[I am deeply grateful to Peter Biddulph for allowing me to post the following response written by him to Richard Marquise's recent broadcast and print contributions to Lockerbie lore.]
1. It would appear that Mr Marquise never handled the fragment [of circuit board allegedly from the MST-13 timer that allegedly detonated the bomb], never saw the fragment. All his forensic information appears to have come from Thomas Thurman, proven to be a manipulator of prosecution reports by the US Department of Justice in 36 out of the 52 Thurman cases that they investigated.
And yet Thurman too never saw the fragment or handled it. When challenged by journalists, he admitted that he had worked solely on photographs supplied by the Scottish police and Thomas Hayes. And the evidence he gave on US TV about identifying the fragment was given as a voice-over using photographs of a sample from the CIA's own laboratory in Langley, Virginia.
Thurman, by resigning and "leaving" the employ of the FBI avoided being a witness at the trial, and his claims and record regarding the fragment were never tested in court. All references to Thurman in the trial transcript took "a priori" that he was on the team who found the fragment that proved Libya did it. His questionable history was never challenged by the defence. Were they negligent?
2. Mr Marquise's senior FBI colleague Oliver Revell never saw the fragment, never handled the fragment. In a televised discussion in 1995 on UK Channel Four TV he claimed :
". . . And we were operating on the premise that [Iran] was the responsible party. But we simply could not bring to bear all of the information we had, and the evidence, and make it fit. And then when the item – the microchip – was found and was identified – and by the way it was through both RARDE and Tom Thurman of the FBI laboratory – independently – that we found the other connection, and then we started working on that." (My italics).
So, whatever might be said by the FBI now, their case in 1991 centred entirely upon the provenance of the fragment of the bomb said to have been found in July 1989 by Dr Thomas Hayes. Should Hayes' evidence be in any way suspect, the case would collapse.
Mr Marquise has claimed elsewhere that the retirement of the CIA's Vincent Cannistraro took place before the key evidence was found. He has said that to for us to say otherwise is wrong.
Well, it's not wrong. Cannistraro was busy as head of the Lockerbie team when Hayes claimed to have found the fragment. Cannistraro retired a year and a half later, in November 1990.
3. The chief identification witness, Tony Gauci, was exposed in 2005 by the very man who - in 1991 - helped with the indictments against Megrahi and Fhimah, former Lord Advocate Peter Fraser. In Fraser's own words, Gauci could not be trusted.
And now a Mr Clancy [Ronnie Clancy QC] of the Scottish Crown team has conceded in a recent Scottish High Court hearing in Edinburgh that even if Gauci's evidence is discredited, it would not significantly affect the prosecution case. A strange claim and admission indeed. Are they already conceding the case in total? [RB: What Mr Clancy said was that the Crown’s view was that there was sufficient evidence to justify Megrahi’s conviction even if Gauci’s evidence were discounted.]
4. Marquise's information regarding the British forensic tracing of the fragment came from Dr Thomas Hayes.
At the time of the trial, Hayes' record in the case of the IRA Maguire Seven (Guildford bombing) was never discussed in court. All that the judges heard was an oblique reference to "deliberate falsehoods" told by his former colleague and supervisor Dr Higgs in another IRA case, that of Judith Ward.
Since Hayes had not been part of that particular Higgs episode, he could - and did - deny all connection or knowledge of that particular Higgs conspiracy. The trial then moved on without further comment or question.
And yet Hayes was central to a Higgs conspiracy in another IRA trial, that of the Maguire Seven, in which the Hayes and Higgs were proved by Parliamentary investigation to have conspired to with-hold evidence that might assist the defence case.
But since the Maguire Seven story was not rehearsed in the Lockerbie trial, none of this could be considered by the Lockerbie judges.
I believe that if Hayes' history in the case of the Maguire Seven had been examined in court, his testimony in the case of Lockerbie would have been discredited in the same way as that of Majid Giaka, the double CIA and Libyan agent.
In his book Scotbom, and since, Mr Marquise gives the impression that American investigation was led and controlled by the FBI. In fact it was controlled overall by the CIA, and by certain people with much blood and lies on their hands. Among the White House team around that time were people proven by declassified documents to understand well the technique of the manufacture of evidence to destabilise Middle Eastern governments. These documents are now freely available. But nobody - including the media in both countries - seems to care any more. It's old news, unwelcome news. People die, so what? Life must go on etc.
All of this, naturally, never came to the attention of the Lockerbie judges. Hopefully the second appeal will offer a long overdue opportunity for the true back-story of Lockerbie to emerge.
If Mr Marquise wishes to challenge any of the above, I will gladly supply the document dates and references with appropriate quotations. I will also arrange for sections of the film and television records to be put on the web. And I will ensure that relevant sections of the trial transcript are also put on the web. People can then judge for themselves where this story might go over the next six months.
A commentary on the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the murder of 270 people in the Pan Am 103 disaster.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Thurman. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Thurman. Sort by date Show all posts
Tuesday 16 December 2008
Sunday 13 September 2015
Tainting evidence -- the FBI crime laboratory
[On this date in 1995 the FBI crime laboratory was the subject of a highly critical television programme broadcast on the ABC network. It followed disclosures by one of the laboratory’s scientists, Dr Frederic Whitehurst, about the methods adopted by some of his colleagues, including Tom Thurman. The scandal later became the subject of a book, Tainting Evidence, by John Kelly and Phillip Wearne. The relevance of this to the Lockerbie case is outlined in the following excerpt from Gareth Peirce’s article The Framing of al-Megrahi in the London Review of Books:]
The key features needed to prosecute al-Megrahi successfully were the scientific identification of the circuit-board fragment, which would in turn establish its origin, and the identification of the purchaser of the clothes in Malta. The timers, the indictment stated, were made by a firm in Switzerland; their circuit board matched the fragment retrieved from Lockerbie, and they sold the timers exclusively to Libya. Everything, essentially, hinged on those links.
Who found the fragment? And who understood its relevance? Thomas Hayes of the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) claimed the find (with his colleague Alan Feraday) and Thomas Thurman of the FBI claimed the analytical victory. All were swiftly hailed (or hailed themselves) as heroes. Thurman appeared on television on 15 November 1991, the day after indictments were issued against the two Libyans, boasting that he had identified the piece of circuit board as part of a timing device that might have been sold to Libyan Airlines staff. ‘I made the identification and I knew at that point what it meant. And because, if you will, I am an investigator as well as a forensic examiner, I knew where that would go. At that point we had no conclusive proof of the type of timing mechanism that was used in the bombing of 103. When that identification was made of the timer I knew that we had it.’ This was the claim – the hard evidence – that linked Libyans to the crime. If the claim was false the bereaved Lockerbie families have been deceived for 20 years.
On 13 September 1995 the FBI’s forensic department was the subject of a programme broadcast in the US by ABC. At its centre was a memorandum from the former head of explosive science at the FBI, Dr Frederic Whitehurst. It was a devastating indictment of a former colleague. The colleague was Thomas Thurman and the accusations related to his investigation of a terrorist attack in which a judge was killed by pipe bombs. Two years later, as a result of a review by the US inspector general, Michael Bromwich, into a large number of criminal investigations, Thomas Thurman was barred from FBI labs and from being called as an expert witness. Bromwich had discovered that he had no formal scientific qualifications and that, according to a former colleague, he had been ‘circumventing procedures and protocols, testifying to areas of expertise that he had no qualifications in . . . therefore fabricating evidence’.
Thurman had made the Libyan connection, and its plausibility relied on the accuracy of his statement that the fragment of circuit board proved that it would have been possible for the unaccompanied bag to fly from Malta without the seemingly inevitable mid-air explosion. And thus it was that a witness from Switzerland, Edwin Bollier, the manufacturer of the MEBO circuit board, was called on to provide evidence that such boards had been sold exclusively to Libya.
Tuesday 15 November 2016
Thurman and the circuit board fragment
[On this date in 1991, Tom Thurman of the FBI appeared on television claiming to have been the person who identified the fragment of circuit board that linked Libya to the bombing of Pan Am 103. What follows is excerpted from Gareth Peirce’s article The framing of al-Megrahi:]
The key features needed to prosecute al-Megrahi successfully were the scientific identification of the circuit-board fragment, which would in turn establish its origin, and the identification of the purchaser of the clothes in Malta. The timers, the indictment stated, were made by a firm in Switzerland; their circuit board matched the fragment retrieved from Lockerbie, and they sold the timers exclusively to Libya. Everything, essentially, hinged on those links.
Who found the fragment? And who understood its relevance? Thomas Hayes of the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) claimed the find (with his colleague Alan Feraday) and Thomas Thurman of the FBI claimed the analytical victory. All were swiftly hailed (or hailed themselves) as heroes. Thurman appeared on television on 15 November 1991, the day after indictments were issued against the two Libyans, boasting that he had identified the piece of circuit board as part of a timing device that might have been sold to Libyan Airlines staff. ‘I made the identification and I knew at that point what it meant. And because, if you will, I am an investigator as well as a forensic examiner, I knew where that would go. At that point we had no conclusive proof of the type of timing mechanism that was used in the bombing of 103. When that identification was made of the timer I knew that we had it.’ This was the claim – the hard evidence – that linked Libyans to the crime. If the claim was false the bereaved Lockerbie families have been deceived for 20 years.
On 13 September 1995 the FBI’s forensic department was the subject of a programme broadcast in the US by ABC. At its centre was a memorandum from the former head of explosive science at the FBI, Dr Frederic Whitehurst. It was a devastating indictment of a former colleague. The colleague was Thomas Thurman and the accusations related to his investigation of a terrorist attack in which a judge was killed by pipe bombs. Two years later, as a result of a review by the US inspector general, Michael Bromwich, into a large number of criminal investigations, Thomas Thurman was barred from FBI labs and from being called as an expert witness. Bromwich had discovered that he had no formal scientific qualifications and that, according to a former colleague, he had been ‘circumventing procedures and protocols, testifying to areas of expertise that he had no qualifications in ... therefore fabricating evidence’.
[Also on this date in 1991, Libya delivered to the United Nations Security Council a letter “categorically denying that Libya had any association” with the Lockerbie bombing.]
Friday 19 April 2013
Thurman: forensics ensuring that right people, not wrong people, are charged
[The following are excerpts from an article headlined FBI unit zeroing in on design of devices published today on the website of The Boston Globe:]
FBI bomb technicians poring over hundreds of scraps of metal, nails, wires, and other debris — some surgically removed from bomb victims’ flesh — were closing in Thursday on the design of the explosive devices used in the Boston Marathon attacks, according to officials and forensics experts.
In an effort to trace the source of the components, the Explosives Unit at the agency’s state-of-the-art crime laboratory in Quantico, Va, outside of Washington, was comparing the materials collected from sidewalks, rooftops, gutters, overhangs, and even the soles of victims’ shoes against lab reports generated from thousands of previous blasts around the world, looking for a “bomber signature.” (...)
The methodical work at Quantico is seen as critical in helping investigators identify the perpetrators and secure a conviction in the worst terrorist attack on US soil since Sept 11, 2001.
“Most bombing investigations like this are forensically driven,” said former supervisory special agent James T Thurman, who served as chief of the Explosives Unit in the FBI Laboratory’s Bomb Data Center. “Whatever is found that ultimately goes to the laboratory is what drives the investigation and connects a possible subject with the components.” (...)
[T]hose familiar with the inquiry and the FBI’s lab said the Explosives Unit is relying on specialized tools to conduct what amounts to an autopsy on the pair of so-called IEDs — improvised explosive devices — that were apparently detonated by battery-powered timers near the Copley Square finish line.
One is a database known as the Explosive Reference Tool, a searchable computer archive containing investigation reports from bombings dating back decades, along with so-called underground bomb-making handbooks and manufacturing data for key bomb-making components and explosives. (...)
Potential evidence that was identified, bagged, and tagged — including by agents who spread out to hospitals to secure bomb material and residue removed from wounds — began arriving in the Quantico lab even before the bombing sites were fully swept for evidence.
“It is a two-way street,” said Thurman, who investigated the bombings of the US Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon in 1983, Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, and World Trade Center in 1993. He explained that as the lab uncovers clues and materials it may send orders back to the bombing scene to look for specific things.
“They will continue that as long as it takes,” he added. “It can take less than a day. It can take a week. It can take two weeks.”
Thurman, who teaches at Eastern Kentucky University, also cautioned that it could take longer, citing the bombing of a judge in Alabama in 1988, when the forensics analysis took two years.
“This is not an overnight thing,” he said. “The issue at the end of the day is to find the guilty party who is responsible for constructing and setting off these devices,” he said. “You are ensuring that the right people and not the wrong people are being charged.”
[Tom Thurman’s part in identifying the dodgy timer circuit board fragment in the Lockerbie investigation is dealt with here and here.]
FBI bomb technicians poring over hundreds of scraps of metal, nails, wires, and other debris — some surgically removed from bomb victims’ flesh — were closing in Thursday on the design of the explosive devices used in the Boston Marathon attacks, according to officials and forensics experts.
In an effort to trace the source of the components, the Explosives Unit at the agency’s state-of-the-art crime laboratory in Quantico, Va, outside of Washington, was comparing the materials collected from sidewalks, rooftops, gutters, overhangs, and even the soles of victims’ shoes against lab reports generated from thousands of previous blasts around the world, looking for a “bomber signature.” (...)
The methodical work at Quantico is seen as critical in helping investigators identify the perpetrators and secure a conviction in the worst terrorist attack on US soil since Sept 11, 2001.
“Most bombing investigations like this are forensically driven,” said former supervisory special agent James T Thurman, who served as chief of the Explosives Unit in the FBI Laboratory’s Bomb Data Center. “Whatever is found that ultimately goes to the laboratory is what drives the investigation and connects a possible subject with the components.” (...)
[T]hose familiar with the inquiry and the FBI’s lab said the Explosives Unit is relying on specialized tools to conduct what amounts to an autopsy on the pair of so-called IEDs — improvised explosive devices — that were apparently detonated by battery-powered timers near the Copley Square finish line.
One is a database known as the Explosive Reference Tool, a searchable computer archive containing investigation reports from bombings dating back decades, along with so-called underground bomb-making handbooks and manufacturing data for key bomb-making components and explosives. (...)
Potential evidence that was identified, bagged, and tagged — including by agents who spread out to hospitals to secure bomb material and residue removed from wounds — began arriving in the Quantico lab even before the bombing sites were fully swept for evidence.
“It is a two-way street,” said Thurman, who investigated the bombings of the US Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon in 1983, Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, and World Trade Center in 1993. He explained that as the lab uncovers clues and materials it may send orders back to the bombing scene to look for specific things.
“They will continue that as long as it takes,” he added. “It can take less than a day. It can take a week. It can take two weeks.”
Thurman, who teaches at Eastern Kentucky University, also cautioned that it could take longer, citing the bombing of a judge in Alabama in 1988, when the forensics analysis took two years.
“This is not an overnight thing,” he said. “The issue at the end of the day is to find the guilty party who is responsible for constructing and setting off these devices,” he said. “You are ensuring that the right people and not the wrong people are being charged.”
[Tom Thurman’s part in identifying the dodgy timer circuit board fragment in the Lockerbie investigation is dealt with here and here.]
Wednesday 21 March 2012
What the SCCRC should have asked the FBI
[This is the
heading over an item posted today by John Ashton on his Megrahi: You are my Jury website.
It reads as follows:]
On 18
March Scotland on Sunday ran an article headlined Megrahi probe ‘failed to speak
to FBI agents’, which reported criticisms of the SCCRC by FBI
officers Oliver ‘Buck’ Revell and Richard Marquise. [RB: See here and here.]
It
states: Oliver “Buck” Revell, the former associate deputy director of
investigations for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, has reacted angrily to
the examination into the case by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
(SCCRC). In an e-mail seen by Scotland on Sunday, Revell expressed
frustration that no-one from the FBI was consulted by the SCCRC when it
compiled its report into the safety of Megrahi’s conviction … In his e-mail to government
and legal officials in Scotland and the US, Revell complained that the SCCRC
failed to interview members of the FBI for its Statement of Reasons. The e-mail
pointed out that the original Lockerbie investigation was carried out by
Scottish police, Scotland Yard, the German BKA and the FBI. Revell added: “I
don’t know what the SCCRC expects to determine when it is not even interviewing
the actual investigators involved in solving this terrible crime.”
Marquise said: “I don’t know if you can say
you have done a comprehensive report unless you speak to key people. To me it
is an incomplete report whatever they are going to publish. They never did
speak to the people who might be able to shed some light on whatever it is that
they were looking to find out. If you are going to say you have done a complete
investigation, you should talk to everybody who was key, and I like to think
people in the FBI were key. I like to think some people in the CIA were key and
they could and should have been interviewed.”
While neither man shed any light on what the FBI investigators
could have told the commission, we might infer from their comments that the
Bureau held further evidence of Abdelbaset’s guilt. Of course, it almost
certainly didn’t, because any such evidence would have been handed to the
Crown.
That
said, I share Revell’s and Marquise’s disappointment that the SCCRC failed to
interview anyone from the FBI, as many important questions remain unanswered.
For example:
1.
What did FBI agent John Hosinski discuss with Tony Gauci when he met him alone
on 2 October 1989?
2.
What did Senegalese official Jean Collin reveal when interviewed in the US in
December 1990?
3.
Was the content of Collin’s interview revealed to the Scottish police? And, if
not, why not?
4.
Why did the FBI’s Tom Thurman ‘front’ for the CIA in relation to the
identification of the timer fragment?
5.
According to FBI agent Hal Hendershott, Thurman had a laboratory in Lockerbie
within days of the bombing. What forensic work did he undertake and was that
work shared with the Scottish investigators?
6.When,
in June 1990, Thurman demonstrated to the Scottish police that PT/35b matched
the control sample MST-13 timer, why did he not reveal that he was already
aware that the timers were made by Mebo?
7.
Why was Hendershot aware of the contents of the Toshiba manual fragment PK/689
before it was examined for the Scottish police at RARDE?
8.
Why was the FBI able to investigate debris item PI/1389 (a blue T-shirt, which,
according to the FBI’s Bonn legal attache David Keyes, showed blast damage and
the imprint of the grills of two radio speakers) before RARDE?
9.
What information did Hendershot, Thurman and Bob Howen uncover in relation to
the crystals used in the MST-13 timers? In particular, were they able to
establish the date of manufacture of the crystal used in the control sample
timer K-1, which was recovered from Togo and which Thurman used for comparative
purposes with the fragment PT/35b?
10.
Regarding the episode at Frankfurt airport, witnessed by FBI agent Lawrence
Whittaker and DI Watson McAteer, in which a baggage handler apparently entered
a bag into the automated transit system without recording the transaction, why
was Whittaker’s trial testimony at odds with McAteer’s statement S3743A?
11.
How many FBI FD302 reports by Lockerbie field agents were handed to the Crown?
(Only a handful were provided to the defence.)
12.
The US Department of Justice has stated that only three reports were produced
in relation to the FBI’s inquiries in Malta. Given the centrality of Malta to
the case, why were there so few?
Perhaps
Mr Revell and Mr Marquise can answer these questions.
The article is also notable for the following quote by Marquise: “On
the issue of witnesses being paid, no witness [was paid] to my knowledge. What
some police officer or FBI agent might have told somebody in the corner in a
dark room in the middle night that I don’t know about, I can’t vouch for that.
But everybody that worked for me were under orders that they were not allowed
to tell people that they could get money for this case. So, as far as I know,
nobody was promised or paid money to testify.”
The SCCRC report states, at paragraph 23.19: Enquiries
with D&G [Dumfries and Galloway Police] have established that, some
time after the conclusion of the applicant’s appeal against conviction, Anthony
and Paul Gauci were each paid sums of money under the “Rewards for Justice”
programme administered by the US Department of State. Under that programme the
US Secretary of State was initially authorised to offer rewards of up to $5m
for information leading to the arrest or conviction of persons involved in acts
of terrorism against US persons or property worldwide. The upper limit on such
payments was increased by legislation passed in the US in 2001.
According
to DCI Harry Bell’s diary, on 28 September 1989, FBI agent Chris Murray told
Bell that he (Murray): ‘had the authority to arrange unlimited
money for Tony Gauci and relocation is available. Murray states that he could
arrange $10,000 immediately.’ Murray would not have said these
things unless he believed that the offer might have been put to Gauci, yet,
according to Marquise, “everybody that worked for me
were under orders that they were not allowed to tell people that they could get
money for this case.” So, was Murray acting against Marquise’s orders?
And, if so will he be held to account? Again, maybe Marquise and Revell can
enlighten us.
[The commentary on this issue in Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.]
[The commentary on this issue in Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm can be read here.]
Tuesday 21 March 2017
Lockerbie questions for the FBI
What the SCCRC should have asked the FBI
[This is the heading over an item posted today by John Ashton on his Megrahi: You are my Jury website. It reads as follows:]
On 18 March Scotland on Sunday ran an article headlined Megrahi probe ‘failed to speak to FBI agents’, which reported criticisms of the SCCRC by FBI officers Oliver ‘Buck’ Revell and Richard Marquise. [RB: See here and here.]
It states: Oliver “Buck” Revell, the former associate deputy director of investigations for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, has reacted angrily to the examination into the case by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). In an e-mail seen by Scotland on Sunday, Revell expressed frustration that no-one from the FBI was consulted by the SCCRC when it compiled its report into the safety of Megrahi’s conviction … In his e-mail to government and legal officials in Scotland and the US, Revell complained that the SCCRC failed to interview members of the FBI for its Statement of Reasons. The e-mail pointed out that the original Lockerbie investigation was carried out by Scottish police, Scotland Yard, the German BKA and the FBI. Revell added: “I don’t know what the SCCRC expects to determine when it is not even interviewing the actual investigators involved in solving this terrible crime.”
Marquise said: “I don’t know if you can say you have done a comprehensive report unless you speak to key people. To me it is an incomplete report whatever they are going to publish. They never did speak to the people who might be able to shed some light on whatever it is that they were looking to find out. If you are going to say you have done a complete investigation, you should talk to everybody who was key, and I like to think people in the FBI were key. I like to think some people in the CIA were key and they could and should have been interviewed.”
While neither man shed any light on what the FBI investigators could have told the commission, we might infer from their comments that the Bureau held further evidence of Abdelbaset’s guilt. Of course, it almost certainly didn’t, because any such evidence would have been handed to the Crown.
That said, I share Revell’s and Marquise’s disappointment that the SCCRC failed to interview anyone from the FBI, as many important questions remain unanswered. For example:
1. What did FBI agent John Hosinski discuss with Tony Gauci when he met him alone on 2 October 1989?
2. What did Senegalese official Jean Collin reveal when interviewed in the US in December 1990?
3. Was the content of Collin’s interview revealed to the Scottish police? And, if not, why not?
4. Why did the FBI’s Tom Thurman ‘front’ for the CIA in relation to the identification of the timer fragment?
5. According to FBI agent Hal Hendershot, Thurman had a laboratory in Lockerbie within days of the bombing. What forensic work did he undertake and was that work shared with the Scottish investigators?
6.When, in June 1990, Thurman demonstrated to the Scottish police that PT/35b matched the control sample MST-13 timer, why did he not reveal that he was already aware that the timers were made by Mebo?
7. Why was Hendershot aware of the contents of the Toshiba manual fragment PK/689 before it was examined for the Scottish police at RARDE?
8. Why was the FBI able to investigate debris item PI/1389 (a blue T-shirt, which, according to the FBI’s Bonn legal attache David Keyes, showed blast damage and the imprint of the grills of two radio speakers) before RARDE?
9. What information did Hendershot, Thurman and Bob Howen uncover in relation to the crystals used in the MST-13 timers? In particular, were they able to establish the date of manufacture of the crystal used in the control sample timer K-1, which was recovered from Togo and which Thurman used for comparative purposes with the fragment PT/35b?
10. Regarding the episode at Frankfurt airport, witnessed by FBI agent Lawrence Whittaker and DI Watson McAteer, in which a baggage handler apparently entered a bag into the automated transit system without recording the transaction, why was Whittaker’s trial testimony at odds with McAteer’s statement S3743A?
11. How many FBI FD302 reports by Lockerbie field agents were handed to the Crown? (Only a handful were provided to the defence.)
12. The US Department of Justice has stated that only three reports were produced in relation to the FBI’s inquiries in Malta. Given the centrality of Malta to the case, why were there so few?
Perhaps Mr Revell and Mr Marquise can answer these questions.
The article is also notable for the following quote by Marquise: “On the issue of witnesses being paid, no witness [was paid] to my knowledge. What some police officer or FBI agent might have told somebody in the corner in a dark room in the middle night that I don’t know about, I can’t vouch for that. But everybody that worked for me were under orders that they were not allowed to tell people that they could get money for this case. So, as far as I know, nobody was promised or paid money to testify.”
The SCCRC report states, at paragraph 23.19: Enquiries with D&G [Dumfries and Galloway Police] have established that, some time after the conclusion of the applicant’s appeal against conviction, Anthony and Paul Gauci were each paid sums of money under the “Rewards for Justice” programme administered by the US Department of State. Under that programme the US Secretary of State was initially authorised to offer rewards of up to $5m for information leading to the arrest or conviction of persons involved in acts of terrorism against US persons or property worldwide. The upper limit on such payments was increased by legislation passed in the US in 2001.
According to DCI Harry Bell’s diary, on 28 September 1989, FBI agent Chris Murray told Bell that he (Murray): ‘had the authority to arrange unlimited money for Tony Gauci and relocation is available. Murray states that he could arrange $10,000 immediately.’ Murray would not have said these things unless he believed that the offer might have been put to Gauci, yet, according to Marquise, “everybody that worked for me were under orders that they were not allowed to tell people that they could get money for this case.” So, was Murray acting against Marquise’s orders? And, if so will he be held to account? Again, maybe Marquise and Revell can enlighten us.
Tuesday 15 September 2015
Key Lockerbie Witness Admits Perjury
[This is the headline over a long article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer that was published on the Global Research website on this date in 2007. The whole article is well worth reading. The following are excerpts from six of its fourteen sections:]
The Lockerbie Affair has taken yet another extraordinary twist. On Friday, August 31st, I received from Edwin Bollier, head of the Zurich-based MeBo AG, a copy of a German original of an Affidavit.
The document is dated July 18th 2007 and signed by Ulrich Lumpert who worked as an electronic engineer at MeBo from 1978 to 1994. I have scrutinized the document carefully and concluded that I have no reason to doubt its authenticity or the truthfulness of its content.
Lumpert was a key witness (no 550) at the Camp Zeist trial, where a three Judges panel convicted a Libyan citizen of murdering 270 persons who died in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.
In his testimony, Lumpert stated that: “of the 3 pieces of hand-made prototypes MST-13 Timer PC-Boards, the third MST-13 PC-Board was broken and [he] had thrown it away.”
In his affidavit, certified by [notary] Walter Wieland, Lumpert admits having committed perjury.
“I confirm today on July 18th 2007, that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 Timer PC-Board consisting of 8 layers of fibre-glass from MEBO Ltd. and gave it without permission on June 22nd 1989 to a person officially investigating in the Lockerbie case,” Lumpert wrote. (The identity of the official is known.)
“It did not escape me that the MST-13 fragment shown [at the Lockerbie trial] on the police photograph No PT/35(b) came from the non-operational MST-13 prototype PC-board that I had stolen,” Lumpert added.
“I am sorry for the consequences of my silence at that time, for the innocent Libyan Mr. Abdelbaset Al Megrahi sentenced to life imprisonment, and for the country of Libya.”
In just seven paragraphs, the Lumpert affidavit elucidates the longstanding mysteries surrounding the infamous MST-13 timer, which allegedly triggered the bomb that exploded Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on December 21st 1988.
The discovery of the MST-13 timer fragment
In the months following the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, someone discovered a piece of a grey Slalom-brand shirt in a wooded area located about 25 miles away from the town. According to a forensics expert, the cloth contained a tiny fragment – 4 mm square – of a circuit board. The testimony of three expert witnesses allowed the prosecutors to link this circuit board, described as part of the bomb trigger, to Megrahi.
There have been different accounts concerning the discovery of the timer fragment. A police source close to the investigation reported that it had been discovered by lovers. Some have said that it was picked up by a man walking his dog. Others have claimed that it was found by a policeman “combing the ground on his hands and knees.”
At the trial, the third explanation became official. “On 13 January 1989, DC Gilchrist and DC McColm were engaged together in line searches in an area near Newcastleton. A piece of charred material was found by them which was given the police number PI/995 and which subsequently became label 168.”
The alteration of the label
The officer had initially labelled the bag ‘cloth (charred)’ but had later overwritten the word ‘cloth’ with ‘debris’.
The bag contained pieces of a shirt collar and fragments of materials said to have been extracted from it, including the tiny piece of circuit board identified as coming from an MST-13 timer made by the Swiss firm MeBo.
“The original inscription on the label, which we are satisfied, was written by DC Gilchrist, was “Cloth (charred)”. The word ‘cloth’ has been overwritten by the word ‘debris’. There was no satisfactory explanation as to why this was done.”
The judges said in their judgement that Gilchrist’s evidence had been “at worst evasive and at best confusing”.
Yet the judges went on to admit the evidence. “We are, however, satisfied that this item was indeed found in the area described, and DC McColm who corroborated DC Gilchrist on the finding of the item was not cross-examined about the detail of the finding of this item.” (...)
The new page 51
According to documents obtained by Scotland on Sunday, the entry of the discovery is recorded at widely different times by UK and German investigators. Moreover, a new page 51 has been inserted in the record of evidence.
During the Lockerbie investigation, Dr Thomas Hayes and Allan Feraday were working at the DERA Forensic laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent.
Dr Hayes was employed at the Royal Armament Research Development Establishment (RARDE). In 1995, RARDE was subsumed into the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). In 2001, part of DERA became the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL).
Dr Hayes testified that he collected the tiny fragment of the circuit board on May 12th 1989. He testified that the fragment was green. (Keep in mind that the board stolen from Lumpert is brown.) His colleague, Allan Feraday, confirmed his story at the Zeist trial.
The record is inserted on a loose-leaf page with the five subsequent pages re-numbered by hand. Dr Hayes could not provide a reasonable explanation for this rather strange entry, and yet the Judges concluded that: “Pagination was of no materiality, because each item that was examined had the date of examination incorporated into the notes.”
The argument of the Court is illogical as the index number Dr Hayes gave to the piece is higher than some entry he made three months later.
And there is more. In September 1989, Feraday sent a Polaroid photograph of the piece and wrote in the attached memorandum that it was “the best he could do in such short time.” So, are we supposed to believe that it takes forensic experts several months to take a Polaroid picture?
Dr Hayes could not explain this. He merely suggested that the person to ask about it would be the author of the memorandum, Mr Feraday.
This however was not done. At the young age of 43, Hayes resigned just a few months after the discovery of the timer fragment.
Based on the forensic Dr Hayes had supplied, an entire family [The Maguire Seven] was sent to jail in 1976. They were acquitted in appeal in 1992. Sir John May was appointed to review Dr Hayes forensic evidence.
“The whole scientific basis on which the prosecution in [the trial of the alleged IRA Maguire Seven] was founded was in truth so vitiated that on this basis alone, the Court of Appeal should be invited to set aside the conviction,” said Sir John May.
In the Megrahi’s case, Dr Hayes did not even perform the basic test which would have established the presence of explosive residue on the sample. During the trial, he maintained that the fragment was too small while it is factually established that his laboratory has performed such test on smaller samples.
Had he performed such test, no residue would have been found. As noted by Lumpert, the fragment shown at the Zeist trial belongs to a timer that was never connected to a relay. In other words, that timer never triggered a bomb.
Allan Feraday’s reputation is hardly better. In three separated cases,where men were convicted on the basis of his forensic evidence, the initial ruling was overturned in appeal.
After one of these cases in 2005, a Lord of Justice said that Feraday should not be allowed to present himself as an expert in the field of electronics.
According to forensic scientist, Dr Michael Scott, who was interviewed in the documentary The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie, Feraday has no formal qualifications as a scientist.
The identification of the MeBo timer
Thomas Thurman worked for the FBI forensics laboratory in the late 80’s and most of the 90’s. Thurman has been publicly credited for identifying the fragment as part of a MST-13 timer produced by the Swiss company Mebo.
“When that identification was made, of the timer, I knew that we had it,” Thurman told ABC in 1991. “Absolute, positively euphoria. I was on cloud nine.”
Again, his record is far from pristine. The US attorney General has accused him of having altered lab reports in a way that rendered subsequent prosecutions all but impossible. He has been transferred out the FBI forensic laboratory.
“He’s very aggressive, but I think he made some mistakes that needed to be brought to the attention of FBI management,” says Frederic Whitehurst, a former FBI chemist who filed the complaints that led to the Inspector General’s report.
“We’re not necessarily going to get the truth out of what we’re doing here,” Whitehurst concluded.
The story shed some light on his formation. The report says “Williams and Thurman merit special censure for their work. It recommends that Thurman, who has a degree in political science, be reassigned outside the lab and that only scientists work in its explosives section.” (...)
The modification of the MST-13 timer fragment
Forensic analysis of the circuit board fragment allowed the investigators to identify its origin. The timer, known as MST-13, is fabricated by a Swiss Company named MeBo, which stands for Meister and Bollier.
The company has indeed sold about 20 MST-13 timers to Libyan military (machine-made 9 ply green boards), as well as a few units (hand-made 8 ply brown boards) to a Research Institute in Bernau, known to act as a front to the Stasi, the former East German secret police.
The two batches are very different but, as early as 1991, Bollier told the Scottish investigators that he could not identify the timer from a photograph alone. Yet, the Libyans were indicted in November 1991, without ever allowing Bollier to see the actual fragment, on the ground that the integrity of the evidence had to be protected.
But in 1998, Bollier obtained a copy of a blown-up photograph that Thurman had shown on ABC in 1991. Bollier could tell from certain characteristics that the fragment was part of a board of the timers made for East Germany, and definitely not one of the timers delivered by him to Libya.
In September 1999, Bollier was finally allowed to see the fragment. Unlike the one shown by Thurman on ABC, this one was machine-made, as the one sold to Libya. But, from the absence of traces of solder, it was obvious that the timer had never been used to trigger a bomb.
“As far as I’m concerned, and I told this to [Scottish Prosecutor Miriam Watson], this is a manufactured fragment,” Bollier says. “A fabricated fragment, never from a complete, functional timer.”
The next day, Bollier was shown the fragment once more. You may have already guessed that it now had the soldering traces. “It was different. I’m not crazy. It was different!” says Bollier.
Finally, at the trial, Bollier was presented a fragment of a circuit board completely burnt down. Thus, it was no longer possible to identify to which country that timer had been delivered. As he requested to explain the significance of the issue, Lord Shuterland told him that his request was denied.
How did the Judges account for all the mysterious changes in the appearance of the fragment? They simply dismissed Bollier as an unreliable witness.
“We have assessed carefully the evidence of these three witnesses about the activities of MEBO, and in particular their evidence relating to the MST-13 timers which the company made. All three, and notably Mr Bollier, were shown to be unreliable witnesses. Earlier statements which they made to the police and judicial authorities were at times in conflict with each other, and with the evidence they gave in court. On some occasions, particularly in the case of Mr Bollier, their evidence was self contradictory.” (para 45)
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