so terrible as this?’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Their experiences are documented in <i>Lockerbie</i>, a new four-part documentary that airs on Sky next week. It is a panoptic watch, following the lives of the residents in the town that was, until that day, just a fish ’n’ chip pitstop, 75 miles from Glasgow, before it was completely upturned. The documentary follows the families of UK and US victims, and officials from across the town’s police force, the FBI and the CIA, too. But it also lays bare how devastation led to remarkable acts of humanity, as residents mounted a volunteer effort to wash the clothes and teddies scattered thousands of miles from where they should have ended up, and sent them back to passengers’ loved ones; some of which resulted in relationships with grief-stricken families an ocean away that remain strong. Their lives are, now, forever intertwined.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But underlying the heartfelt stories is a darker thread – for decades on, opinions about who was to blame for the disaster are more divided than ever.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jim remains dismayed by what he sees as a 35-year-long miscarriage of justice. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, he became the spokesperson for the UK Families Flight 103 group and in the intervening decades, he has met numerous experts and officials, and had independent reviews of evidence undertaken. All of which has convinced him that justice has not been served – and that the wrong man was imprisoned, just as another ‘wrong man’ is now about to be tried.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">His theory – that Libya wasn’t responsible for the bombing – runs counter to al-Megrahi’s conviction and Mas’ud’s arrest, and has been dismissed by many. But there are others in his corner, too. ‘Enough honest, reliable and knowledgeable people have discovered the awful truth behind this to know that the truth will now be able to look after itself,’ Jim says. ‘If I die tomorrow, I know the truth will eventually come out.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Among those people is former CIA investigator <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2020/12/majid-giakas-cia-handler-speaks-out.html" target="_blank"><b>John Holt</b></a>, the long-time handler for the principal US government witness at al-Megrahi’s trial, Libyan agent Abdul Majid Giaka. Holt said at the time that Giaka never provided ‘any evidence pointing to Libya or any indication of knowing anything about that nation’s involvement in the two years after the bombing’ – despite later testifying. But when accused of lying under cross-examination, Giaka replied: ‘I had no interest in telling anybody any lies.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Others who have been vocal about what they view as Libya’s wrongful implication include solicitor Clare Connelly, director of the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit, an independent project established by the School of Law of the University of Glasgow, and other UK relatives, including John Moseley [sic], whose 19-year-old daughter Helga was killed on Flight 103.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Al-Megrahi’s trial took place 22 years ago at Camp Zeist, a Scottish law court set up in the Netherlands (deemed a neutral territory), where judges heard that he had placed a bomb in a Samsonite suitcase. Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, his co-accused, was acquitted.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There was no smoking gun for the prosecution, but al-Megrahi was found guilty based on a series of links they felt couldn’t otherwise be explained: including that he had an office in Switzerland down the hall from a clockmaker whose device was used to make the bomb; and that clothing fragments found alongside remains of the bomb were traced back to a Maltese shop that its owner, Tony Gauci, said al-Megrahi had visited.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">At the same time, there were escalating tensions between the West and Libyan premier Colonel Gaddafi, who was suspected to have ordered the bombing of a nightclub frequented by US personnel in West Berlin in 1986. Judges in al-Megrahi’s trial conceded the case included ‘a number of uncertainties and qualifications’; yet he was sentenced to life. (Libya later paid $2.7 billion to families of Lockerbie bombing victims, though this was considered a political move rather than an admission of guilt.) (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Time has only bolstered his defence of ‘poor’ al-Megrahi, having formed personal relationships with both him and Gaddafi before they died. They would exchange Christmas cards, and when al-Megrahi was given compassionate release in 2009 following a diagnosis of prostate cancer – returning to a hero’s welcome on the tarmac at Tripoli airport – Jim travelled to Libya to see him on his deathbed. At the time, Jim recalled al-Megrahi’s words to him: ‘I am going to a place where I hope soon to see Flora. I will tell her that her father is my friend.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He was, in Jim’s eyes, only ever an unwitting pawn in geopolitically motivated ‘deception’ that he says is even now preventing justice for Flora and the other victims from being served. He also took a handful of clandestine trips to Gaddafi’s compound (he did not tell any authorities, and only informed Jane imminently beforehand), in which he would hear that the regime had not been to blame. On leaving their first meeting, Jim pinned a UK Families Flight 103 badge to Gaddafi’s lapel as a show of solidarity for the truth. He believes other UK families are onside, although many have never spoken publicly. But there are certainly others, particularly those in the US, who see this affinity with Gaddafi as a grave error.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For Jim, there are two pieces of evidence that point to al-Megrahi’s wrongful conviction. The 2001 case heard that the explosive had first travelled from Malta to Frankfurt, where Flight 103 began its journey to New York. (The London Heathrow stop was a layover.) But Jim believes the bomb was planted at Heathrow. At al-Megrahi’s appeal in 2002, a baggage handler told lawyers that the baggage build-up area at Terminal 3 had been broken into the night before the bombing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The other piece of evidence relates to the bomb fragments. According to John Ashton, a researcher on al-Megrahi’s legal team, documents not disclosed during the original trial found <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2016/12/lockerbie-28-year-lie.html" target="_blank"><b>differences between the metals of the timers</b></a> being supplied to the Libyans at the time and those within the fragments police recovered from the Lockerbie site. The circuit-board patterns, however, did align, deemed to be the more important evidence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Clare Connelly of the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit also questions the veracity of shopkeeper Tony Gauci’s evidence, as there have been claims that he was paid in connection with his participation in the inquiry, which she says would be ‘totally contrary to the interests of justice’. But in November 2013 the Crown Office said: ‘No witness was offered any inducement by the Crown or the Scottish police before and during the trial and there is no evidence that any other law enforcement agency offered such an inducement.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As for who was actually responsible, Jim argues it was Iran, not Libya. He goes on to suggest that it might have been a retaliatory attack for the US shooting down an Iranian passenger plane, thought to have been incorrectly identified as a fighter jet in July 1988, which killed 290 innocent civilians. In his view, with American hostages held in Iran at the time and an upcoming election, the finger had to be pointed elsewhere. ‘What we’re being told is absolute nonsense from beginning to end. It was designed to protect the relationship between Britain and America and to help in getting home American hostages held by Iranian interests back in ’88.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jim insists that the bombmaker was not Mas’ud, as the US alleges, but ‘a Jordanian who was a double agent, or even a triple agent’ – feeding intelligence both to his own country and the CIA, while making explosives for a militant group active in Palestine at the time, called the PFLP-GC. Others have theories of their own around Iran’s involvement: Holt has also said ‘there was a concerted effort, for unexplained reasons, to switch the original investigations away from Iran and the PFLP-GC’ – backing Jim’s belief that the focus on Libya was politically motivated.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For the officials who spent years putting together their case, however, Jim’s theory is not credible enough to upend ‘the biggest case the FBI ever had… I don’t believe, in the history of law enforcement, there was a crime quite like Pan Am 103.’ So says Richard Marquise, who led the FBI investigation. ‘I will never attack [Jim], I will never tell him he’s a liar or wrong. I will never say a negative thing, because I cannot feel his pain; I am sure it’s enormous. But I disagree with his assessment of the evidence.’ (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For Jim, his ‘obsession’ has been an outlet for the pain of losing Flora. As he puts it: ‘It has provided me with a way of coping with my grief.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As for Jane, she has had little choice but to accept her husband’s dogged pursuit of answers; something Jim is painfully aware of. ‘[I often think] what is it doing to Jane, that I’m still doing this?’ he admits. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There is another source of anguish for the Swires – a series of missteps without which Flora may never have boarded Flight 103 in the first place.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In late October 1988, West German police found a <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2016/10/operation-autumn-leaves.html" target="_blank"><b>bomb hidden inside a Toshiba radio cassette player in an apartment in Neuss</b></a>, believed to have been manufactured to detonate mid-air. The British Department of Transport (DoT) went on to warn airports and airlines of its existence via telex the next month.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Then, on 5 December, an anonymous threat was phoned in to the US embassy in Helsinki, stipulating that within two weeks, someone would carry a bomb on to a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt to the US. Notices were put up on embassy walls, and US officials were told they could rebook on another flight home for Christmas if they so wished; Interpol informed 147 countries, Britain included – yet the ‘<a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-helsinki-warning.html" target="_blank"><b>Helsinki warning</b></a>’ was never made public.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Two days before Lockerbie, a circular featuring images of the explosives authorities feared had been designed to blow up planes was signed by the DoT’s principal aviation security advisor, but never sent out. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jim would like there to be an examination of the evidence in the International Criminal Court. He sees this as the only possible route to justice now – but each passing year makes it less likely.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘Our numbers are dropping all the time from people dying off from old age,’ he says of the families’ group, ‘and I’m amazed that I haven’t long ago because the stress all this has been over the last 35 years – why I haven’t died of a heart attack, I don’t know… But I would love it if [the truth] were to come out while we were still around.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">John Dower, director of the new documentary, says that his main hope is that those involved in it will ‘get some resolution, some peace, because that’s what struck us most making this, the ongoing trauma. It’s 35 years later, but that trauma is still there.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Lockerbie <i>will be on </i>Sky Documentaries<i> and </i>Now <i>from 25 November</i></span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-55890981870868287882023-10-24T06:52:00.001+01:002023-10-24T06:52:52.665+01:00Legal bid to give Lockerbie families access to Masud trial<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[This is the headline over a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-67169501" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published today on the <i>BBC News</i> website. It reads in part:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">US politicians are being asked to allow people from 21 countries to listen live to the second Lockerbie bombing trial.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A Libyan man is currently in US custody, accused of making the device that destroyed Pan Am 103 on 21 December, 1988.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Of the 270 victims, 190 were from the US, 43 from the UK and the remaining from 19 other nations.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">American prosecutors say their families should have access to a phone line to allow them to follow the case.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Trials in US federal courts are not televised and a judge has previously ruled there is no legal basis for allowing such a move.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Abu Agila Masud was handed over to the US authorities in as yet unexplained circumstances in Libya in December 2022.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Appearing in a Washington court under his full name Abu Agila Mohammed Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, the convicted bomb maker faces several charges, including destruction of an aircraft resulting in death.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He has entered a not guilty plea and so far no date for a trial has been set. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Prosecutors from the US Department of Justice say many of the relatives of the victims are too old or infirm to travel to Washington to watch the court proceedings in person.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In their request to US lawmakers, they said: "This combination of advanced age and geographic distance and dispersion from Washington DC means that many victims face significant obstacles to obtain meaningful access to the court proceedings."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The application by the US prosecutors defines "victims" as anyone who suffered "direct or proximate harm" by the bombing, was present at or near the scene when it occurred or immediately afterwards, and their relatives.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On one view, that could include people in Lockerbie who witnessed the crash and its aftermath, along with members of the emergency services and military.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The American prosecutors also argue that the US investigation has involved international co-operation, in particular from police and the Crown Office in Scotland.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">They are seeking statutory authority for the court to allow "remote video and telephone access" to preliminary evidential hearings and the trial itself.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Although video is mentioned, the application specifically requests the approval of a dedicated listen-only telephone line. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The first Lockerbie trial took place at a specially-convened Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. Relatives of the victims were able to watch via remote video feeds in Scotland and the US.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That case ended with the conviction of Abdulbasset al-Megrahi, who was found guilty of mass murder and jailed for life. (...) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Scottish and American prosecutors alleged that the bombing was the work of the Libyan intelligence service and others were involved along with Megrahi.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The US justice department first announced criminal charges against Abu Agila Masud in December 2020.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">They have alleged that he confessed to making the Lockerbie bomb after he was taken into custody following the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi's government in 2012.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-45699610517355384072023-10-05T18:54:00.003+01:002023-10-05T19:22:01.756+01:00Further preliminary steps in US prosecution of Abu Ajila Masud<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The US Department of Justice has recently released the following information about the <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2023/02/trial-of-kidnapped-libyan-could-unravel.html" target="_blank"><b>criminal proceedings in Washington DC</b></a> against alleged Lockerbie bomb maker <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Mas%27ud+Kheir+Al-Marimi" target="_blank"><b>Abu Ajila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi</b></a>:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"On September 29, 2023, the parties filed a joint status update, informing Judge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabney_L._Friedrich" target="_blank"><b>Dabney L Friedrich</b></a> of the status of <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/discovery" target="_blank"><b>discovery</b></a>. The parties informed Judge Friedrich that the government had provided four productions to the defense and would shortly be providing a fifth, and that it was working on getting additional materials from Scotland and various countries. The defense stated that it had received the discovery to date and was reviewing it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"On October 2, 2023, Judge Friedrich set a 'tentative' status hearing for December 15, 2023, at 1:00 pm in Courtroom 14. At this point, we have no reason to believe that this status date will change, despite its 'tentative' status. If it does change, we will notify you as soon as we are able to." </span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-20895500118968669582023-09-16T19:15:00.011+01:002023-09-20T19:05:15.049+01:00Death announced of Abdul Ati al-Obeidi<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I am deeply saddened to learn of the death at the age of 83 of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Ati_al-Obeidi" target="_blank"><b>Abdul Ati al-Obeidi</b></a>, who held many offices in Libya during the Gaddafi era, including Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. From the time in November 1991 that the UK and the US brought charges against Libyan citizens in respect of the Lockerbie bombing, until the eventual compassionate release and repatriation of Abdelbaset Megrahi in August 2009, Obeidi was intimately involved in the Lockerbie case as chairman of the Libyan Government's Lockerbie committee. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Over the years leading up to the voluntary surrender of Megrahi and Fhimah for trial in the Scottish Court in the Netherlands, and in the years following Megrahi's conviction, I had numerous meetings with Obeidi and invariably found him honest, trustworthy and transparent in all his dealings. He was always part of the solution, not part of the problem. I wish I could say the same about the British and American officials that I came in contact with over that period. But it would not be true.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Abdul Ati al-Obeidi has featured in many items posted on this blog. They can be accessed <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Abdul+Ati+Obeidi&max-results=20&by-date=true" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmlLXXbIW6iz_Fbli9d9my4hp3AVUx97KzbifhqXXdA0nLbFVG675ys8YMAXL4rk7WCqh4ELniWrhCEpz_7D-CXwfvzDck2pkGzKC0hCk8N1oz39fjRHgeoVR6FgDjPJg00Xg04hfmUjJqKRl3K3AvgWjocurz2xA7tSIbinhvYghoinbiBaKu2lpDhnyZ/s1825/Obeidi.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1825" data-original-width="843" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmlLXXbIW6iz_Fbli9d9my4hp3AVUx97KzbifhqXXdA0nLbFVG675ys8YMAXL4rk7WCqh4ELniWrhCEpz_7D-CXwfvzDck2pkGzKC0hCk8N1oz39fjRHgeoVR6FgDjPJg00Xg04hfmUjJqKRl3K3AvgWjocurz2xA7tSIbinhvYghoinbiBaKu2lpDhnyZ/s320/Obeidi.jpg" width="148" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-61621572430466402882023-09-07T08:53:00.000+01:002023-09-07T08:53:14.103+01:00Masud and "US counterterrorism's long arm of justice"<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from an article by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_P._Costa" target="_blank"><b>Christopher P Costa</b></a> headlined <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4187645-9-11-benghazi-and-u-s-counterterrorisms-long-arm-of-justice/" target="_blank"><b>9/11, Benghazi and US counterterrorism’s long arm of justice</b></a> published yesterday on the website of <i>The Hill</i>, the house magazine of the United States Congress:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Conventional wisdom in policymaking circles is that the US counterterrorism enterprise is nonpartisan. I agree. I saw firsthand how the Trump administration benefited from continuity grounded in professionalism and threaded to sound counterterrorism policy prescriptions passed on from previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">After years of painstaking counterterrorism work, talking with both former terrorists and victims of terrorism, as well as attending terrorism trials, I’ve come to realize that continuity comes from a long institutional memory between administrations, and justice in these cases is often at the crossroads of law enforcement and counterterrorism operations. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As FBI Director Christopher Wray noted, it took 34 years of painstaking investigative work to bring the maker of the Lockerbie bomb tied to the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 to justice this year. That effort is the province of foreign partners, the Department of Justice, the FBI and, eventually, a US court. Legal arrows – in terms of investigations, extraditions and trials – can be more potent than simply killing terrorists on battlefields overseas. The rule of law remains an indispensable tool for policymakers. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This dedication to continuity drives the tenacity of the legal system to finish the work of prior administrations. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">First, policy continuity across political administrations has kept the nation safe from terrorism. Second, in light of the Lockerbie bomber’s extradition last December, justice and continuity matter deeply and are two sides of the same coin. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Sometimes this continuity would have to carry on for decades before reaching closure. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Christmastime bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, for example, killed 270 passengers, including 190 Americans, on Dec. 21, 1988, and last December, the FBI was finally able to take custody of a suspect for building the explosive device that downed the flight. As a result of the Justice Department’s focus and tenacity in concluding a case that began more than 30 years earlier, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud was then extradited to the United States to face prosecution for one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in American history. (...) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">[RB: <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2022/12/even-facade-of-legality-was-not.html" target="_blank"><b>Masud was not "extradited"</b></a> to the United States. He was kidnapped by a local militia and later, with the connivance of the Tripoli "government" handed over to US agents. Libyan law does not permit extradition of citizens to a foreign country for trial, only voluntary surrender by the suspect; and there is, and can be, no suggestion that Masud volunteered.]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In a time of political polarization, we can be sanguine about the professionalism of the US counterterrorism enterprise, and the long memory of United States justice, regardless of administration. Maybe that’s worth reflecting on this Sept 11 anniversary.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-24951840016430321532023-08-22T22:00:00.004+01:002023-08-22T22:00:55.678+01:00Libyan PM meets family of Lockerbie suspect<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[This is the headline over a <a href="https://libyareview.com/37076/libyan-pm-meets-family-of-lockerbie-suspect/" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published today on the <i>Libya Review</i> website. It reads as follows:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On Monday, the Prime Minister of the Libyan Parliament-designated government, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_Hamada" target="_blank"><b>Osama Hammad</b></a> met with the family of Lockerbie bombing suspect Abu Ajila Masoud Al-Marimi.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Libyan national was a former intelligence officer. The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) has handed over Masoud to the US administration, a move that was criticised across the country.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Hammad, along with members of the Libyan Parliament held a meeting with Masoud’s family, to discuss the latest updates regarding his extradition case and its merits.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">During the meeting, Hammad expressed a firm stance against the <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2023/02/human-rights-concerns-in-lockerbie.html" target="_blank"><b>“cowardly” extradition process</b></a> executed against a Libyan citizen. The operation represents a clear violation of Libyan sovereignty.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The PM emphasized that “this process was conducted by the US administration, with the complicity of the outgoing government, disregarding the rights of Libyan citizens shamefully.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Furthermore, Hammad underscored the “importance of foreign countries respecting Libyan law, and highlighted the necessity of ensuring justice in the event of any accusations against a Libyan citizen.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He affirmed that the Libyan judiciary is competent to address charges against its citizens, within Libyan territory.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Prime Minister assured the family of Al-Marimi that the government “remains fully committed to staying updated on the developments of the case.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Moreover, the government will “cover all the costs associated with a specialized law firm that will carefully examine the case, working towards the safe return of Abu Ajila to his family, and homeland.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In June, the family of Abu Ajila Masoud raised concern over his deteriorating health, noting that he has recently been hospitalized due to multiple chronic illnesses.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Abdel Moneim Al-Marimi, a nephew of Abu Ajila, added the Libyan intelligence operative is set to appear before the court in October. Yet, he expressed grave concern over the lack of a defence team assigned to Abu Ajila’s case so far.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He explained that they are “unable to afford the fees of the legal team. We hired a new lawyer, at our own expense, other than the one assigned to follow up the case, to obtain information about the next session.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Al-Marimi stated, “The US authorities have transferred Abu Ajila to a hospital. Regrettably, no family member has been able to make the trip to the US to be by his side.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He also mentioned that Abu Ajila’s court hearing, related to the Lockerbie case, has been postponed until October.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Masoud, 71, could appear before US courts without an attorney, his family confirms. They noted that all parties that vowed to pay the costs of the legal team paid nothing and abandoned their pledges and promises.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Masoud’s family recently issued a statement denouncing the silence of the GNU, for not cooperating in knowing the fate of the Libyan citizen, as he is suffering from a chronic disease.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-26077538537908768952023-08-11T16:23:00.002+01:002023-08-11T16:27:38.731+01:00Death announced of Libyan Lockerbie lawyer Ibrahim Legwell<p><span style="font-size: large;">[The death in Cairo this morning of Dr Ibrahim Legwell at the age of 90 has just been announced. Dr Legwell, as a Libyan lawyer, was involved in the Lockerbie case from the time that Libyan citizens were first publicly accused by the United States and the United Kingdom of responsibility for the bombing. What follows is an item that was posted on this blog on 11 October 2015.]</span></p><p><a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-genesis-of-neutral-venue-lockerbie.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The genesis of the neutral venue Lockerbie proposal</span></b></a></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">[It was on this date in 1993 that it was announced, following a “legal summit” held in Tripoli involving the international team of lawyers assembled by Dr Ibrahim Legwell to assist him in advising Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, that the suspects were not prepared to surrender themselves for trial in Scotland. Those taking part from Scotland were <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2014/06/lockerbie-lawyer-dies.html" target="_blank"><b>Donald Macaulay QC</b></a> and <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Alistair+Duff&max-results=20&by-date=false" target="_blank"><b>Alistair Duff</b></a>. I have previously <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2010/03/from-lockerbie-to-zeist.html" target="_blank"><b>described</b></a> my own involvement as follows:]</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Libyan government asked me to be present in Tripoli while the team was meeting so that the government itself would have access to independent Scottish legal advice should the need arise. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It was apparent that the Libyan government expectation was that the outcome of the meeting of the defence team would be a decision by the two accused voluntarily to agree to stand trial in Scotland. I am able personally to testify to how much of a surprise and embarrassment it was to the Libyan government when the outcome of the meeting of the defence team was an announcement that the accused were not prepared to surrender themselves for trial in Scotland. My meeting after the defence decision was revealed with the then Deputy Foreign Minister, Mousa Kousa (later head of external security and Foreign Minister) made this only too clear. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In the course of a private meeting that I had a day later with Dr Legwell, he explained to me that the primary reason for the unwillingness of the accused to stand trial in Scotland was their belief that, because of unprecedented pre-trial publicity over the years, a Scottish jury could not possibly bring to their consideration of the evidence in this case the degree of impartiality and open-mindedness that accused persons are entitled to expect and that a fair trial demands. A secondary consideration was the issue of the physical security of the accused if the trial were to be held in Scotland. Not that it was being contended that ravening mobs of enraged Scottish citizens would storm Barlinnie prison, seize the accused and string them up from the nearest lamp posts. Rather, the fear was that they might be snatched by special forces of the United States, removed to America and put on trial there (or, like Lee Harvey Oswald, suffer an unfortunate accident before being put on trial).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Libyan government attitude remained, as it always had been, that they had no constitutional authority to hand their citizens over to the Scottish authorities for trial. The question of voluntary surrender for trial was one for the accused and their legal advisers, and while the Libyan government would place no obstacles in the path of, and indeed would welcome, such a course of action, there was nothing that it could lawfully do to achieve it. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Having mulled over the concerns expressed to me by Dr Legwell in October 1993, I returned to Tripoli and on 10 January 1994 presented a letter to him suggesting a means of resolving the impasse created by the insistence of the governments of the United Kingdom and United States that the accused be surrendered for trial in Scotland or America and the adamant refusal of the accused to submit themselves for trial by jury in either of these countries. This was a detailed proposal, but in essence its principal elements were the following.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">1. That a trial be held outside Scotland, ideally in the Netherlands, in which the governing law and procedure would be that followed in Scottish criminal trials on indictment but with this major alteration, namely that the jury of fifteen persons (not twelve, as in England) which is a feature of that procedure be replaced by a panel of judges -- ideally from states other than those principally affected by the disaster, but presided over by a Scottish judge -- who would have the responsibility of deciding not only questions of law but also the ultimate question of whether the guilt of the accused had been established on the evidence beyond reasonable doubt.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">2. That the prosecution be conducted by the Scottish public prosecutor, Lord Advocate, or his authorised representative.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">3. That the defence of the accused persons be conducted by independent Scottish solicitors and counsel appointed by the accused.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">4. That any appeals against conviction or sentence be heard and determined in Scotland by the High Court of Justiciary in its capacity as the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Although not expressly stated in the proposal, it was the clear implication (and this was understood by Dr Legwell) that in the event of the accused being convicted by the court, they would serve any sentence of imprisonment imposed upon them in a prison in Scotland.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In a letter to me dated 12 January 1994, Dr Legwell stated that he had consulted his clients, that this scheme was wholly acceptable to them and that if it were implemented by the government of the United Kingdom the suspects would voluntarily surrender themselves for trial before a tribunal so constituted. By a letter of the same date, Deputy Foreign Minister Mousa Kousa stated that the Libyan government approved of the proposal and would place no obstacles in the path of its two citizens should they elect to submit to trial under this scheme.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">[RB: Further information regarding Dr Legwell's involvement over the years in the case can be found in the blogposts collated <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Legwell&max-results=20&by-date=false" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>.]</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-73837040131605274512023-07-31T07:59:00.000+01:002023-07-31T07:59:20.947+01:00Sky and BBC to screen rival dramas on Lockerbie disaster<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from a <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/07/bbc-netflix-lockerbie-bombing-series-world-productions-1235451064/" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published yesterday on the <i>Deadline</i> website:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A second major transatlantic drama series on the Lockerbie bombing terror attack is in the works — this time at the BBC and Netflix.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The British broadcaster and US streamer will co-produce <i>Lockerbie</i>, a factual drama that will explore the joint investigation into the 1988 disaster by Scottish and American authorities. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Line of Duty</i> producer World Productions is making the six-part series, which was initially developed by MGM Television and Night Train Media alongside filmmaker Adam Morane-Griffiths.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The BBC and Netflix commission comes more than a year after Sky and Peacock came together to greenlight a <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2022/02/lockerbie-bombing-tv-drama-to-go-into.html" target="_blank"><b>separate series, also titled <i>Lockerbie</i></b></a>. That project was meant to premiere this year but has been delayed amid continued development.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jim Sheridan, the Oscar-nominated director of <i>My Left Foot</i>, and daughter Kirsten Sheridan are writing the Sky/Peacock series, which centers on a family’s search for justice. Carnival Films is producing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jonathan Lee, the novelist behind High Dive, is writing the BBC/Netflix drama alongside Gillian Roger Park (<i>The Young Offenders</i>), a Scottish screenwriter who will pen two episodes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">They will draw on extensive interviews done by Morane-Griffiths, who spoke to Scottish police and US investigative agencies. The series will also examine the bombing’s impact on the people of Lockerbie.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Michael Keillor (<i>Best Interests</i>) will direct. The executive producers are Simon Heath and Roderick Seligman for World; Steve Stark and Stacey Levin for Toluca Pictures; Adam Morane-Griffiths, Sara Curran, Herbert L Kloiber, Keillor; and Gaynor Holmes for the BBC. The co-EP is Joe Hill. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Netflix drama commissioner Mona Qureshi said: “The moment we read Jonathan’s pilot script, informed by Adam’s meticulous research, we understood that this team had found a way into these events that is epic and intimate, local and global, personal and political. The devastation wrought on the night of 21st December 1988 continues to reverberate through the decades.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">BBC commissioner Holmes added: “We have the right team in place to tell this extraordinary story with the greatest of care, making sure the series reflects the devastating events of that night, the complex and far-reaching investigation that followed and the effect it had on all those who lost loved ones.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[A <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sky-and-bbc-to-screen-rival-dramas-on-lockerbie-disaster-07c3d3s0f" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> in today's edition of <i>The Times</i> contains the following:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The six-part show will air on the BBC and Netflix more than 35 years after flight Pan Am 103 exploded over the small Scottish town in 1988, killing 270 people including 43 Britons.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Lockerbie</i> will focus on the investigation into the crash, starting with the search for evidence on the ground in Scotland, before travelling to the US and Malta, where the bomb is thought to have been assembled. It will take in the trial of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted in the Netherlands in 2001 and jailed for life before being released on compassionate grounds three years before his death in Libya in 2012. The US indictment last year of the suspected bombmaker, <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Masud" target="_blank"><b>Abu Agila Masud</b></a>, will also feature.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-51938377506651215042023-06-15T09:47:00.003+01:002023-06-15T09:48:58.831+01:00Did Megrahi really admit that Fhimah put bomb suitcase on flight?<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[Today's edition of the <i>Daily Record</i> contains an <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/lockerbie-bomber-wrote-jail-letter-30237575" target="_blank"><b>article</b></a> about the letter written by Abdelbaset Megrahi in July 2003 to King Hussein of Jordan and delivered to him by Gaddafi aide <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Daad+Sharab" target="_blank"><b>Daad Sharab</b></a>. The article contains the following:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi’s adviser Daad Sharab, 61, visited Abdelbaset al-Megrahi three times in Scotland. She took a letter from Megrahi which he wrote to the King of Jordan in Barlinnie jail in a desperate bid to be freed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Megrahi told how Nelson Mandela had visited him and supported his campaign for release. He claimed Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, the man cleared of the bombing when he faced trial alongside Megrahi in 2001, “put the suitcase on the flight”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Megrahi wrote: “I have to write because of the great suffering condemned to imprisonment for false accusation. I am an Arabic Libyan unfairly convicted in the case of what is called Lockerbie. It was a false accusation based on the allegation I was the suspect who bought the clothes from a storekeeper in Malta.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“They were found in the remains of the suitcase bomb that was the cause for the plane crash over Lockerbie... my colleague, the second suspect who was acquitted by the court, is the one who put the suitcase on the flight from Malta.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">[RB: This remarkable allegation - that Megrahi admitted that his co-accused Lamin Fhimah put the suitcase containing the bomb on the Air Malta flight - does not match the translation of the relevant passage of the letter given on page 128 of Daad Sharab's book <i><a href="https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Colonel-and-I-My-Life-with-Gaddafi-Hardback/p/19258" target="_blank"><b>The Colonel And I: My Life With Gaddafi</b></a></i>. The passage there reads (with emphasis added):</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"I am an Arabic Libyan unfairly convicted in the case of what is called Lockerbie on a false accusation based on the <b>allegation</b> I was the suspect who bought the clothes from a storekeeper in Malta that were found in the remains of the suitcase bomb that was the cause for the plane crash over Lockerbie, <b>and that</b> I was available in Malta <b>and that</b> my colleague the second suspect who was acquitted by the court is the one who put the suitcase on the flight from Malta."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The <i>Daily Record</i> article contains a facsimile of the original Arabic version of Megrahi's letter, so those with a knowledge of the language can decide for themselves whether Megrahi was simply conveying the <b>allegations </b>made against himself and his co-accused, and whether the newspaper's version is grossly misleading.] </span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-91555639761606074752023-06-11T19:11:00.013+01:002023-06-12T07:08:31.210+01:00Colonel Gaddafi knew Lockerbie bomber was innocent<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from a <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/colonel-gaddafi-knew-lockerbie-bomber-30207615" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published today on the <i>Mirror</i> newspaper website:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>A confidante of Colonel Gaddafi, who was assassinated in 2011 by Libyan rebel forces, said he allowed the Lockerbie bomber to be jailed for the attack despite knowing of his innocence</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Colonel Gaddafi knew the Lockerbie bomber was innocent of mass murder but let him rot in prison in a political deal, his close adviser has said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Daad+Sharab" target="_blank"><b>Daad Sharab</b></a>, 61, was the Libyan dictator’s confidante for 22 years and visited Abdelbaset al-Megrahi three times in prison in Scotland.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Libyan intelligence officer agreed to drop his appeal against his life sentence in return for his return to Libya on health grounds in 2009.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Now another former Libyan intelligence officer, <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Abu+Agila+Mohammad+Mas%E2%80%99ud+Kheir+Al-Marimi" target="_blank"><b>Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi</b></a>, 71, is to go on trial in the US over the attack.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He is accused of building the bomb that downed Pan Am flight 103 on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 on board and 11 people in Lockerbie. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Sharab fears the trial will again implicate al-Megrahi. Speaking from her home in Jordan, Sharab said: “I believe that Megrahi was framed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“He fulfilled his commitment to Gaddafi and went to trial even though he knew he was innocent.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“Gaddafi made a deal with the British then to lift sanctions.” Megrahi was jailed in 2001.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A Maltese shopkeeper testified he sold him clothing found in the case that held the bomb.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But writing to the King of Jordan in a letter Sharab delivered, al-Megrahi said: “I never in my life bought any clothes from any store in Malta.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was a victim, said of al-Megrahi and a co-defendant: “I went into court thinking I was going to see the trial of those responsible for the murder.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“I came out thinking he had been framed.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gaddafi had Sharab imprisoned but she escaped, after 19 months, amid 2011’s Arab Spring uprising and went on to write <a href="https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Colonel-and-I-My-Life-with-Gaddafi-Hardback/p/19258" target="_blank"><i><b>The Colonel and I: My Life with Gaddafi</b></i></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Megrahi died aged 60 in 2012.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">[The <i>Daily Express</i> has now picked up this story: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141414; letter-spacing: -1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/world-news/lockerbie-bomber-framed-colonel-gaddafi-30209245" style="font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Lockerbie bomber was framed by Colonel Gaddafi and took the fall for Pan Am atrocity</a>.]</span></span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-15089157789724033842023-06-01T12:01:00.003+01:002023-06-01T12:01:48.739+01:00Further US court appearance for Lockerbie accused Masud<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The <a href="https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/CourtSched.pl" target="_blank"><b>court calendar of the US District Court for Washington DC</b></a> indicates that a Status Conference in the case against Lockerbie accused Abu Ajila Masud took place (or at least was scheduled) yesterday, 31 May. The calendar states:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Case Number and Title - 22-cr-0392: USA v. KHEIR AL-MARIMI<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Judge - Judge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabney_L._Friedrich" target="_blank"><b>Dabney L Friedrich</b></a><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Time - 05/31/2023 09:00AM</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Courtroom - Courtroom 14 In Person<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Purpose - Status Conference</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I can find no online media report on the proceedings at, or the outcome of, the court hearing.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-20410469673195534732023-05-22T21:33:00.002+01:002023-05-23T17:51:19.494+01:00Lockerbie suspect Masud to appear again in US court on 31 May<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is the text of a <a href="https://libyaobserver.ly/news/lockerbie-bombing-suspect-stand-trial-without-defense-lawyers-may-31" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published today on the website of <i>The Libya Observer</i>:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family of the Libyan citizen who is the suspect in the Lockerbie bombing case, Abu Agila Masud stated that the date of his trial session will be on May 31. [RB: I suspect, though I have no inside information, that this will simply be another procedural hearing. It would surprise me greatly if either the prosecution or the defence were yet in a position to go to trial.]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family said in press statements that they hired a lawyer at their own expense, other than the one assigned, to follow up on the case to obtain information about the next court session.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family expressed its dissatisfaction with the failure of the lawyer assigned by the Federal Court to follow up on the case, noting that they did not make any statement regarding his health condition and the extent to which the case had reached.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Regarding the promises made to the family to form a defense team, they said that they were unable to assign a defense team for Abu Agila, noting that all the promises given to them regarding the provision of the defense team’s funds were useless and untrue, considering it an evasion of responsibility.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family expressed its disappointment with the Libyan state taking a “bystander” position regarding what is happening in the case of handing over a Libyan citizen to the American authorities without defending him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[RB: What follows is excerpted from a <a href="https://libyareview.com/34705/libyan-lockerbies-suspect-to-appear-before-us-court-without-lawyer/" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published today (Tuesday, 23 May) on the <i>Libya Review</i> website:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family of the Libyan intelligence operative suspected of making the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103, said that Abu Ajila’s Masoud will appear before the court on 31 May, without a defence team.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family explained that they are “unable to afford the fees of the legal team. We hired a new lawyer, at our own expense, other than the one assigned to follow up the case, to obtain information about the next session.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">They expressed their dissatisfaction with the failure of the lawyer assigned by the Federal Court to follow up on the case. It pointed out that the lawyer “did not make any statement regarding his health condition and the extent of the case.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Last month, the family said that his legal team withdrew from defending Abu Ajila Masoud for not paying the required financial dues.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Masoud, 71, is currently appearing before US courts without an attorney, his family confirms, noting that all parties that vowed to pay the costs of the legal team paid nothing and abandoned their pledges and promises.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Masoud’s family recently issued a statement denouncing the silence of the Government of National Unity (GNU), for not cooperating in knowing the fate of the Libyan citizen, as he is suffering from chronic disease.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family said that the Libyan authorities did not assign a lawyer to defend Masoud or help them communicate with him. The Libyan Embassy in the US also didn’t show any support or intervene to help Masoud, the family says.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">They appealed to the public to support him. “Masoud is a victim of political deals,” the family concluded.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Masoud has pleaded not guilty before the Federal Court in Washington. </span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-63663204788643382322023-05-09T13:44:00.000+01:002023-05-09T13:44:11.674+01:00Camp Zeist should stand as a warning for our justice system<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[This is the headline over an article by me published in today's edition of <i>The Herald</i>. It can be read <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23507122.agenda-camp-zeist-stand-warning-justice-system/" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>. What follows is an expanded version of the article:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Scottish Government is promoting legislation that will permit rape cases to be tried, on a trial basis, without a jury. The only recent instance in which judges of the High Court of Justiciary have presided over a trial on indictment without a jury is the Lockerbie case. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in that trial in 2001 has been widely criticised. The late Ian Hamilton KC <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2010/10/doyen-of-nationalist-lawyers-speaks-out.html" target="_blank"><b>opined</b></a>, with only slight exaggeration, "I don't think there's a lawyer in Scotland who now believes Mr Megrahi was justly convicted." I myself <a href="http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/07/lockerbie-satisfactory-process-but.html" target="_blank"><b>commented</b></a> "that a shameful miscarriage of justice has been perpetrated and that the Scottish criminal justice system has been gravely sullied." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The <a href="http://i-p-o.org/lockerbie-report.htm" target="_blank"><b>official report</b></a> by Professor Hans Köchler, a United Nations-appointed observer at the trial, contains the following:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"13. The Opinion of the Court is exclusively based on circumstantial evidence and on a series of highly problematic inferences. As to the undersigned's knowledge, there is not one single piece of material evidence linking the two accused to the crime. In such a context, the guilty verdict in regard to the first accused appears to be arbitrary, even irrational. This impression is enforced when one considers that the actual wording of the larger part of the Opinion of the Court points more into the direction of a 'not proven' verdict. The arbitrary aspect of the verdict is becoming even more obvious when one considers that the prosecution, at a rather late stage of the trial, decided to 'split' the accusation and to change the very essence of the indictment by renouncing the identification of the second accused as a member of Libyan intelligence so as to actually disengage him from the formerly alleged collusion with the first accused in the supposed perpetration of the crime. Some light is shed on this procedure by the otherwise totally incomprehensible 'not guilty' verdict in regard to the second accused.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"14. This leads the undersigned to the suspicion that political considerations may have been overriding a strictly judicial evaluation of the case and thus may have adversely affected the outcome of the trial. This may have a profound impact on the evaluation of the professional reputation and integrity of the panel of three Scottish judges. Seen from the final outcome, a certain coordination of the strategies of the prosecution, of the defense, and of the judges' considerations during the later period of the trial is not totally unlikely. This, however, − when actually proven − would have a devastating effect on the whole legal process of the Scottish Court in the Netherlands and on the legal quality of its findings.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"15. In the above context, the undersigned has reached the general conclusion that the outcome of the trial may well have been determined by political considerations and may to a considerable extent have been the result of more or less openly exercised influence from the part of actors outside the judicial framework − facts which are not compatible with the basic principle of the division of powers and with the independence of the judiciary, and which put in jeopardy the very rule of law and the confidence citizens must have in the legitimacy of state power and the functioning of the state's organs − whether on the traditional national level or in the framework of international justice as it is gradually being established through the United Nations Organization.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"16. On the basis of the above observations and evaluation, the undersigned has − to his great dismay − reached the conclusion that the trial, seen in its entirety, was not fair and was not conducted in an objective manner. Indeed, there are many more questions and doubts at the end of the trial than there were at its beginning. The trial has effectively created more confusion than clarity and no rational observer can make any statement on the complex subject matter 'beyond any reasonable doubt.' Irrespective of this regrettable outcome, the search for the truth must continue. This is the requirement of the rule of law and the right of the victims' families and of the international public."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Lockerbie trial resulted in a conviction. But it also gravely besmirched the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system. The proposal to institute, on a trial basis, non-jury courts in rape cases may well achieve the apparently desired objective of increasing convictions in such cases. But at what cost to the administration of justice and the reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system? Let the Lockerbie case stand as a warning.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-55928239042035596902023-04-17T08:13:00.000+01:002023-04-17T08:13:08.442+01:00For 34 years the US has doggedly pushed a false narrative<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from an <a href="https://www.theinteldrop.org/2023/04/16/u-s-spy-chief-gives-his-support-to-libya-pm-as-part-of-a-deal-over-lockerbie/" target="_blank"><b>article</b></a> published yesterday on <i>The Intel Drop</i> website:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The greatest cover up since JFK – The Lockerbie bombing – might be coming apart at the seams, <a href="https://politicstoday.org/author/martin-jay/" target="_blank"><b>Martin Jay</b></a> writes.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Like Afghanistan, Libya, a country rich in oil wealth and underpopulated, is heading towards being branded another major NATO f***-up as analysts worry that delayed elections, the hilarious farce of now having two rival prime ministers in office and an economy in freefall, could all point to rival factions returning to war. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In early January, CIA chief William Burns has met with one of Libya’s rival prime ministers, the government in the country’s capital of Tripoli confirmed on January 12th, stirring some controversy, given how rare it is for CIA chief to do such a political stunt.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Libya, we should note, is a divided house. In Tripoli, its incumbent government – whose militias allow it to control important institutions like the central bank for example – is largely supported by the US and Turkey, while its eastern bloc, which is where its parliament is based, is controlled and funded by a number of Arab countries and Russia. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But what on earth is the CIA chief doing in Tripoli?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Barely a month has passed since the US illegally extradited a Libyan intelligence officer, to keep a fake news campaign in the US alive which blames Libya for the Lockerbie bombing of 1988, and Burns rocks up to the Libyan capital.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Tripoli-based government said CIA Director William Burns and Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah discussed cooperation, economic and security issues. It also posted a hand-shaking photo of the two on one of its social media pages.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Burns’ visit followed the surprise extradition last month of a former Libyan intelligence officer accused of making the bomb that exploded on a commercial flight above Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all onboard and 11 people on the ground.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In December, Washington announced that Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, wanted by the United States for his role in bringing down the New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 since 2020, was in their custody and would face trial. His handover by Dbeibah’s government raised questions of its legality inside Libya, which does not have a standing agreement on extradition with the United States. Dbeibah’s mandate remains highly contested after planned elections did not take place in late 2021. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Given Biden’s moronic handling of US troops leaving Afghanistan, one has to ask, has he made an error in Libya which is worrying him now? The rendition of the Libyan officer is almost certainly illegal and it might have surprised Biden just how much international press coverage it received. Did Biden send Burns to give some moral support to the incumbent prime minister in Tripoli who refused to stand down when the eastern parliament attempted to install their own prime minister just recently? What was the deal struck between the CIA and Dbeibah and why did Burns need to actually visit him and pose with him for a Facebook photo stunt? Was this a signal to the eastern bloc that the US is going to stand firm with their man, if war breaks out again?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Add to that, that it is only a question of time before American families of the doomed Pan Am 103 flight which crashed in Lockerbie at Christmas 1988 will wake up and smell the coffee.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For 34 years, the US has doggedly pushed a false narrative which has blamed the Libyans. And they have succeeded to some extent, largely because the truth about Lockerbie is so incredible that few Americans would believe it, if they were to be presented with it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Incredibly, Pan Am 103 was a ‘controlled flight’ by CIA agents which was carrying drugs placed on board by terrorist groups which Reagan needed to keep happy, while negotiating the freedom of US hostages in Beirut. Iran discovered this arrangement – as those groups in Lebanon were ideologically aligned to Tehran and later became Hezbollah – and decided to seek revenge for the US downing of Iranian airliner 655 in the Persian Gulf in July of 1988 by placing their own case on the flight, which they knew would not be examined by CIA officers, as it would be assumed to be drugs. The plotters even went as far as sacrificing one of the young men from the Lebanese group who was on board.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But the interesting detail of the Lockerbie bombing was the extent of how far the plotters went to divert blame to Libya, which the CIA are continuing to do to this day, in a nefarious game so as to extend the big lie of Lockerbie – all so that no US president can be held responsible for possibly the greatest cover-up since JFK.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If the American families today were to jointly begin a legal case of compensation against the US government for murdering their loved ones, who were used as cannon fodder for a twisted, idiotic game that Reagan was playing with terrorist groups in Lebanon, the sums would be staggering and unprecedented. The shock might be so much to the American public that it might create a crisis of confidence in the government and result in widespread insurgency, not to mention a lack of confidence in the US political system.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-82197002562371806442023-04-11T20:25:00.000+01:002023-04-11T20:25:51.509+01:00The Lockerbie bombing - the ultimate qisas barbarism<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from an article by barrister <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Wolchover&max-results=20&by-date=false" target="_blank"><b>David Wolchover</b></a> headlined <a href="https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/opinion-the-muddled-rationale-of-random-retaliation/" target="_blank"><b>The obscene rationale of random retaliation</b></a> published today on the <i>Jewish News</i> website:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Last week mainstream lovers of Israel doubtless watched in horror as crazed Israeli police were televised beating Palestinians with batons as they lay on the ground outside the Al Aqsa mosque. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">No “context” of security considerations could conceivably excuse such brutality, which sadly brought to mind similar footage of so-called “police” attacking demonstrators in that host of countries ruled over by oppressive regimes. The inflammatory effect it will have worked on the latest generation of Palestinian Arabs already poisoned by decades of the big naqba lie is not hard to imagine.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Yet as sickening as it was to observe the <i>mishtara</i> in action, it pales into insignificance compared with the random ambushing and murder of Anglo-Israeli sisters Rina and Maia Dee and their mother, who subsequently succumbed to her injuries.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It has been reported that Hamas “praised” the attack (and the Tel Aviv car attack) as “retaliation” for the Al Aqsa raids. If accurately reported it is noteworthy that Hamas did not cite Israel’s air attacks on Gaza as legitimating the Dee killings.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Presumably the air raids were accepted by Hamas as a response to the rockets launched from Gaza and Lebanon. Those followed the Al Aqsa raids and since the vast majority were neutralised by the Iron Dome shield, it may be deduced that the Dee murders and the Tel Aviv incident were deemed sanctionable as replacement retaliation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Even according to the Islamic fundamentalist interpretation of Lex Talionis – the principle of tit-for-tat – the murders were of course utterly disproportionate. No one knows what might have been in the mind of the killer or killers but what is significant is that Hamas, as the official embodiment of would-be genocide, sought by praising them to draw an equivalence between non-fatal beating and homicide.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The episode demonstrates once again the haphazard and muddled rationale behind Islamic Fundamentalism, rooted as it is in the quasi-theocratic doctrine of <i>qisas</i>, the sacred duty to exact revenge in like measure. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But <i>qisas</i> does not require vengeance to be directed personally at the supposedly deserving criminal. If you can’t kill that individual, any old soft target will do, provided they are loosely associated with the original perpetrator. It could be regimental colleagues, family members or friends, fellow citizens or members of the same community.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It might even stretch to people only tenuously connected. The ultimate barbarism here is the Lockerbie bombing. On July 4, 1988, an IranAir jet carrying 290 passengers and crew was shot down by the Vincennes, an American guided-missile cruiser patrolling in the Gulf of Iran, with the loss of all on board.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Vincennes was engaged at the time in a skirmish with Iranian fast patrol boats and the relevant crew members incompetently mistook the jetliner for an Iranian F-14A Tomcat heading in to attack the ship. Yet no timely apology or offer of compensation was forthcoming; instead the Reagan administration’s lame attempts to excuse the disaster only added salt to the wound.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Incensed, Iran embarked on <i>qisas</i> by collaborating with a Palestinian terrorist faction in the detonating of a bomb on PanAm 103 over Lockerbie the following December 21 with the not quite equivalent loss of 270 lives on board.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Quite apart from the fact that the victims were presumptively innocent it mattered not to the Iranian government that among the passengers a great many were not even American citizens and the 11 killed by falling debris were Lockerbie residents.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-32162771816385983522023-02-25T05:42:00.004+00:002023-02-25T05:42:21.319+00:00US court postpones hearing of Lockerbie suspect<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[This is the headline over a <a href="https://libyareview.com/32212/us-court-postpones-hearing-of-lockerbie-suspect/" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published yesterday on the <i>Libya Review</i> website. It reads as follows:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The trial of the Libyan intelligence operative suspected of making the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, has been delayed to 28 February, his family told local media.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family of Abu Ajila Masoud told Libya Al-Ahrar that a session was scheduled to be held on 23 February, but was postponed until next week.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The family said that the court did not clarify the reason for the postponement, noting that the attorney assigned by the American judiciary “will follow the course of the next session, until the defence team’s fees are secured.” They expressed their hope to secure the first fee payment before the next hearing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Masoud has pleaded not guilty before the Federal Court in Washington. 270 people were killed in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in US history, according to Washington Post.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“At this time your honour we would enter a plea of not guilty,” said Whitney Minter, a US federal public defender, according to the Washington Post.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Masoud, 71, entered his plea in federal court in Washington. This follows his extradition in December by one of Libya’s rival factional governments.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">US authorities said they would seek Masoud’s continued detention pending trial at a bond hearing on 23 February, if his defence sought to argue for his conditional release. He possibly faces two counts, including the destruction of an aircraft resulting in death, punishable upon conviction by up to life in prison.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The US Justice Department has alleged that Masoud confessed his crimes to a Libyan law enforcement official, in September 2012.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the United States and Libyan authorities to clarify the legal basis for the “abusive arrest” and subsequent extradition of Masoud.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“It appears that no Libyan court ordered or reviewed Masoud’s transfer to the US, and he had no chance to appeal, raising serious due process concerns,” said Hanan Salah, associate Middle East and North Africa director at HRW.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Tripoli-based Prime Minister, Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba said his Government of National Unity (GNU) collaborated with the US on the extradition. However, judicial authorities have challenged the handover’s legality, and opened an investigation.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-25694283192730302162023-02-17T08:06:00.000+00:002023-02-17T08:06:12.876+00:00Trial of kidnapped Libyan could unravel entire US Lockerbie bombing narrative<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[This is the headline over an <a href="https://www.wrmea.org/north-africa/the-trial-of-kidnapped-libyan-could-unravel-entire-u.s.-lockerbie-bombing-narrative.html?fbclid=IwAR1lGUrwv-jCF9G49lzU07FWRw9Z25W6dyUAPOCEdfHWIN0QkI8pR-WwGKY#.Y-8fc0UUGxg.messenger" target="_blank"><b>article</b></a> by Dr <a href="https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/search?q=Mustafa+Fetouri&max-results=20&by-date=true" target="_blank"><b>Mustafa Fetouri</b></a> published in the current issue of <i>Washington Report on Middle East Affairs</i>. It reads in part:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, 74, a Libyan national, appeared in a federal court in Washington, DC, on Dec 12, 2022, charged in connection with the bombing that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland while flying from London to New York.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> According to US prosecutors, Mas’ud made the bomb that blew up the plane on Dec 21, 1988, killing 270, including 11 people on the ground. Two other Libyans have been tried for the same crime: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted while his co-accused Lamin Fahima was acquitted in 2001. Al-Meghrahi protested his innocence until his 2012 death from prostate cancer in his Tripoli home. In fact, his conviction was widely criticized by the legal community and by United Nations observer Hans Kochler, who cited “foreign governmental and intelligence interference in the presentation of evidence.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Mas’ud’s kidnapping and subsequent “extradition” to the US started in the poor suburb of Abu Salim, south of the Libyan capital Tripoli, where armed militias roam freely. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On the night of Nov 16, 2022, Mas’ud was getting ready for bed when half a dozen unmarked cars pulled up in front of his home. Four masked and armed men forced their way into his bedroom, dragged him out in his pajamas, shoved him into one of the cars and drove away. One of the masked men told the small crowd that quickly formed in the street that Mas’ud would be back soon. Abdel Moneim Al-Maryami, the family’s spokesman and Ma’sud’s nephew, described the shock for onlookers who “watched helplessly.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That evening Mas’ud had just returned from his third visit to the hospital in a week. The septuagenarian suffers from a host of illnesses made worse during his decade-long incarceration in the notorious Al-Hadba prison in Tripoli, accused of preparing car bombs in Libya’s 2011 civil war. The US Justice Department alleges that Mas’ud first confessed to making the Lockerbie bomb in Al-Hadba prison, but the former director of that prison, Khalid Sharif, denies that Mas’ud ever made such a confession while he was there. Sharif, now living in exile in Turkey, was one of the top leaders of the organization known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. In 2004 the US listed this Afghanistan-based group as terrorists but unlisted it in 2015 after it participated in the 2011 US-NATO supported armed revolt that toppled former leader Muammar Qaddafi’s government.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The following morning the family started searching for Mas’ud, a daunting task because different militias have different detention centers. After a week and multiple visits to the headquarters of different militias, the offices of the prime minister and the prosecutor general, and different detention centers around Tripoli, Abdel Moneim was told where he was and allowed to visit him. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In detention Mas’ud told his visitors that nobody “interrogated him,” let alone explained why he was detained or by whom. Family members continued visiting until one day his son, Essam, went for a visit but was told his father had been taken to Misrata, some 186 miles (300 km) east of Tripoli. “He was handed over” to Joint Force, a notorious and powerful militia, Essam said. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">No one mentioned the idea of handing him over to the US. In fact, Essam said, “they assured us that he was being kept there for his own safety.” Other family members had filed a kidnapping report with the police. Government officials denied knowing anything about the kidnapping. The prosecutor general denied issuing an arrest warrant and promised to investigate the matter. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Mas’ud made headlines on Dec 21, 2020, the 32nd anniversary of the bombing, when then-US Attorney General William Barr accused him of assembling the bomb and handing it over to Al-Megrahi in Malta. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Libyan laws do not permit the extradition of its citizens to stand trial abroad, and it has no extradition treaty with the US. In a BBC interview in 2021, Libya’s US-educated foreign minister, Najla El-Mangoush, said her government was “open” to the idea of extraditing suspect Mas’ud but “within the law.” Faced with a huge public outcry, El-Mangoush denied that she ever said she was open to Mas’ud’s extradition, forcing the BBC to release the video clip of the interview in which she made that claim.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The US and Libyan governments knew that Mas’ud could not legally be transferred to the US so they colluded with Joint Force, a militia loyal to Tripoli’s government, to grab him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Just before midday on Dec 11, 2022, some Pan Am Flight 103 victims’ families received an “urgent update” email from the Scottish authorities updating them on their efforts to prosecute Mas’ud. The message’s closing line said the US “has obtained custody” of him. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I was in Paris, waiting for news because a friend had already alerted me to expect some. His family first heard the news from me after I spoke to their spokesman Abdel Moneim that morning.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On Dec 12, Mas’ud limped into Judge Robin Meriweather’s DC courtroom where he told the judge that he “cannot talk” before meeting his attorney. A day later, a Libyan businessman told me that he was ready to fund a defense team. But appointing the right defense team thousands of miles away is not an easy task for his family who are still in shock and confused by the conflicting advice they are getting from friends and volunteers trying to help them. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The fact that he was kidnapped should be reason enough to halt any further legal proceedings against him. But the US has a history of kidnapping suspects and sending them for interrogation to countries that use torture liberally. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On two previous occasions, US commandos kidnapped suspects from Libya to try them in the US. Ahmed Abu Khatallah, was kidnapped in 2014, and tried and convicted in the US for participating in the 2012 attack on the US compound in Benghazi, which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. In 2013 Abu Anas al-Libi was snatched and taken to US for trial accused of planning the attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He died of cancer in custody days before his trial. For this third kidnapping the US outsourced the dirty work to a local militia.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The news that Mas’ud had been kidnapped was condemned by Libya’s parliament, High Council of State (a consultative body), the national security adviser and the minister of justice. They also warned that handing him over to the US would be illegal and an infringement of Libyan sovereignty. However, none of them knew exactly what happened, and Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Debeibeh kept silent. The uproar was repeated when Mas’ud was reported to have been sent to the US.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The public reaction has been supportive of Mas’ud and critical of the government in Tripoli. In a clumsy televised speech, Debeibeh attempted some damage control but instead made things worse. He said that “this man [Mas’ud] killed 270 innocent souls in cold blood,” but did not provide any evidence. Most Libyans mocked him and asked whether more Libyans would be sent to the US for Lockerbie bombing trials. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Rumors of more extraditions of Libyans intensified in the wake of a Jan. 12, 2023 unannounced visit of CIA Director William Burns. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A second Lockerbie bombing trial is very unlikely. US prosecutors will try to avoid such a scenario because it could lead to re-examining the whole Lockerbie trial evidence of 2001, as well as evidence that has emerged since Al-Megrahi’s conviction. Doing so could unravel the entire case and cast serious doubts about the evidence used to convict Al-Megrahi 22 years ago and raise questions about Libya’s responsibility for the bombing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the bombing and now represents UK victims’ families, argues that the United Nations, not the US, should try Mas’ud. He said “no one country can be the plaintiff, the prosecutor and the judge” in this case. His compatriot, law professor Robert Black, thinks Mas’ud can still “get a fair trial” in a US court. The professor believes that US prosecutors must prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Mas’ud made the device that destroyed the jumbo jet on that cold December night in 1988, that his bomb, and no other, caused the disaster and that Mas’ud knew that his bomb would be used for that purpose.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Professor Black, the primary figure behind the previous Lockerbie bombing trial in Camp Zeist under Scots law in The Netherlands, thinks it is not “essential” for US prosecutors to show how the bomb got on the plane in order to get a conviction. In such a scenario the evidence to convict Mas’ud will rest, heavily, on the analysis of the fragment of circuit board that the US claims was part of the timer that set the bomb off in midair. That tiny fragment, US investigators claim, was found in a Scottish field where debris from the plane was scattered. However, since that first Lockerbie trial, evidence has emerged demonstrating that the fragment was actually planted to frame Libya.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">George Thompson, a former Scottish police officer turned private investigator, who has worked extensively on the case, claims to have the evidence to show exactly that. Thompson told me that he is ready to be a witness in the upcoming US trial, whenever that might be.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If convicted, Mas’ud is certain to face life imprisonment. In his first court appearance on Dec 12, prosecutors told him that they will not be seeking the death penalty. US former Attorney General Barr, in a BBC interview published the next day, said Mas’ud should receive the death penalty. Barr also said that Mas’ud’s alleged confession, should be admissible in court, despite concerns by others that it may have been coerced. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Mas’ud’s trial could take months to start and weeks to end. Regardless of the outcome, most Libyans believe it will not bring us any closer to the truth about Lockerbie.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-4329012930145320672023-02-13T07:54:00.000+00:002023-02-13T07:54:16.417+00:00Human rights concerns in Lockerbie suspect’s rendition<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[What follows is excerpted from a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/13/libya/us-rights-concerns-lockerbie-suspects-extradition" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published today on the <i>Human Rights Watch</i> website:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">United States and Libyan authorities should clarify the legal basis for the abusive arrest and subsequent extradition to the US of a Libyan suspect in the 1988 deadly airplane bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, Human Rights Watch said today. US authorities on December 12, 2022, announced that they had custody of and intended to prosecute Abu Agela Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, a former official of the government of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, after an armed group seized him from his home in Tripoli.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“It appears that no Libyan court ordered or reviewed Masud’s transfer to the US, and he had no chance to appeal, raising serious due process concerns,” said Hanan Salah, associate Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The political impasse and chaos in Libya don’t allow US authorities to disregard violations of fundamental rights.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Tripoli-based Libyan prime minister, Abdelhamid Dabeiba, said his Government of National Unity (GNU) collaborated with the US on the transfer, while Libyan judicial authorities have challenged the handover’s legality and opened an investigation. Libya and the US have no extradition treaty.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The US should uphold international fair trial standards and grant Masud access to his family members, including by promptly processing visas for them. US authorities should also grant him the right to challenge his extradition. As Prime Minister Dabeiba promised, Libyan authorities should provide consular visits, help Masud get effective legal counsel, and coordinate his family’s visits. They should also investigate and hold accountable members of the armed group responsible for violently seizing Masud from his home.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Masud is the third Libyan in the last decade transferred to the US under murky legal circumstances to stand trial on a terrorism-related charge.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The US had long sought Masud’s arrest for his alleged role in the Lockerbie bombing. The apparent basis for the charges are confessions he allegedly made in 2012 to a Libyan interrogator. A relative of Masud told Human Rights Watch that family members had no prior notification of the extradition, and learned about it from social media posts about his appearance in a US court on December 12. They said they knew of no judicial procedures before he was sent from Libya, and spoke with him by phone for the first time on February 10, two months after his transfer to the US. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Masud was not under an arrest warrant in Libya, said his relative, when he was seized on November 17 in his home in the Abu Salim district of Tripoli by an armed group whose members refused to identify themselves during the arrest, wore no insignias, and came in cars that were unmarked. They took him to an undisclosed location, his relative said. However, Abu Salim district is controlled by the Stability Support Apparatus, which also controls parts of the Libyan capital and is aligned with the GNU prime minister.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Armed group members arrived at around 1:30 a.m., the relative said. The group stationed armed men in front of the homes of Masud and of other family members nearby, barring everyone from leaving. Members of the group shoved Masud’s wife and beat his daughter, who needed medical attention for her hands after the incident, the relative said. They also beat one of Masud’s sons with a rifle. They dragged Masud, 71, whose mobility was reduced due to illness, across the floor, refusing help from family members to carry him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Abu Salim police refused to record a kidnapping complaint brought by the family the next day, prompting the family to contact armed groups and the General Prosecutor’s Office to try to find out where he was, the family member said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On November 24 or 25, a week later, Masud called to tell his family he was being held in Misrata, 200 kilometers east of the capital, by an armed group allied with Prime Minister Dabeiba known as the Joint Force, and under Omar Bughdada’s command. The group permitted Masud to call his relatives and permitted the family to visit him twice in Misrata before his transfer to the US. On December 11, authorities in Scotland announced that Masud had been taken into US custody.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On December 12, the US Department of State announced that Masud had been taken before a court in Washington, DC, to face two criminal counts, including destruction of an aircraft resulting in death, based on charges filed by the Justice Department in December 2020.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">US authorities gave no details on Masud’s arrest and transfer in the absence of an extradition treaty. The US Embassy in Tunis, which covers Libya, tweeted that Masud’s transfer “was lawful and conducted in cooperation with Libyan authorities,” and that it “followed Interpol publishing a Red Notice for Masud in January 2022,” requesting member countries to arrest him for transfer to the US.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In a Statement of Facts from 2020, the US Justice Department maintains that there is probable cause that Masud conspired with others, and aided and abetted them, in causing the destruction of Pan Am flight 103. This affidavit, submitted to support the charges, said that the US appears to build its case around a confession allegedly made by Masud to an unidentified Libyan operative on September 12, 2012, while Masud was detained in Libya. US authorities obtained an English translation of the transcript of the interrogation in 2017. Anti-Gaddafi fighters had detained Masud in 2011 after the revolution in Libya. In 2015, following a mass trial marred by serious due process violations, a Tripoli criminal court sentenced him to 10 years in prison for his role in booby trapping cars during the 2011 revolution and 31 other former Gaddafi officials to various prison terms. Masud was ordered released in 2021 on medical grounds.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">During his years in Libyan custody, Human Rights Watch documented the use of torture, intimidation, and other abuses in Libyan facilities, often to extract confessions. Libya’s justice system was and remains marked by serious due process violations. US authorities should ensure that no coerced confessions, including confessions made under torture, are used as part of the prosecution, in violation of US and international law, Human Rights Watch said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Libyan authorities did not respond to the allegations that they participated in a possibly unlawful extradition until December 16, when Dabeiba stated on TV that he had cooperated with US authorities in the transfer. Dabeiba called Masud a “terrorist” but did not clarify the legal basis for the extradition. In a statement on December 14, Libya’s general prosecutor confirmed that his office had not been part of the extradition and that he had opened an investigation into whether Masud was extrajudicially transferred.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While Prime Minister Dabeiba pledged in the TV statement that Masud would get consular and family visits and that the Libyan government would pay his legal costs, this has yet to happen. Masud’s family has hired only a temporary legal counsel who met with Masud upon his arraignment in the US. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“Justice for the many victims of Pan Am flight 103 risks being tainted unless the US and GNU governments clarify the legal basis for Masud’s transfer to US custody,” Salah said.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-22331802336718753322023-02-08T17:54:00.001+00:002023-02-08T17:54:14.228+00:00Man accused of making the Lockerbie bomb denies all charges<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[This is the headline over a <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/border/2023-02-08/lockerbie-bomb-suspect-denies-all-charges" target="_blank"><b>report</b></a> published this evening on the <i>ITV News</i> website. It reads in part:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A 71-year old man suspected of making the bomb that brought down a jumbo jet over Lockerbie in 1988 has denied all the charges in court.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Abu Agila Mas'ud Al-Marimi, from Libya, is charged with the destruction of an aircraft, resulting in death. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He appeared in court in Washington DC to face three charges related to the destruction of Pan Am flight 103. Through an interpreter, he pleaded not guilty to all of them. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">According to the US Department of Justice the accused worked for the Libyan External Security Organisation as a technical expert, including building explosive devices.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It is claimed he took the bomb to Malta and a few days afterwards set the timer so that the explosion would happen 11 hours later when it had been transferred from an Air Malta flight to the Pan Am aircraft. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It is more than 20 years since Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, was found guilty of mass murder in connection with the Lockerbie disaster. He was sent to prison but later released on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with incurable cancer. He died in 2012. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It is claimed that he and Al-Marimi were working together to destroy the flight, along with others from the Libyan regime. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Following the fall of the Gaddafi regime Al-Marimi was arrested and imprisoned by the new regime in Libya. It is claimed that he confessed his involvement in the Lockerbie attack at that time. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In December he was extradited to the United States to stand trial. [RB: He was not extradited: Libyan law does not countenance extradition of Libyan citizens. If they stand trial overseas it should be because they voluntarily agreed to do so, as Megrahi and Fhimah did. There is not a scintilla of evidence that Masud volunteered.]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If convicted he faces life imprisonment. He's due in court again on the 23rd of February for a hearing to decide whether he should stay in prison until his trial.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-85678179544504887042023-01-25T19:02:00.001+00:002023-01-26T07:44:02.614+00:00Lockerbie bombing suspect's arraignment deferred amid delays securing a lawyer<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[This is the headline over a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/lockerbie-bombing-suspect-be-arraigned-us-federal-court-2023-01-25/" target="_blank"><b>Reuters news agency report</b></a> published this afternoon. It reads as follows:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The arraignment of a Libyan intelligence operative suspected of making the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 and killed 270 people was deferred on Wednesday due to delays and challenges securing a defense attorney.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, 71, is the first suspect in the attack to face criminal charges in the United States.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The bomb exploded aboard a Boeing 747 over Lockerbie as it flew from London to New York in December 1988. All 259 people on board were killed, and another 11 people died on the ground.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">US Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya formally appointed federal public defender Whitney Minter to represent him on Wednesday, after Minter said Mas'ud's family was unable to retain a defense lawyer on their own.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Minter said Mas'ud has no substantial assets and has not been employed for a decade. He makes mortgage payments on a home in Libya, and his children help cover his living and medical expenses.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[From a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/lockerbie-bombing-suspects-arraignment-pushed-back-familys-trouble-hiring-defense-attorney-report?intcmp=tw_fnc" target="_blank"><b>Fox News report</b></a>:]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi's arraignment was (...) pushed back to Feb 8.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">US Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya formally appointed federal public defender Whitney Minter to represent him Wednesday, Reuters reported. (...)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Upadhyaya also set a Feb 23 date for a detention hearing.</span></p>Robert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com0