‘Al-Megrahi defence knew bomb fragment was sent to US’

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Times. It reads in part:]

A senior FBI investigator involved in the Lockerbie inquiry has entered the controversy over a vital piece of scientific evidence which secured the conviction of the Libyan bomber.

Richard Marquise, now retired, told The Times that a tiny bomb fragment at the heart of the prosecution case had been taken out of Scotland in the course of the investigation, and brought to Washington, where it was examined in the bureau’s laboratory. He said he believed it had also been taken to Germany His view appears to contradict a claim by Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, then Lord Advocate, who told a television documentary that to his knowledge, the fragment had never been outside Scotland. Lord Fraser, who led the prosecution, told a Dutch television crew that had evidence been sent abroad, the case against Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi would have been vulnerable.

Yesterday, however, Mr Marquise said no one denied that the fragment, part of the bomb’s timing device, had been examined by Scottish officials in the FBI laboratory in Washington, or that it had been scrutinised by experts in Germany. He added that these facts had been known by the defence team at the trial of al-Megrahi, who was convicted of planting the bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 people, and dismissed the controversy as a “non-issue”.

“I do know it was never in the possession of the FBI but these Scottish/British officials examined PT-35 [the fragment] in the FBI lab in Washington,” he told The Times. “No one has ever tried to hide that fact.”

That information was not, apparently, known to Lord Fraser. Asked by the television team whether the fragment had been taken to the US, Lord Fraser responded: “Not that I am aware of.” He added: “What would have gone through my mind is ... could this evidence get lost, or damaged or tampered with? No, no; I would want to keep everything so that there can be no accusations at a trial that in some way [it] has been fiddled with.”

The controversy erupted after the Crown Office responded to a freedom of information request from Christine Grahame, the SNP MSP for South of Scotland, confirming that the fragment had been sent for analysis to the Siemens company in April 1990.

Ms Grahame said Lord Fraser “did not know and would not have allowed this evidence to be taken out of Scottish jurisdiction and control”.

[I have now lost count of the number of different accounts of the movements of this item of evidence that have been given by Richard Marquise and Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson. Tracing and itemising them might be a nice research project for an enterprising law or journalism student.

Mr Marquise has e-mailed me the following response:

'I will try and make it simple for you---

'Marquise: told Levy in 2008 that the fragment came to US in custody and control of Scottish police/British forensic officials. Never out of their custody or control.
When he “cornered” me at Arlington, he said the Lord Advocate told him it never came to US. I told him there what I told him earlier in 2008 was what I thought the truth to be but perhaps I was mistaken (I did not see the fragment when it came to US in June 1990) I later clarified in an email that my first statement was correct.

'Henderson: as far as I know, the microphone in his face at Arlington in December 2008 was the first time Mr. Henderson ever said anything in public about Lockerbie. What he said was it was never in “US control.”

'In his official statement to prosecutors before trial, he acknowledged that it had traveled to the US for examination.

'Unfortunately, some things which happened over 20 years ago needed to be reflected upon. We are all aging and our recollections may not be perfect. However, I know one thing—none of us ever “fiddled with,” “tampered,” “changed,” “altered” or “manufactured” any evidence in this case to include PT-35.

'My brother once owned a football. He was so afraid it would get ruined, he kept it in the closet and never used it. It suffered “dry rot” and was eventually never useable. The same could be said about PT-35. Should police officials never shared its existence with anyone else, it might never have been identified. Try as they might, 6 months, 17 countries and 55 separate company visits failed to determine what it was. It was the sharing of the photograph and eventually the lab comparison which identified it.

'To listen to some in Scotland, this case should have been conducted ONLY by Scots without outside interference. It was only through the sharing of information that strides were able to be made to identify who was responsible for Lockerbie—despite what so many people do not want to believe. The sharing of information was vital to the Lockerbie case and is vital today as we try and prevent horrible acts of terrorism and other crimes.

'Those of us who have never taken money from anyone doing business in Libya are comfortable with that we did. Can you say the same? In the book, “The Price of Terror,” you are quoted as saying that you tried to resolve the (Lockerbie) deadlock at the behest of “a group of British businessmen whose desire to participate in major engineering works in Libya were being impeded by the UN sanctions.” Perhaps YOU were misquoted. Would you also like to get some law students on that as well?'

I am, of course, used to snide remarks to the effect that my stance on Lockerbie is due to my having been paid (which I have always thought a somewhat odd criticism to make of a lawyer). Here, from a forthcoming book, is the true account of how I came to become involved in the Lockerbie issue:

'I first became involved in the Lockerbie affair in January 1993. I was approached by representatives of a group of British businessmen whose desire to participate in major engineering works in Libya was being impeded by the UN sanctions. They had approached the then Dean of the Faculty of Advocates (the head of the Scottish Bar) and asked him if any of its members might be willing to provide advice to them -- on an unpaid basis! -- on Scottish criminal law and procedure in their attempts to unblock the logjam. The Dean of Faculty, Alan Johnston QC (later Court of Session judge Lord Johnston), recommended me. The businessmen asked if I would be prepared to provide independent advice to the government of Libya -- again on an unpaid basis -- on matters of Scottish criminal law, procedure and evidence with a view (it was hoped) to persuading them that their two citizens would obtain a fair trial if they were to surrender themselves to the Scottish authorities. There was, of course, never the slightest chance that surrender for trial in the United States could be contemplated by the Libyans, amongst other reasons because of the existence there of the death penalty for murder.']

"No political or sinister forces were involved" in Lockerbie investigation

[The following are excerpts from two items posted on this blog on this date in 2008. The items can be read here and here:]

(1) On 20 December 2007, Congressional Quarterly published an article by Jeff Stein reporting the burgeoning doubts regarding the safety of the conviction of Abdel Baset Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing. This is referred to in a posting on this blog on 21 December. Richard A Marquise, who headed the FBI team that investigated the destruction of Pan Am 103 (and author of a book on the subject) has sent me a further article under Jeff Stein's byline in Congressional Quarterly, in which Mr Marquise is quoted expressing his confidence in the integrity of the investigation and the safety of the conviction of Mr Megrahi.

(2) Here is the text of Jeff Stein’s recent article in Congressional Quarterly, as relayed to me by Richard Marquise, to whom I express my appreciation.

‘My Dec 20 column warning that “Libya is close to getting off the hook” for millions of dollars due families who suffered the loss of loved ones in the Pan Am 103 and LaBelle discotheque bombings drew plenty of heat.

‘Some suggested that I had somehow taken Libya’s side by merely reporting on the conclusion of a Scottish criminal commission that a “miscarriage of justice” might have occurred in the Pan Am trial. Critics who support that view point to the early suspicions of U.S. intelligence that an Iranian-back terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, had really downed the airliner (in response to the accidental downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a U.S. Navy ship six months earlier).

‘Critics also denounced my reporting that at least two informants had received million-dollar rewards for providing evidence against the Libyans.

‘One of those who wrote me was the FBI agent in charge of the U.S. side of the PanAm 103 case, retired Special Agent Richard Marquise. After several e-mail exchanges, I invited him to write a critique for publication here. It is reproduced in its entirety below:

“We initially speculated it was the PFLP-GC based on events which had occurred in Germany in late 1988. We went with that premise until the painstaking evidence collection in Scotland (done by police officers not having any political agenda) turned the investigation in a different direction.

“By this time, we had reached an agreement with the CIA and other intelligence agencies to completely share information. With their assistance and the meticulous police investigation, this led to the eventual indictments.

“You quote several sources but Vince Cannistraro [the CIA official in charge of the agency’s investigation of PanAm 103] retired before the evidence began to lead to Libya.

“Your quote ‘more sinister factors were at work in the investigation’ which was attributed to Professor Black and other ‘authoritative sources close to the case’ is taken from people who only know what they believe but have no inside information.

“I can promise you as a 31-year FBI veteran who was proud of my service to America; no sinister forces were ever involved. If you (or anyone) were to speak with Stuart Henderson (the Scottish Senior Investigating Officer) or myself, we would tell you we followed the evidence, the way we were trained and no political or sinister forces were involved. Libya was implicated because of the evidence, not because we wanted to blame someone other than Syrian-backed terrorists.

“Edwin Bollier, the Swiss businessman who made the timer which blew up Pan Am Flight 103, seems to forget he went to a US Embassy in January 1989 after reading in the news that the ‘evidence’ pointed to the PFLP-GC cell in Germany (and therefore to Syria). He left an unsigned note implicating Libya — long before we knew anything about the timer, MEBO or Bollier, as that evidence was not developed until nearly two years would pass.

“Since 1992, Bollier’s story has changed. I would prefer to believe what he told a Swiss magistrate, the FBI and Scottish investigators in 1990 and 1991, not what he is now saying. I was the FBI official who met with Mr. Bollier in Washington, and I can assure you no one offered him (or any other witness for that matter) anything to implicate the Libyan Government.”

Note by RB: I simply wish to record my continuing conviction that the evidence led at the Lockerbie trial was insufficient to establish the guilt of Mr Megrahi (see the first posting on this blog in July 2007); that evidence that pointed in a different direction was suppressed and was not passed on to the defence; and that as a result of the forthcoming appeal necessitated by the (three-year long) investigation and findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, the unjustifiability of Mr Megrahi’s conviction will be clearly demonstrated.

Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation with author Richard Marquise

[This is the title of a podcast uploaded yesterday to the Stratfor Worldview website. It takes the form of an interview with Richard Marquise conducted by Stratfor's Chief Security Officer Fred Burton. The podcast can be listened to, and a transcript can be read, here. The introduction reads as follows:]

On December 21, 1988, a plane full of travelers bound from London to New York exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. All on board were killed, as were 11 people on the ground. The subsequent investigation into the bombing spread over hundreds of square miles in a hunt for evidence that had been blown to smithereens.

The FBI's lead investigator in the case, Richard Marquise, was assigned to the monumental task of helping determine what had happened, who was responsible and, eventually, how to prosecute the case. He talked about his book detailing those efforts, Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation with Stratfor Chief Security Officer Fred Burton.

[RB: The podcast does not cover the criticisms of the investigation, prosecution and trial that have subsequently been made by the United Nations appointed observer at the trial, Professor Hans Köchler; by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission; by John Ashton; by Dr Morag Kerr and by many other persons and organisations. However it does contain interesting material, particularly on relations between the FBI and the Scottish police, and between the Scottish (and UK) authorities and the United States government.]

FBI and CIA rôles in Lockerbie investigation

[On this date in 2014 the Russian news agency RIA Novosti (now Sputnik International) published an article by Mark Hirst headlined FBI Chief Investigator Dismisses CIA Officer’s Claims Over 1988 Plane Bombing Intel. It reads as follows:]

An agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who led the US probe into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 has denied claims made by a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s former officer who told RIA Novosti that FBI investigators did not read vital US intelligence material related to the attack.

Earlier Robert Baer, a retired CIA officer who was based in the Middle East, told RIA Novosti, “I’ve been having exchanges with the FBI investigators and they came right out and said they didn't read the intelligence."

“I just find that extraordinary and then later for them to comment on the intelligence and say it's no good; it’s amazing,” Baer said.

But Richard Marquise, who led the US investigation into the attack, dismissed Baer’s claim.

“Mr. Baer had no role in the investigation and anything he knows or claims to know is either hearsay or speculation,” Marquise told RIA Novosti.

“I find [Baer’s claims] interesting because he has previously said that the CIA did not pass us all the information, something I doubt he would be in a position to know,” Marquise argued.

“I agree that there were a handful of FBI personnel (agents and analysts) who had access to all the intelligence that was passed and it may have been possible that some FBI agents who played a minor role in the case may not have seen it,” he added.

For years controversy has surrounded the case following the 2001 conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer. Campaigners, including some relatives of victims of Pan Am 103, believe Megrahi was wrongly convicted and are continuing to call for a public inquiry into the events leading to the bombing.

Baer has previously claimed US intelligence pointed to Iran – not Libya – as the source of the attack that allegedly retaliated for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the American warship, USS Vincennes, five months before the attack on Pan Am 103. Baer told RIA Novosti that a convincing case implicating Libya was still to be made.

“Richard Marquise has taken a moral position on the case,” Baer told RIA Novosti. “I can still be convinced the Libyans did it, but I still need to be convinced of that.”

Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, has spent more than two decades studying the case.

“I'd be absolutely amazed if the FBI didn't consider the intelligence material, if only to reject it as unreliable or unusable as evidence in judicial proceedings,” Black told RIA Novosti.

“Indeed, there's clear evidence that they did make use of it. A key prosecution witness, Majid Giaka, was a CIA asset and was in a Department of Justice witness protection program,” Black added.

“The FBI falls under the Department of Justice. And Giaka was a crucial witness in the Washington DC grand jury hearing that led to the US indictment against Megrahi and Fhimah,” Black said.

Pan Am Flight 103 was flying from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York City when it was blown out of the sky over Scotland by a terrorist bomb that killed 270 people, including 11 on the ground. A three-year-long investigation yielded two Libyan suspects who were handed over to the United [Kingdom] (...) in 1999. In 2003, Gaddafi (...) paid compensation, but said he had never given the order for the attack.

Did the FBI liaise with the CIA in the Lockerbie investigation?

[What follows is an article by Mark Hirst published this afternoon on the website of Russian news agency RIA Novosti. It reads as follows:]

An agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who led the US probe into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 has denied claims made by a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s former officer who told RIA Novosti that FBI investigators did not read vital US intelligence material related to the attack.

Earlier Robert Baer, a retired CIA officer who was based in the Middle East, told RIA Novosti, “I’ve been having exchanges with the FBI investigators and they came right out and said they didn't read the intelligence."

“I just find that extraordinary and then later for them to comment on the intelligence and say it's no good; it’s amazing,” Baer said.

But Richard Marquise, who led the US investigation into the attack, dismissed Baer’s claim.

“Mr. Baer had no role in the investigation and anything he knows or claims to know is either hearsay or speculation,” Marquise told RIA Novosti.

“I find [Baer’s claims] interesting because he has previously said that the CIA did not pass us all the information, something I doubt he would be in a position to know,” Marquise argued.

“I agree that there were a handful of FBI personnel (agents and analysts) who had access to all the intelligence that was passed and it may have been possible that some FBI agents who played a minor role in the case may not have seen it,” he added.

For years controversy has surrounded the case following the 2001 conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer. Campaigners, including some relatives of victims of Pan Am 103, believe Megrahi was wrongly convicted and are continuing to call for a public inquiry into the events leading to the bombing.

Baer has previously claimed US intelligence pointed to Iran – not Libya – as the source of the attack that allegedly retaliated for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the American warship, USS Vincennes, five months before the attack on Pan Am 103. Baer told RIA Novosti that a convincing case implicating Libya was still to be made.

“Richard Marquise has taken a moral position on the case,” Baer told RIA Novosti. “I can still be convinced the Libyans did it, but I still need to be convinced of that.”

Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, has spent more than two decades studying the case.

“I'd be absolutely amazed if the FBI didn't consider the intelligence material, if only to reject it as unreliable or unusable as evidence in judicial proceedings,” Black told RIA Novosti.

“Indeed, there's clear evidence that they did make use of it. A key prosecution witness, Majid Giaka, was a CIA asset and was in a Department of Justice witness protection program,” Black added.

“The FBI falls under the Department of Justice. And Giaka was a crucial witness in the Washington DC grand jury hearing that led to the US indictment against Megrahi and Fhimah,” Black said.

Pan Am Flight 103 was flying from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York City when it was blown out of the sky over Scotland by a terrorist bomb that killed 270 people, including 11 on the ground. A three-year-long investigation yielded two Libyan suspects who were handed over to the United [Kingdom] (...) in 1999. In 2003, Gaddafi (...) paid compensation, but said he had never given the order for the attack.

Richard Marquise at Syracuse University

The FBI lead investigator on the Pan Am 103 bombing that killed 270 people in 1988 will speak at 7:30 pm Thursday as part of the 2010 Syracuse Symposium at Syracuse University.

Richard A Marquise, a retired special agent with the FBI, will speak on “Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation” in room 001 of the Life Science Complex. The event is cosponsored by SU’s Forensic and National Security Sciences program, and is free and open to the public.

Marquise will also take part Friday in an invitation-only seminar “International Terrorism: Threat in the U.S. and Proactive Measures.”

The bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec 21, 1988. The terror attack killed 270 people, including 35 SU students returning from a semester abroad and five others with ties to Central New York.

Marquise was involved with the Lockerbie bombing investigation from its inception through to the indictments and trial. He received the Attorney General’s award for Distinguished Service.

He is the author of Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation, Algora Publishing, 2006.

Marquise is an expert in counter terrorism and crisis management and is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research in Tallahassee, Fla.

[From a report on the Syracuse website. Further details can be found on the website of Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange.

Caustic Logic on his blog The Lockerbie Divide suggests a number of pertinent questions that members of his audience might care to raise with Mr Marquise.]

Ghosts of Lockerbie stirred with prospect of posthumous appeal

[This is the headline over a report published this evening on the Al Jazeera website. It reads in part:]

On March 11, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) stirred the ghosts of a painful past when it announced that the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the bombing might have constituted a miscarriage of justice. (...)

Several relatives of victims have also celebrated the legal development.

Jim Swire collaborated with the al-Megrahi family on the SCCRC application. He lost his 23-year-old daughter Flora on the New York-bound flight that exploded over Scotland just 38 minutes after its takeoff from London.

Swire has long believed that al-Megrahi was innocent of the bombing - and is already looking ahead to the next phase of the judicial process which will see the case make its way to Scotland's High Court of Justiciary.

"I'm delighted that the case has been referred back to the Appeal Court - but I'm already concerned about how the case in the Appeal Court will be conducted," Swire, now in his 80s, tells Al Jazeera.

The Glasgow-based legal team highlighted six grounds why al-Megrahi's conviction constituted a grave miscarriage of justice - but the SCCRC upheld just two: "unreasonable verdict" and "non-disclosure" of evidence. (...)

John Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter Helga was killed in the bombing, also threw his support behind the application.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from his home in England, Mosey, a reverend, said the commission's decision, which prompted him to exclaim "Hallelujah", was the "end of a first step of a long battle".

Like Swire, he remains concerned that the grounds for appeal, as selected by the SCCRC, "are limited".

But the commission's decision will likely reopen painful wounds, especially in the United States where many victims' families and involved law enforcement officials continue to view al-Megrahi as guilty.

However, Richard Marquise, who led the FBI's US Lockerbie taskforce, told Al Jazeera that the "the circumstantial evidence" that put al-Megrahi behind bars in a Scottish jail "was overwhelming".

"I have seen the evidence; know, personally, some of the witnesses and; have read the entire transcript," said the retired special agent of the SCCRC's claim that "no reasonable trial court, relying on the evidence led at trial, could have held the case against Mr Megrahi was proved beyond reasonable doubt".

"Those who passed judgment from an ivory tower were never involved in the investigation, nor did they attend one day of trial."

[RB: Dr Jim Swire and the Rev'd John Mosey attended every day of the trial at Camp Zeist. I did not (and I suspect I may be one of the inhabitants of an "ivory tower" that Richard Marquise is intending to refer to) but, like Mr Marquise I read every day's transcript as it appeared. From the day after the verdict was announced I have expressed the view that no reasonable court could have convicted Megrahi on the evidence led at the trial. That is the unshakeable view that I continue to hold nineteen years later. And the independent and expert SCCRC, after two separate investigations conducted thirteen years apart by two quite separate and different teams, has twice now reached the same conclusion as me. Mr Marquise's protestations are starting to look rather desperate.]

Former FBI and CIA officers at odds over Lockerbie/Pan Am 103 bombing

[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of the news agency Aurora News. It reads as follows:]

An FBI agent who led the US investigation into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 has denied claims made by a former CIA officer who told Aurora News that FBI investigators did not read vital US intelligence material related to the attack.

Robert Baer, a retired CIA Officer who was based in the Middle East, had said, “I’ve been having exchanges with the FBI Investigators and they came right out and said they didn’t read the intelligence.

“I just find that extraordinary and then later for them to comment on the intelligence and say it’s no good; it’s amazing,” Baer said.

CIA OFFICER’S COMMENTS DISMISSED

But Richard Marquise, who led the FBI investigation into the attack, dismissed Baer’s claim.

“Mr Baer had no role in the investigation and anything he knows or claims to know is either hearsay or speculation,” Marquise told Aurora News.

“I find [Baer’s claims] interesting because he has previously said that the CIA did not pass us all the information, something I doubt he would be in a position to know,” Marquise added. “I agree that there were a handful of FBI personnel (agents and analysts) who had access to all the intelligence that was passed and it may have been possible that some FBI agents who played a minor role in the case may not have seen it.”

QUESTIONS REMAIN OVER SAFETY OF MEGRAHI CONVICTION

For years controversy has surrounded the case following the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset al Megrahi in January 2001. Campaigners, including some relatives of victims of Pan Am 103, believe Megrahi was wrongly convicted and are continuing to call for a public inquiry into the events leading to the bombing.

Baer has previously claimed US intelligence pointed to Iran – not Libya – as the source of the attack and was carried it out in retaliation for the shooting down, five months previously, of Iran Air Flight 655 by the American warship the USS Vincennes. Baer told said that a convincing case implicating Libya was still to be made.

“Richard Marquise has taken a moral position on the case,” Baer said. “I can still be convinced the Libyans did it, but I still need to be convinced of that.”

Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, has spent more than two decades studying the case.

“I’d be absolutely amazed if the FBI didn’t consider the intelligence material, if only to reject it as unreliable or unusable as evidence in judicial proceedings,” Black said.

“Indeed, there’s clear evidence that they did make use of it. A key prosecution witness, Majid Giaka, was a CIA asset and was in a Department of Justice witness protection programme,” Black added. “

“The FBI falls under the Department of Justice. And Giaka was a crucial witness in the Washington DC grand jury hearing that led to the US indictment against Megrahi and Fhimah,” Black said.

More from Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer

The following article appears on the OhmyNews English-language website:

Lockerbie Investigator Disputes Story

Richard Marquise led the U.S. task force that investigated the bombing

Ludwig De Braeckeleer

Published 2007-10-06 17:02 (KST)

"Proper judicial procedure is simply impossible if political interests and intelligence services -- from whichever side -- succeed in interfering in the actual conduct of a court … The purpose of intelligence services -- from whichever side -- lies in secret action and deception, not in the search for truth. Justice and the rule of law can never be achieved without transparency."
--Hans Koechler, U.N. observer at the Zeist trial

On Sept. 6, OhmyNews International published a story related to a sensational document known as the Lumpert affidavit. (See "Key Lockerbie Witness Admits Perjury.)

Ulrich Lumpert was a key witness (No. 550) at the Camp Zeist trial, where a three-Judge panel convicted a Libyan citizen of murdering 270 persons who died in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.

"I confirm today on July 18, 2007, that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 Timer PC-board consisting of 8 layers of fiberglass from MeBo Ltd. and gave it without permission on June 22, 1989, to a person officially investigating in the Lockerbie case," Lumpert wrote.

On Sept. 7, the agent who led the Lockerbie investigation for the FBI wrote to me and criticized the article on several grounds, but most importantly, he alleged that the Lumpert affidavit was a "total fabrication."

Richard Marquise led the U.S. task force that investigated the Lockerbie bombing. He has authored a book on the subject: Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation. He wrote to me:

"Lumpert's new statement is a total fabrication. He was interviewed several times, including at a judicial hearing in Switzerland as well as the trial itself and he never wavered in his story. His statement that he gave a 'stolen timer' to a Scottish officer in 1989 does not even fit the timeline since we had no idea about the origins of PT-35 at that time. We identified MeBo in the summer of 1990."

With all due respect, I must state very unambiguously that I remain convinced that the document is authentic and that the story is not a hoax. Moreover, I have obtained a document that strongly suggests that the timeline of the events related to the identification of the MST-13 timer has been fabricated.

Since the publication of the article, a well-informed source has told me that Lumpert has signed four affidavits. The documents were certified by notary Walter Wieland under Nr. 2069 to 2072.

I am now in possession of one of these four documents and I have received confirmation from the proper Swiss authority that Wieland indeed certified these documents on July 18 and that he is competent for doing so.

Although I was initially very skeptical of the Lumpert affidavit, I came to the conclusion that I have no reason to doubt its authenticity or the truthfulness of its content.

Indeed, both the timing of Lumpert's admission of perjury, his motivation for doing so as stated in the affidavit, as well as the content of the document led me to believe that the story is not a fabrication.

Lumpert wrote that he wishes to clear his conscience and that he can no longer "be prosecuted for stealing, delivering and making false statements about the MST-13 Timer PC-board, on grounds of statutory limitation."

Moreover, as I explained at length in the Sept. 6 article, the Lumpert affidavit, in just seven paragraphs, elucidates all of the longstanding mysteries surrounding the infamous MST-13 timer, which allegedly triggered the bomb that exploded Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988.

Conspiracy Theory?

I wish to add that I am obviously not the only one who had reached such a conclusion. The possibility that evidence has been fabricated in order to secure the conviction of the Libyans has gained support among many people who could hardly be described as conspiracy theorists.

Jim Swire, Robert Black and Hans Koechler are among the best-informed people about the extremely complex Zeist trial.

Black QC FRSE (Queen's Council and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh) has been Professor of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh since January 1981, having previously been in practice at the Scottish Bar. He is now professor emeritus.

For various periods he served as head of the Department of Scots Law (later Private Law). He has been an advocate since 1972 and a QC since 1987. From 1987 to 1996 he was general editor of The Laws of Scotland: Stair Memorial Encyclopedia (25 volumes). From 1981 to 1994 he served as a temporary sheriff (judge).

He has taken a close interest in the Lockerbie affair since 1993, not least because he was born and brought up in the town, and has published a substantial number of articles on the topic in the United Kingdom and overseas. He is often referred to as the architect of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Black's support for the story is obvious from the fact that he posted my article on his Web site. In a comment posted on OMNI, Black went out of his way to express his agreement with the 18-page analysis of the consequences of the Lumpert affidavit. "A masterly review of the weaknesses in the Lockerbie court's conviction of [Abdelbaset Al] Megrahi," Black wrote.

In April 2000, professor Koechler was appointed by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as international observer at the Lockerbie bombing trial that was held at Camp Zeist, Netherlands.

Koechler has also posted the article on his Web site. He wrote this comment on OMNI:

“This is a well-researched analysis which precisely reveals the serious mistakes and omissions by the official Scottish investigators as well as the carelessness and lack of professionalism of the judges in the Lockerbie case. The Scottish judicial authorities are under the obligation to investigate possible criminal misconduct in the investigation and prosecution of the Lockerbie case.On July 4, 2007, Koechler wrote to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, reiterating his call for a "full and independent public inquiry of the Lockerbie case."

Dr. Swire, who lost his daughter in the Lockerbie bombing, is a founder and the spokesperson of the U.K. Families 103, which campaigns to seek the truth about the worst act of terror ever committed in the U.K. In a letter addressed to my editor, he wrote that the article was "one of the best informed and most realistic" he had seen.

I promised Richard Marquise that I would make an effort "to see things from the other side." And I will. But for now, we must agree to disagree. I leave him with a comment posted by Iain McKie -- someone who knows all about the consequences of forensic mistakes.

Another Lockerbie mystery is why, given this latest opportunity [Megrahi's second appeal] to uncover the truth about this terrorist outrage that claimed the lives of people from 21 countries (including 189 Americans), and given the U.S. and British high profile "war on terror," is the political silence so deafening?

I find it increasingly difficult to argue with Dr. De Braeckeleer's conclusion: "Shame on those who committed this horrific act of terror. Shame on those who have ordered the cover-up. Shame on those who provided false testimony, and those who suppressed and fabricated the evidence needed to frame Libya. And shame on the media for their accomplice silence."The McKie's know best than most the cost of injustice. Shirley McKie was a successful policewoman until her life was shattered in February 1997 when four experts from the Scottish Criminal Records Office incorrectly identified a thumbprint from a crime scene as hers.

Marquise has made other comments about the article that I will discuss at a later time. However, I wish to point out that Marquise is right to state that the quotes attributed to Michael Scharf, formerly of U.S. State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence, although correct do not represent exactly his opinion, as they have been printed out of context by the British media. (Scharf helped draft the sanctions against Libya.)

Scharf wrote to me,

“The text of the quotes is more or less accurate but is out of context, giving the misimpression that I thought that the two Lockerbie defendants were innocent and the U.S. government knew this all along. In fact, I referred to them as "fall guys" because I felt the case should not have focused exclusively on them, but rather should have gone up the chain of command all the way to Khadaffi [Muammar al-Qaddafi], and should also have focused on the possible involvement of third countries.

“It is true, as your quote indicates, that I felt the evidentiary case presented at Camp Zeist was not as strong as the Department of Justice had led the Department of State to believe it would be at the time we were pushing for sanctions against Libya in the U.N., but that is not to say that I thought the defendants were actually innocent of wrong doing, which is the impression left by the quotes.If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is the fact that no one except the judges is satisfied with the Lockerbie trial.”

Meanwhile, new extraordinary revelations have surfaced that support my view that the Lockerbie trial was engineered by Western intelligence services to frame Libya.

'Secret' Lockerbie Report Claim

Crucial information in the possession of the CIA that is related to the timer issue was withheld from the defense. The Heraldof Glasgow revealed on Oct. 2 that "a top secret [CIA] document vital to unearthing the truth about the Lockerbie bombing was obtained by the Crown Office but never shown to the defense team."

"The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) has uncovered there is a document which was in the possession of the crown and was not disclosed to the defense, which concerns the supply of MST-13 timers. Moreover, the commission has determined the decision to keep the document from the defense may have constituted a miscarriage of justice," the paper reported a source as saying.

The prosecutors have refused to make public the ultra secret document on the basis of national security. Many have been wondering what national security has to do with the Lockerbie bombing. "It is shocking to me that after 19 years of trying to get to the truth about who murdered my daughter national security is being used as an excuse," said Swire.

After having seen the CIA document, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission team that investigated the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi decided to grant him a second appeal. The document has not yet been seen by the defense. The document is thought to dispute the pivotal fact that the bomb was triggered by the MST-13 timer that linked the case to Libya.

The non-disclosure agreement was signed by Norman McFadyen, then one of the leading members of the prosecution, on June 1, 2000.

In an exclusive interview earlier this week, Koechler told Gordon Brewer of the BCC's "Newsnight Scotland,"

The withholding of evidence by the investigators and the prosecution from the defense at the Lockerbie court is a serious breach of the fundamental norms of a fair trial. If such action occurs on the basis of a written commitment given to a foreign intelligence service, as has now been revealed concerning crucial evidence related to the timer that allegedly triggered the explosion of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, the judicial nature of the entire proceedings is to be put into question.

If a foreign intelligence service is allowed to determine what evidence may be disclosed in court and what not, judicial proceedings before a court of law are perverted into a kind of intelligence operation the purpose of which is not the search for the truth, but the obfuscation of reality.Black has said,

If a foreign intelligence agency says they would be prepared to give the crown access only if they promise to keep the information secret, then it is the responsibility of the crown to say we cannot do that. They have an ethical responsibility not to sign such agreements.

This tends to indicate that the crown has not changed its fundamental stance that says they will decide what the public interest is and what information should or should not be disclosed. That is fundamentally wrong.The source in the Herald's report agrees: "The commission was unable to obtain authority for its disclosure. Without access to this document, the defense is disabled from putting before the court full and comprehensive grounds of appeal as to why the conviction should be quashed."

CIA Offered $2m to Lockerbie Witnesses

It now appears that huge amounts of money were offered by U.S. officials to at least three key witnesses. The defense was never told that the CIA had offered millions of dollars to their star witnesses.

"We understand the commission found new documents which refer to discussions between the U.S. intelligence agency and the Gaucis [Tony and his brother Paul] and that the sum involved was as much as $2m," a source close to the case told The Herald, according to an Oct. 3 report. "Even if they did not receive the money, the fact these discussions took place should have been divulged to the defense." Tony Gauci was an instrumental witness in the case.

On Oct. 5, Edwin Bollier, head of the Zurich-based company MeBo, told Koechler that during a visit to the headquarters of the FBI in Washington, D.C., at the beginning of 1991, he was offered an amount of up to $4 million plus a new identity in the U.S. if he would testify in court that the timer fragment that was allegedly found on the crash site around Lockerbie stemmed from a MST-13 timer that his company had delivered to Libya.

Media Silence

Will the media finally cover this extraordinary affair? Perhaps. In France, Le Figaro has published a couple of stories, one of which was entitled: "And if Libya Was Innocent …" Television channel France 3 reported the story of the Lumpert affidavit.

In the U.K., The Herald has picked up the latest developments in the story. The BBC has published a few lines about it. The London journal Private Eye is rumored to be running the story in its next edition. U.S. media remain amazingly silent.

Quo Vadis?

"In view of all these revelations and serious allegations, Koechler renewed his call for an independent international investigation of the handling of the Lockerbie case by the Scottish and British authorities," wrote Gordon Brewer of the BCC's "Newsnight Scotland."

"It remains to be seen whether the Scottish judicial and political system will live up to the challenge and whether the authorities will allow a full and objective inquiry," Brewer said. I have very little hope that the Scottish judicial and political system will allow an independent international investigation.

For now, I encourage my readers to reflect upon a Persian saying. "Shame on those who committed the deed. Shame on those who allowed the deed to be committed."

Ludwig De Braeckeleer has a Ph.D. in nuclear sciences. He teaches physics and international humanitarian law. He blogs on "The GaiaPost.”

©2007 OhmyNews

http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=380601&rel_no=1&back_url=

Tom Thurman "identifies" the dodgy timer fragment

[It was on this date twenty-five years ago that the FBI’s James ‘Tom’ Thurman, so he says, identified the fragment of circuit board PT/35b as coming from a MST-13 timer manufactured by the Swiss company MEBO. The circumstances are narrated in chapter 4 of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury, especially at pages 62 to 66. The account that follows is taken from a long article entitled Thurman’s Photo Quest on Caustic Logic’s blog The Lockerbie Divide:]

What we have in Thurman's case, with or without the actual piece of evidence, was the crucial identification. And one point that's consistent throughout is that he held a photo only when he found the match. The question at hand is how long it took him to find it and to determine its meaning vis-a-vis who carried out the bombing.

Tom Gets a Green Light

On the 10th of January 1990 new Senior Investigating Officer Stuart Henderson (who replaced John Orr) presented at a meeting of investigators in the UK. He did not openly mention the circuit board fragment PT/35(b), an amazing find UK investigators had been puzzling over for four months. But off to the side, he told FBI chief investigator Richard Marquise about it, Marquise says in his 2006 book SCOTBOM.  [p58] He expressed interest in helping find a match, but Henderson insisted on going it alone. “This decision cost us six months,” writes Marquise.

It was at a later conference in Virginia, on 11 June, when Marquise relates how the Scots finally made their puzzlement known to all, having blindly checked 55 companies to no avail. Given the opening, special Agent Thurman “approached Henderson and asked if he could take photographs of PT-35 and attempt to identify it. Henderson, who believed the Scots had done all they could do, agreed.” [p60] This passage is (...) rather ambiguous. It seems to read that Thurman, in Arlington, was allowed to snap a pic of evidence SIO Henderson had there with him. Then perhaps it means he took some of the prints they had brought.

Either way, he walked away with a picture or pictures of this crucial and curious evidence, a half-inch square, perfectly readable, mammoth of implausibility. The "forensic explosives expert" didn't balk at it, just ran with it. Or crawled, as he suggests.

"Months, Literally" or 2-4 Days?

A 1991 Miami Herald article, based on interview with Thurman, reported that he had “meticulously compared the picture of the fragment to hundreds of other devices,” a lengthy-sounding process. Affirming this, Thurman himself told the adoring program Air Crash Investigation in 2008:

“I spent, uh, months, literally, looking through all about the files of the FBI on other examinations that we had, uh, conducted over many many many years. […] After a period I just ran out of leads. And at that point I said, okay now we need to go outside the physical FBI laboratory.”

And it was there, in a CIA facility, that he found the long-sought answer.

But Marquise said “what Thurman did yielded fruit within two days.[…] Henderson and his colleagues were on an airplane headed back to Scotland” when Thurman set to work. They had barely settled back in at home before his efforts “would turn Henderson around quicker than he ever imagined,” putting him back stateside, along with electronics fiend Alan Feraday, within 24 hours of the discovery. [p60]

Further evidence against Thurman’s "months" claim is his own well-memorized “day that I made the identification,” recalling it as one would a wedding anniversary: June 15 1990. He had four days tops to get this grueling season of cross-checking out of the way after the 11 June conference (perhaps a multi-day event) where Marquise has him first learning of the thing.

Who He Ran To

What Thurman did, Marquise sums up, is know where to look. He took the photo to a CIA explosives and timers expert code-named John Scott Orkin (real name unknown - he testified under this name at Camp Zeist). [p60] Thurman mentions him only as an unnamed "contact" in the 2008 ACI interview.  From the vast photo files on hand, "Orkin" helped locate an obvious fit with the blow-up of PT/35(b). If you were Tom Thurman and knew about John Orkin, would you waste even one afternoon scrounging in the FBI's files, or go right to him?

Nothing I've seen specifies this match-up was achieved in only one visit on a single day, but that makes the most sense, as does starting right there. That would give us no more than "hours, literally" to describe the search duration. And either way we're at the point of days at most.

The matching circuit board was found in a timer confiscated in the African nation Togo in 1986. This device, assembled in a small plastic case, was physically available for Thurman to look at. He was given permission to take it apart and examine the main board inside. Upon confirming again the obvious similarities, “within a few minutes, literally, I started getting cold chills,” he told Air Crash Investigation.  He's also described as declaring "I have you now!" [p60] and other variations. In a 2010 interview, he said "I could not believe it under any circumstances, and it was there."

That he got these chills only after getting access to the CIA’s special stores is noteworthy, and the Agency is right to claim much of the credit, as they have in places. An AFIO newsletter from just after the Zeist verdict purred that “the CIA’s most important contribution in helping secure the conviction” was “when a CIA engineer was able to identify the timer […] shifting the focus of the probe from a Palestinian terrorist group to Libya.”  (This report's oblique reference to the CIA's less brilliant offering, Giaka, is also worth a read.)

As the overall story tells it, this was clearly a collaborative CIA-FBI effort, via Thurman and "Orkin", that neither side can claim sole credit for. And without this coming together, we're to infer, the naming of this planted piece of Libyan black magic would be delayed or impossible for both Scottish and American investigators. The power of cooperation, between intelligence and law enforcement, and across the Atlantic - a running theme of the 103 investigation - is nicely illustrated here.

[Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer is currently engaged on his PT35B blog in a meticulous exploration of all the evidence about the identification of this fragment.]