The question of guilt has never been resolved

[What follows are excerpts from an article headlined Wat kunnen resten MH17 vertellen? (“What can the remains of MH17 disclose?”) published yesterday on the Dutch website Nieuwsuur website:]

Bijna vier maanden na de ramp liggen de brokstukken van rampvlucht MH17 nog verspreid op de crashsite in Oost-Oekraïne. De Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid wil op korte termijn met de berging beginnen en in Nederland een reconstructie maken van het vliegtuigwrak. Wat kan zo'n reconstructie zeggen over de oorzaak? (...)

Het is de vraag of een reconstructie nieuw licht kan schijnen op de oorzaak van het neerstorten van MH17. In het verleden zijn twee keer eerder reconstructies van vliegrampen gemaakt: de Lockerbie-ramp en het ongeluk met TWA-vlucht 800. Die konden in beide gevallen uitsluitsel geven over de oorzaak.

Bij het Schotse plaatsje Lockerbie kwam in 1988 een toestel van de Amerikaanse luchtvaartmaatschappij PanAm neer. Uit de reconstructie van het ongeluk bleek dat een bom in het bagageruim de oorzaak van de crash was. Maar de schuldvraag is nooit opgelost. De enige die voor de aanslag is veroordeeld is de Libische oud-spion Megrahi. Hij had geregeld dat er een koffer met een bom aan boord kwam.

Almost four months after the disaster the debris of disaster flight MH17 is still scattered at the crash site in eastern Ukraine. The [Dutch] Investigation Safety Board wants to start the recovery in the short term and make a reconstruction in the Netherlands of the wreck. What can such a reconstruction say about the cause? (...)

The question is whether a reconstruction can shed new light on the cause of the crash of MH17. Twice in the past reconstructions of aviation disasters have been made: the Lockerbie disaster and the accident involving TWA flight 800. In both cases they provided information about the cause.

In the Scottish town of Lockerbie a plane of the US airline Pan Am came down in 1988. The reconstruction of the accident revealed that a bomb in the luggage hold was the cause of the crash. But the question of guilt has never been resolved. The only person convicted of the attack was the Libyan former spy Megrahi. He had arranged that a suitcase with a bomb was on board.

[RB: It is interesting that the article states that the question of guilt has never been resolved. Perhaps Justice for Megrahi is getting somewhere, internationally at least.]

Malaysia Airlines flight 17 and Pan Am flight 103 contrasted

[The following are excerpts from a long report published today on the World Socialist Web Site:]

The Dutch Safety Board’s (DSB’s) preliminary report into the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) is being portrayed by imperialist governments and their media spokesmen as confirmation that anti-Kiev rebels in eastern Ukraine shot the plane down with a Russian-supplied Buk surface-to-air missile.

While claims of indirect Russian responsibility for the destruction of MH17 are at the heart of the US-NATO propaganda over Ukraine, the report says nothing of the sort. In fact, it does not even state that the aircraft was shot down. MH17 crashed on July 17, in the war zone of eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers and crew members lost their lives.

The DSB’s report states that, in accordance with the stated “sole objective” of “the prevention of similar accidents and incidents,” it does not “apportion blame or liability in respect of any party”—something that the capitalist media downplays or ignores.

The only basis on which the media can again repeat their assertions that pro-Russian separatists were responsible is the report’s statement that “The damage observed in the forward section of the aircraft appears to indicate that the aircraft was penetrated by a large number of high-energy objects from outside the aircraft” (emphasis added).

But the report never once identifies what it means by “high-energy objects.” It also claims that, even though enough of the wreckage was recovered to confirm that the aircraft appears to have been particularly badly hit above the level of the cockpit floor, DSB investigators supposedly failed to recover or study any of the objects that penetrated the plane.

The report as issued is equally compatible with radar and satellite data presented July 21 by the Russian military, indicating that a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet was in the immediate vicinity and ascending towards MH17 as it was shot down. Missiles and machinegun rounds fired by an SU-25 are also “high-energy objects.” This possibility has not been addressed, let alone refuted by Kiev, Washington or anyone else involved in the investigation.

On August 9 [RB: the correct date is August 7], the Malaysian New Straits Times published an article effectively charging the Kiev regime with shooting down MH17. It stated that evidence from the crash site indicated that the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter with a missile followed by heavy machine gun fire. The report was subsequently ignored by the world’s media. (...)

The DSB does not address the absence of any satellite imagery or radar data, or any other evidence supplied by US intelligence agencies, which operate the most powerful global surveillance network. It is implausible, to say the least, to imagine that Washington’s vast apparatus was paying no attention to the war zone of eastern Ukraine, which is also a regular flight path for many commercial airline flights. (...)

In sharp contrast, following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, photographs of the area taken by a French satellite were delivered to the investigators within hours. The US Department of Defence and NASA also provided the investigation with high-resolution photographs from spy satellites.

Despite Russia continually requesting that the US administration supply the investigation with the images and data it obviously possesses relating to the MH17 crash, it has refused to do so.

[Further posts on this blog about MH17 as compared with, or contrasted to, Pan Am 103 can be found here.]

Recruitment of the FBI's Lockerbie "golden informant"

[What follows is taken from an article headed Richard Marquise and his "Golden Informant" Majid Giaka - An Extract from "Enemies - A History of the FBI" by Tim Weiner posted yesterday on baz’s blog The Masonic Verses:]

Tim Weiner's recent book Enemies - A History of the FBI is a fascinating story of the creation of the FBI within the US Justice Department following American entry into the Great War, not for the purpose of criminal investigation but to counter the threat of radicals, anarchists and communists by means of dubious constitutionality. (...)

The author devotes six pages to an uncritical account of the Bureau's involvement in the Lockerbie case focusing on the role of the leader of the FBI taskforce (of 7 persons) Richard Marquise. (Tom Thurman is not mentioned.)

Marquise was recently quoted in the Dutch media in a story titled "The Lessons of Lockerbie" in relation to the shooting down of flight MH17 over the Ukraine. Marquise advocated the recruitment of a "Golden Informant" to solve the case just as he had done in the Lockerbie case (and by ignoring the actual evidence). Weiner's book gives a very interesting summary of how this "Golden Informant" Majid Giaka was recruited (page 372).

"Marquise needed to turn intelligence into evidence.  He needed a witness who would link Megrahi to the Samsonite suitcase with the Semtex.  He needed to find someone who knew that the suitcase carried the bomb from Air Malta to Pan Am 103.  He went back to the CIA. The Agency told him, belatedly, that it had once had a Libyan informant named Abdul Majid Giaka. He had gone on the CIA's payroll four months before Lockerbie. He was on it the night Pan Am 103 was bombed. But the Agency had dropped him a few months later, deeming him a fabricator milking his interrogators for money.

Marquise was dying to talk to Majid, no matter how dubious he seemed to the CIA.  In June 1991 the Agency flew him from a navy ship off the coast of Malta to give the FBI the chance to interview him in Virginia.  Justly wary of its informant, the CIA imposed one condition: don't tell anybody."  (Marquise immediately phoned Stuart Henderson.)  

"Majid was debriefed for at least two weeks during September 1991. He insisted that he knew three facts. He identified Megrahi as an intelligence officer serving as Libya's airline security chief. He said that Megrahi's subordinate in Malta had a cache of Semtex. And he said he had seen Megrahi with a large brown suitcase at the airport in Malta during the weeks before the Lockerbie bombing. Majid was without doubt an unreliable witness. But the FBI had faith that he was telling the truth on those three points. Marquise thought he had the foundation of a case that would stand up in court."

Giaka's account did stand up unchallenged before a patriotic US Grand Jury leading to the November 1991 indictment. However, it crumbled before even the Mickey Mouse Camp Zeist tribunal when in the defence team's finest hour they had admitted in evidence a large number of CIA cables regarding Giaka. What is astonishing is that Megrahi was actually convicted despite Giaka being discredited, a fact not mentioned in Mr Weiner's book.

Perhaps some of the parties to the MH17 atrocity will, (or have already) recruited their own "Golden Informant".

Marquise's wrote his own account of the Lockerbie investigation in his book Scotbom.  (Which I have never read.) Giaka of course never wrote his memoirs and has never been heard of since the close of the Camp Zeist trial.

I am afraid the only "Lesson of Lockerbie" for the families of those murdered on flight MH17 is how Governments fabricate evidence to suit their own political objectives regardless of the facts.

MH17 and Lockerbie: a view from the Netherlands

[MH17: Netherlands wrestles with huge criminal case is the headline over a report published today on the BBC News website.  It reads in part:]

Two-thirds of the 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 were from the Netherlands. That is why the Dutch have taken the lead in identifying the bodies, trying to establish what caused the crash and running the criminal investigation.

Western governments suspect that the jet, with 298 people on board, was hit by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired by pro-Russian separatists. The rebels and Russia blamed the Ukrainian military for the crash. (...)

This is the biggest criminal investigation ever conducted in the Netherlands.

"Never before have we had a murder case with so many victims," said Wim de Bruin from the Dutch prosecution service, fielding press inquiries from all over the world. Passengers from 10 different countries were on board Flight MH17.

Ten Dutch prosecutors and 200 police officers are involved in gathering and preparing the evidence for a criminal trial.

There are three main questions about the eventual MH17 trial: Where will it be conducted? What crimes will the accused be charged with? How long before we see the suspects in court?

The Dutch prosecutors are still in the initial stages of the criminal investigation, but they have already dismissed speculation that the trial could be held at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The ICC only takes cases if countries are unable or unwilling to prosecute. The Dutch are willing and able.

Under the current plan, the suspects would be extradited to face trial at the District Court in The Hague. But extradition would require the host country's co-operation, once the suspects are identified.

Wim de Bruin says they are considering "several grounds and possibilities" concerning the charges.

"Of course murder, but we also have the crime of 'wrecking an airplane' and we could use international criminal law - that would mean possible charges of war crimes, torture and genocide." [RB: I find it difficult to envisage how torture and genocide charges could arise in this case.]

It is impossible, they say, to give a time frame. The only reference they have is Lockerbie. Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland in 1988, killing 259 people on board and 11 others on the ground. In 2001, a Libyan intelligence officer was jailed for the bombing.

Yet questions remain about the bomb plot - not only the perpetrators but also the motives. In 2003 Col Muammar Gaddafi - later killed in the Arab Spring - accepted responsibility and paid compensation to the victims' families. [RB: The scope of Libya’s acknowledgment was limited to acceptance of “responsibility for the actions of its officials”.]

"With Lockerbie it took three years for the investigation and then another seven for the trial," Mr De Bruin recalls. "And that was with a plane that crashed in a peaceful place. With MH17 the case is more complicated."

[My own assessment of the jurisdictional questions that arise out of MH17 and how they compare with those that arose out of Pan Am 103 can be read here.]

Chomsky on Malaysia Airlines flight 17 and Iran Air flight 655

[Since the early days of the tragedy of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, I have been at pains to suggest that a better comparator than the Pan Am 103 disaster that lazy politicians and journalists were regularly pointing to was the shooting down by the USS Vincennes of Iran Air flight 655 in July 1988. I am delighted that Justice for Megrahi member Noam Chomsky takes the same view.  Here are excerpts from an article published by him on 14 August:]

Almost every day brings news of awful crimes, but some are so heinous, so horrendous and malicious, that they dwarf all else. One of those rare events took place on July 17, when Malaysian Airlines MH17 was shot down in Eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people.

The Guardian of Virtue in the White House denounced it as an “outrage of unspeakable proportions,” which happened “because of Russian support.” His UN Ambassador thundered that “when 298 civilians are killed” in the “horrific downing” of a civilian plane, “we must stop at nothing to determine who is responsible and to bring them to justice.” She also called on Putin to end his shameful efforts to evade his very clear responsibility.

True, the “irritating little man” with the “ratlike face” (Timothy Garton Ash) had called for an independent investigation, but that could only have been because of sanctions from the one country courageous enough to impose them, the United States, while Europeans cower in fear.

On CNN, former US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor assured the world that the irritating little man “is clearly responsible ... for the shoot down of this airliner.” For weeks, lead stories reported the anguish of the families, details of the lives of the murdered victims, the international efforts to claim the bodies, the fury over the horrific crime that “stunned the world,” as the press reports daily in grisly detail.

Every literate person, and certainly every editor and commentator, instantly recalled another case when a plane was shot down with comparable loss of life: Iran Air 655 with 290 killed, including 66 children, shot down in Iranian airspace in a clearly identified commercial air route. The crime was not carried out “with US support,” nor has its agent ever been uncertain. It was the guided-missile cruiser USS Vincennes, operating in Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf.

The commander of a nearby US vessel, David Carlson, wrote in the US Naval Proceedings that he “wondered aloud in disbelief” as “The Vincennes announced her intentions” to attack what was clearly a civilian aircraft. He speculated that “Robo Cruiser,” as the Vincennes was called because of its aggressive behavior, “felt a need to prove the viability of Aegis (the sophisticated anti-aircraft system on the cruiser) in the Persian Gulf, and that they hankered for the opportunity to show their stuff.”

Two years later, the commander of the Vincennes and the officer in charge of anti-air warfare were given the Legion of Merit award for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service” and for the “calm and professional atmosphere” during the period of the destruction of the Iranian Airbus. The incident was not mentioned in the award.

President Reagan blamed the Iranians and defended the actions of the warship, which “followed standing orders and widely publicized procedures, firing to protect itself against possible attack.” His successor, Bush I, proclaimed that “I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are ... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.”

No evasions of responsibility here, unlike the barbarians in the East.

There was little reaction at the time: no outrage, no desperate search for victims, no passionate denunciations of those responsible, no eloquent laments by the US Ambassador to the UN about the “immense and heart-wrenching loss” when the airliner was downed. Iranian condemnations were occasionally noted, and dismissed as “boilerplate attacks on the United States.”

Small wonder, then, that this insignificant earlier event merited only a few scattered and dismissive words in the US media during the vast furor over a real crime, in which the demonic enemy might (or might not) have been indirectly involved.

One exception was in the London Daily Mail, where Dominic Lawson wrote that although “Putin's apologists” might bring up the Iran Air attack, the comparison actually demonstrates our high moral values as contrasted with the miserable Russians, who try to evade their responsibility for MH 17 with lies while Washington at once announced that the US warship had shot down the Iranian aircraft — righteously.

We know why Ukrainians and Russians are in their own countries, but one might ask what exactly the Vincennes was doing in Iranian waters. The answer is simple. It was defending Washington’s great friend Saddam Hussein in his murderous aggression against Iran. For the victims, the shoot-down was no small matter. It was a major factor in Iran’s recognition that it could not fight on any longer, according to historian Dilip Hiro.

It is worth remembering the extent of Washington’s devotion to its friend Saddam. Reagan removed him from the terrorist list so that aid could be sent to expedite his assault on Iran, and later denied his murderous crimes against the Kurds, blocking congressional condemnations. He also accorded Saddam a privilege otherwise granted only to Israel: there was no notable reaction when Iraq attacked the USS Stark with missiles, killing 37 crewmen, much like the case of the USS Liberty, attacked repeatedly by Israeli jets and torpedo ships in 1967, killing 34 crewmen.

Reagan’s successor, Bush I, went on to provide further aid to Saddam, badly needed after the war with Iran that he launched. Bush also invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to come to the US for advanced training in weapons production. In April 1990, Bush dispatched a high-level Senate delegation, led by future Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, to convey his warm regards to his friend Saddam and to assure him that he should disregard irresponsible criticism from the “haughty and pampered press,” and that such miscreants had been removed from Voice of America. The fawning before Saddam continued until he turned into a new Hitler a few months later by disobeying orders, or perhaps misunderstanding them, and invading Kuwait, with illuminating consequences that are worth reviewing once again though I will leave the matter here.

If powerful governments want a guilty verdict they will get it

[A prominent European Union businessman who, over many years, has taken a keen interest in the Lockerbie case, has given me access to a paper that he has recently written about the international reaction to the destruction of Malaysia Airlines flight 17. He wishes at present to remain anonymous. The full text of the paper can be read here. The following are extracts:]

The Crime

First let us try and define what the crime is we talk about here.  If it were the rebels who shot down MH17 then what most likely happened is the following. The rebels are engaged in combat with Ukrainian troops which they consider their enemy. The combat involves ground forces and from Ukrainian side also the air force that brings support to the Ukrainian ground forces. The rebels mistake MH17 for a Ukrainian military plane such an IL76 they had shot down recently and launch the fatal missile. If I understand correctly, this is a crime if they did not do proper checks on whether the target was civilian.

A Trial?

So if it would come to a trial, I presume that such trial, provided it was fair, should establish if the rebels did indeed properly check this and condemn them or clear them.  At this point most western European politicians have climbed on the bandwagon to call for action to hold ‘them’ responsible.  It is not completely clear who they mean by ‘them’ but it seems that Russia is included in ‘them’ and for some is even the prime suspect. How one can justify this legally is not very clear but many politicians say that Russia bears responsibility for having supplied the missiles. That reasoning assumes two things: 1) the Russians supplied the rockets and 2) whoever supplied them is also guilty.  We are now entering complicated territory. Let us suppose that Russia did supply the rockets. Under what law would that make them responsible for the use or misuse of the weapons?

Presumed Guilty

It is clear from their public utterances that western politicians ‘want’ a guilty verdict. It would be impossible in the eyes of the world to acquit someone in such a high profile case. One can thus reasonably expect that all means will be used to reach such a verdict. History has told us that if these powerful governments want a guilty verdict in such a case, they will get it (Lockerbie is good enough an example).  In the case of Lockerbie not only was Megrahi found guilty, Libya as a country was also found guilty and condemned to pay huge compensation.  It is not unreasonable to assume that legally sound or not, Russia would be found guilty in this case as well.

Previous incidents

Interestingly, in none of the previous cases of mistakenly shooting down civil airliners did it come to court cases where the people who pulled the trigger or their superiors were found guilty:

• El Al 402  (London-Tel Aviv) shot down by Bulgaria in 1955. 58 death, An apology was eventually issued and compensation paid.

• Libyan Arab Airlines 114 (Tripoli-Cairo) Shot down by Israel over the Sinai in 1973. 108 deaths, 5 survivers; Israel's Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan, called it an "error of judgment", and Israel paid compensation to the victims' families.

• Itavia 870 (Bologna-Palermo), shot down in 1980 near Ustica (Sicily). 81 deaths. So far no official prosecution although an Italian court has deposited a complaint with France, suspected of shooting down the plane. Justice has for 30 years been seriously obstructed by the Italian Air Force.

• Korean Air 007 (New York-Séoul), shot down 1983 over Soviet territory, 269 deaths. Cold war situation. Due to cold war status no-one was prosecuted but Korean airlines paid compensation money since the plane had made a navigational error.

• Iran Air 655 (Bandar Abbas-Dubai), Shot down by US Navy in 1988. 290 deaths. Blaming it on Iran, United States recognized the aerial incident of 3 July 1988 as a terrible human tragedy and expressed deep regret over the loss of lives caused by the incident. Nobody was prosecuted but compensation money was paid.  

• TWA 800 (New York-Paris-Rome),  Explodes near Long Island, on 17 July 1996. Official inquiry very likely manipulated since earlier denied Navy exercises nearby later turned out to have taken place. 230 deaths. Following the official inquiry, no-one was ever prosecuted. A fatal mistake by US Navy however very likely.

• Siberian Airlines 1812 (Tel Aviv-Novosibirsk), shot down 2001 over Black Sea by Ukrainian army. 78 deaths.  On August 22, 2007 Kiev Appeals Court dismissed the victims' relatives suit against the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, ruling that military of Ukraine bear no liability for the accident.

So in none of the previous cases did somebody go to jail for having pulled the trigger. Nor did anybody who supplied the weapons ever get prosecuted. In the above cases the suppliers were:

Soviet Union

USA

(Most probably) France

It is interesting to see that in all the earlier mentioned cases the people who pulled the trigger and their political leaders denied responsibility and in some cases simply denied they ever did it.  The current position of whoever brought down MH17 is thus no exception. (...)

Public accusers

The two loudest “public accusers” in the case of MH17 are the governments in Kiev and, of course, Washington.

Let us have a look at the current prime minister of Ukraine, the loudest voice in the condemnation of the rebels and Russia. What did this man do when the Ukrainian governments denied all responsibility for the shooting down of Siberian Airlines 1812: Arseniy Yatsenyuk served in the government of Ukraine as Minister of Economy from 2005 to 2006; subsequently he was Foreign Minister of Ukraine in 2007.  So this man was part of the governments that denied justice to the victims of Siberian Airlines 1812.

What about the second loudest voice, the US government?  That their track record in the case of Iran Air 655 and in the case of Lockerbie is highly questionable should by now be clear.  Their position towards the International Criminal Court of Justice is also very clear:  On 17 July 1998, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted by a vote of 120 to 7, with 21 countries abstaining. The seven countries that voted against the treaty were Iraq, Israel, Libya, the People's Republic of China, Qatar, Yemen, and the United States. (...)

So here we are….

Probably some rebels made a dramatic cock-up. As dramatic as the people who fired the missiles on the planes mentioned in the various earlier examples.

So what to do if you are a Russian rebel that made the fatal mistake?  Admit your mistake and turn yourself in? Hand yourself over to Kiev? Washington? ICC?  Nobody previously did it in any case of a mistakenly shot down plane.  Ironically, the only example of someone turning himself in for an air disaster was Megrahi and his co-accused Fhimah. Maybe they naively turned themselves in because they were innocent.  

With all the knowledge we now have of how the world has dealt with these kind of incidents in the past I cannot really blame the rebels for not admitting their mistake. A fair trial being highly unlikely if we look at who is pulling the strings.  As regards Russia, if the USA, France and Britain who have supplied plenty of arms to governments and rebels all over the world that have killed innocent civilian have never been prosecuted, I guess it is not sure that there is a legal ground for prosecution here either.

One thing is however for sure, the sad death of hundreds of innocent victims is again being exploited by politicians.

All in all, a sad analysis and summing up of the way the world is dealing with air disasters.

Lockerbie investigators "hand in hand ... praying for justice"

[Various Dutch newspapers are today running an article headlined De lessen van Lockerbie (The lessons of Lockerbie). What follows are excerpts taken from Dagblad van het Noorden, translated courtesy of Google Translate, as modified by me via my knowledge of Afrikaans. The original Dutch text is appended.]

The Pan Am flight 103 disaster on December 21, 1988 sowed death and destruction in the small village of Lockerbie. Exactly 38 minutes after the plane takes off from London Heathrow, at a height of 10 kilometers, something goes terribly wrong. The ‘Clipper Maid Of The Seas' explodes, falls into thousands of pieces, and destroys much of Lockerbie. Eleven residents and 259 passengers are killed.

Because there were 189 Americans on board, the FBI is also involved in the investigation. The leader of the team was Richard Marquise. With pain in his heart, he looks at what is happening in Ukraine.  “We both have many compatriots lost in a foreign country. But we had one great advantage, and that was that the Scottish police did ​​a very good job. Directly after the disaster there were thousands of police and soldiers on hand to help search for victims and wreckage."

Marquise calls the war in Ukraine a nightmare for the Dutch investigators who ultimately have to find the perpetrators. There are, according to him, so many people who have an interest in ensuring that there is no evidence to be found. International observers have already indications that wreckage has been tampered with. “It is hoped that these were people who did not know exactly where to go looking. So perhaps forensic experts with all their advanced techniques can still find something useful."

Yet there is one bright spot, according to Marquise. The Netherlands already knows that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was probably downed with a rocket.  “The first few days we still had no idea why the Pan Am aircraft had crashed.” (...)

A piece of wreckage, however small, can be invaluable, as became clear in the investigation into the Lockerbie disaster. Investigators found a tiny chip from the timer that activated the bomb in a suitcase. By means of this, investigators eventually exposed the Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. He smuggled the bomb suitcase on board the Pan Am aircraft. But in the absence of this kind of hard evidence it will be a very tough job to identify the perpetrators, predicts Marquise. “Unless someone comes forward who says ‘It was him.’”

What Marquise would like to see is a “golden informant” such as they had in the Lockerbie investigation. (...) [RB: Presumably this is a reference to Abdul Majid Giaka. If that is so, it is interesting that he should still today be being referred to as “golden” after his performance at Zeist.]

If the Dutch - despite all the difficulties - find the perpetrators then a suspect can be arrested even after years of waiting, as the Lockerbie investigators have cause to know. Al-Megrahi, the man who placed the bomb suitcase in the Pan Am aircraft, was a Libyan. That country already had a reputation as a rogue state that was not cooperative. “Gaddafi simply denied that it had happened,” says Marquise.

Only after years of economic sanctions did Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi give in and two suspects were extradited in 1999. One of them was acquitted. Al-Megrahi was imprisoned in 2001 for life. So there was finally justice, thirteen years after the disaster.

Marquise remembers that day like yesterday. He was with the Scottish detectives at Camp Zeist, when the judges delivered judgment. Hand in hand they listened to the verdict, praying for justice. “All those years of hard work had led us to this man. But only when the judge pronounced the word "guilty", were we sure: ‘we got him’.”

De ramp met Pan Am-vlucht 103 zaait op 21 december 1988 dood en verderf in het kleine dorpje Lockerbie. Precies 38 minuten nadat het toestel is opstegen vanaf Londen Heathrow, gaat het op 10 kilometer hoogte vreselijk mis. De ‘Clipper Maid Of The Seas' explodeert, valt in duizenden stukjes uiteen en vermorzelt een groot deel van Lockerbie. Elf bewoners en 259 passagiers komen om het leven.

Omdat er 189 Amerikanen aan boord waren, wordt ook de FBI bij het onderzoek betrokken. Leider van het team was destijds Richard Marquise. Met pijn in zijn hart kijkt hij naar wat er nu in Oekraïne gebeurt. ,,Wij hebben beide veel landgenoten verloren in een vreemd land. Maar wij hadden één groot voordeel en dat was dat de Schotse politie heel goed werk verrichtte. Na de ramp waren er direct duizenden agenten en militairen op de been om te helpen zoeken naar slachtoffers en wrakstukken.''

De oorlog in Oekraïne noemt Marquise een nachtmerrie voor de Nederlandse onderzoekers die uiteindelijk de daders moeten zien te vinden. Er zijn volgens hem zo veel mensen die er belang bij hebben dat er helemaal geen bewijsstukken worden gevonden. Internationale waarnemers hebben al aanwijzingen dat er met de wrakstukken zou zijn gerommeld. ,,Het is te hopen dat de mensen die dat hebben gedaan niet precies wisten waar ze naar moesten zoeken. Zo kunnen forensische experts met al hun geavanceerde technieken misschien toch nog iets bruikbaars vinden.''

Toch is er volgens Marquise een lichtpuntje. Nederland weet al dat vlucht MH17 van Malaysia Airlines hoogstwaarschijnlijk naar beneden is gehaald met een raket. ,,Wij hadden de eerste dagen nog helemaal geen idee waarom het Pan Am-toestel was neergestort.'' (...)

Een wrakstuk, hoe klein ook, kan goud waard zijn, zo is duidelijk geworden in het onderzoek naar de ramp in Lockerbie. De minuscule chip die onderzoekers vinden, blijkt een deel van de timer waarmee de bom in een koffer is geactiveerd. Rechercheurs ontmaskeren hiermee uiteindelijk de Libische geheim agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Hij heeft de bomkoffer aan boord van het Pan Am-toestel gesmokkeld. Maar als dit soort harde bewijzen uitblijven, wordt het achterhalen van de daders een heel zware klus, voorspelt Marquise. ,,Of er moet iemand opstaan die zegt: hij was het.''

Wat had Marquise graag gezien dat er ook in het Lockerbie-onderzoek een gouden tipgever was opgestaan. (...)

Slagen de Nederlanders er – ondanks alle moeilijkheden – toch in de daders te vinden, dan kan het daadwerkelijk arresteren van een verdachte nog jaren op zich laten wachten, weten de onderzoekers van Lockerbie. Al-Megrahi, de man die de bomkoffer in het Pan Am-toestel plaatste, was een Libiër. Dat land had toen al de reputatie van een schurkenstaat waarmee niet viel samen te werken. ,,Gaddafi ontkende simpelweg dat het was gebeurd'', zegt Marquise.

Pas na jarenlange economische sancties zwichtte de Libische leider Muammar Gaddafi en werden in 1999 twee verdachten uitgeleverd. Een van hen werd vrijgesproken. Al-Megrahi kreeg in 2001 levenslang. Zo was er dertien jaar na de ramp eindelijk gerechtigheid.

Marquise herinnert zich die dag nog als gisteren. Hij zat samen met de Schotse rechercheurs in Kamp Zeist, waar de rechters het oordeel velden. Hand in hand luisterden ze naar de uitspraak, biddend voor gerechtigheid. ,,Al die jaren hard werken hadden ons naar deze man geleid. Maar pas toen de rechter het woord ‘schuldig' uitsprak, wisten we het zeker: we got him.''