I am grateful to Patrick Haseldine for the following e-mail setting out his reasons for believing that apartheid South Africa may have been responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103:
Dear Robert,Now that a "US court orders Libya to pay $6bn" in damages to the relatives of seven US victims of the September 1989 UTA Flight 772 bombing, and to the American owner of the DC-10 aircraft (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7191278.stm), the United Nations should investigate both Pan Am Flight 103 (http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387992.html) and UTA Flight 772.The way that Libya was "fitted up" for both crimes is succinctly explained by French investigative journalist, Pierre Péan, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Péan#FBI_fabricated_evidence_against_Libya.The obvious starter question for the UN Inquiry to address is: But if Libya didn't do it, who did?
There is no shortage of suspects but for my money apartheid South Africa is the clear favourite. This is why:1. The Reagan/Gorbachev summit in Moscow in May 1988 decided that South Africa had to grant Namibia its independence, in return for Cuba's withdrawal of troops from Angola and the cutting off of military aid by the Soviet Union (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Accords)2. It was US presidential election year in 1988, and Democrat nominee Michael Dukakis would have declared South Africa to be a "terrorist state" (along with Libya and Iran) if he were elected US president (see http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDC133BF930A25755C0A96E948260).3. South Africa's nightmare was to have SWAPO take control of Namibia with more than 66% of the vote, since this would have allowed SWAPO to re-write the independence constitution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Namibia#Negotiations_and_transition). Measures were therefore taken for South Africa's Civil Cooperation Bureau to disrupt the election process, to harass the UN Special Representative Martti Ahtisaari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martti_Ahtisaari#Diplomatic_career) and to take out prominent SWAPO activists (eg Anton Lubowski). The Koevoet paramilitary force was also deployed to prevent SWAPO's military wing returning from overseas bases. And, according to The Guardian of July 26, 1991, Foreign Minister Pik Botha told a press conference that the South African government had paid more than £20 million to at least seven political parties in Namibia to oppose SWAPO in the run-up to the 1989 elections. He justified the expenditure on the grounds that South Africa was at war with SWAPO at the time.4. UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was in an anomalous position. In theory, Carlsson was the UN's Governor of Namibia (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE4D9143EF931A15751C1A96E948260). But, United Nations authority over Namibia was never recognised by the South African Government, who administered the territory through an Administrator-General, Louis Pienaar, and it is unclear what role Bernt Carlsson would have played in the run-up to Namibia's independence. A UN Inquiry into Carlsson's death on Pan Am Flight 103 will doubtless help to resolve this anomaly.The full text of ten letters I had published in The Guardian is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Patrick_Haseldine#Letters_to_The_Guardian. The first letter was published 14 days before the Lockerbie bombing. The nine subsequent letters all seek to incriminate the apartheid regime for Pan Am Flight 103, and one even suggests that South Africa was responsible for the UTA Flight 772 bombing (The bearer of strange tidings from Islamic Jihad)!Yours sincerely,
Patrick.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query UTA. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query UTA. Sort by date Show all posts
Monday 21 January 2008
Patrick Haseldine on Lockerbie
Thursday 7 January 2016
Uncovering real cause of Lockerbie tragedy was politically inexpedient
[What follows is excerpted from an article by Trowbridge H Ford entitled MI6's Sir John Scarlett: A Career of Increasingly Dangerous Failure that was published on this date in 2008:]
By this time [December 1990], Scarlett was busily arranging the set up of Libya for more terrorism. On December 21,1988, Pan Am Flight 103 had blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including Charles McKee's CIA investigative team returning from Beirut where it had been uncovering the deepest secrets of the Iran-Contra scandal - apparently Syrian Monzar Al-Kassar's efforts to free hostages there, and in Africa for the French in return for continued protection of his drug-smuggling operations. While this was going on, Al-Kassar's people learned everything they needed to know about how to stop it from returning to the States. When CIA's handlers of Al-Kassar in Washington learned of this, they allowed a suspicious suitcase on the plane despite a NSA warning of an attack on an airliner, thinking, it seems, that it was just more of his drug operations when, in fact, his associates slipped a Semtex device on the flight originating from Frankfurt.
Uncovering the real cause of the Lockerbie tragedy was most politically inexpedient as London and Washington were increasingly focusing on a showdown with Iraq's Saddam Hussein. In any confrontation with the dictator, it was essential to have both Syria and Iran at least on the sidelines, something impossible if Al-Kassar, brother-in-law of Syria's intelligence chief, and lover of its despot Hafez Al-Assad's niece, were ever indicted for the crime. As in the Palme assassination, the failure to find some apparent culprit for the mass murder - what could increasingly not be simply blamed on unknown terrorists - was putting more and more pressure onWest Germany's counterterrorists for apparently allowing it to happen. The real story had to be buried, as Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen wrote in The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, "in the graveyard of geopolitics." (p 286)
Scarlett, it seems, was the grave digger. On September 19, 1989, a Union des Transport Aériens (UTA) flight exploded over the Sahara in Niger while on its way from Brazzaville to Paris, via N'Djamena in Chad, killing all 171 passengers, including American Ambassador to Chad Robert Pugh's wife Bonnie, leaving "...a scene all too reminiscent of Lockerbie, Scotland." (Ted Gup, The Book of Honor, p 310) The similarity was not missed by France's DST, and Scarlett, the SIS resident in Paris, either, and they soon started connecting together the two bombings at Libya's expense.
Robert Pugh was the deputy chief of mission in Beirut who had had to clean up the mess when the American Embassy was bombed in April 1983, and the resulting CIA Counterterrorist Center (CTC) to stop such atrocities required a no-holds-barred solution to the Lockerbie bombing. Inter-agency cooperation of the highest degree, both domestic and foreign, was required if any culprits were ever to be caught, given the new legal restraints on how intelligence operations were to be conducted.
The task was to link Libya as having "...been ultimately responsible for both Pan Am 103 and UTA 772." (Ibid) While authorities were searching the desert for the wreckage of the French airliner, they apparently found the circuit board which was responsible for the IED explosion - what reminded investigators of what had happened to the same UTA flight back on March 10, 1984 when it exploded without loss of life while parked on the tarmac in Brazzaville - and now Anglo-American authorities worked together to create the same scene in the Scotland wreckage. A CIA agent planted parts from the same kind of detonator in the wreckage area of the Lockerbie crash while looking for belongings of its deceased personnel which was found by Bureau agents in early 1990 while they were searching for evidence of what caused the crash.
As in the Palme fiasco, Scarlett worked with the former SIS agent in Oslo, Robert Andrew Fulton apparently aka Mack Falkirk, who became its chief agent in Washington. While Scarlett was persuading his superiors to allow the CIA and FBI complete access to the Lockerbie crash site, Fulton was priming their superiors back in Washington to make the most of the opportunity. Scarlett put the icing on the cake, it seems, by persuading Abd Al-majid Jaaka, a Libyan intelligence officer who had defected to the British embassy in Tunis, to tell his story to the Americans in Rome, and claim that two former colleagues had prepared the bomb which blew up the airliner in revenge for the UK/USA bombing of Tripoli after the Palme assassination. The ruse was so successful that by the time Libya finally handed over the two fallguys for trial in Holland, Anglo-American covert operators were completely in charge of the prosecution. [RB: I know of no evidence supporting the statement that Giaka defected to the British embassy in Tunis rather than from Malta via a US Navy ship.]
Scarlett's particular contribution to their conviction, as MI6's Director of Security and Public Affairs, was to persuade disgruntled MI5 whistleblower Daivd Shayler to join SIS, and to claim that Gaddafi's destruction of Pan Am flight 103 had so angered SIS that it had plotted to assassinate him, with Al-Qaeda's help, in 1995/6. As Shayler and his former mistress Annie Machon have written in Spies, Lies & Whistleblowers: while there was no credible evidence that the Iranians were behind the Lockerbie bombing there was no question that Gaddafi was. With everyone fixed on the alleged SIS assassination of the Libyan leader, it helped make their claim about Lockerbie tragedy a foregone conclusion.
To add injury to injury, Machon and Shayler made it sound as if Scarlett was the victim of some kind of British Stalinism where intelligence service chiefs were obliged to go along with what their political bosses demanded. As Dame Stella Rimington had explained her appointment to head the Security Service in her autobiography, Open Secret, as learning to go along with her superiors, so Scarlett became SIS director general after his time as head of the Joint Intelligence Committee where he supinely agreed to the doctoring of the 'dodgy dossier' on Iraq's alleged WMD to suit the demands of Downing Street. They added:
"David has always said that the intelligence services are anything but meritocratic, with those not rocking the boat more likely to be promoted than those who stand up for what is right. Scarlett's appointment has provided more than ample proof of that." (p 357)
To show that this was anything but the truth, Scarlett then arranged for his buddy Andrew Fulton to officially resign from SIS, and take up a visiting professorship at Glasgow's School of Law, though he had had no legal training, much less any legal degrees. In 2000, he volunteered his services as legal advisor to the Lockerbie Commission on briefing the press about the trial [sic; a reference to Glasgow University's Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit], and his handiwork became so notorious that he was forced to resign, once his background became known. For a sample of it, see what Machon and Shayler did with the British media's attempts to exonerate Qaddafi for Lockerbie.
By this time [December 1990], Scarlett was busily arranging the set up of Libya for more terrorism. On December 21,1988, Pan Am Flight 103 had blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including Charles McKee's CIA investigative team returning from Beirut where it had been uncovering the deepest secrets of the Iran-Contra scandal - apparently Syrian Monzar Al-Kassar's efforts to free hostages there, and in Africa for the French in return for continued protection of his drug-smuggling operations. While this was going on, Al-Kassar's people learned everything they needed to know about how to stop it from returning to the States. When CIA's handlers of Al-Kassar in Washington learned of this, they allowed a suspicious suitcase on the plane despite a NSA warning of an attack on an airliner, thinking, it seems, that it was just more of his drug operations when, in fact, his associates slipped a Semtex device on the flight originating from Frankfurt.
Uncovering the real cause of the Lockerbie tragedy was most politically inexpedient as London and Washington were increasingly focusing on a showdown with Iraq's Saddam Hussein. In any confrontation with the dictator, it was essential to have both Syria and Iran at least on the sidelines, something impossible if Al-Kassar, brother-in-law of Syria's intelligence chief, and lover of its despot Hafez Al-Assad's niece, were ever indicted for the crime. As in the Palme assassination, the failure to find some apparent culprit for the mass murder - what could increasingly not be simply blamed on unknown terrorists - was putting more and more pressure onWest Germany's counterterrorists for apparently allowing it to happen. The real story had to be buried, as Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen wrote in The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, "in the graveyard of geopolitics." (p 286)
Scarlett, it seems, was the grave digger. On September 19, 1989, a Union des Transport Aériens (UTA) flight exploded over the Sahara in Niger while on its way from Brazzaville to Paris, via N'Djamena in Chad, killing all 171 passengers, including American Ambassador to Chad Robert Pugh's wife Bonnie, leaving "...a scene all too reminiscent of Lockerbie, Scotland." (Ted Gup, The Book of Honor, p 310) The similarity was not missed by France's DST, and Scarlett, the SIS resident in Paris, either, and they soon started connecting together the two bombings at Libya's expense.
Robert Pugh was the deputy chief of mission in Beirut who had had to clean up the mess when the American Embassy was bombed in April 1983, and the resulting CIA Counterterrorist Center (CTC) to stop such atrocities required a no-holds-barred solution to the Lockerbie bombing. Inter-agency cooperation of the highest degree, both domestic and foreign, was required if any culprits were ever to be caught, given the new legal restraints on how intelligence operations were to be conducted.
The task was to link Libya as having "...been ultimately responsible for both Pan Am 103 and UTA 772." (Ibid) While authorities were searching the desert for the wreckage of the French airliner, they apparently found the circuit board which was responsible for the IED explosion - what reminded investigators of what had happened to the same UTA flight back on March 10, 1984 when it exploded without loss of life while parked on the tarmac in Brazzaville - and now Anglo-American authorities worked together to create the same scene in the Scotland wreckage. A CIA agent planted parts from the same kind of detonator in the wreckage area of the Lockerbie crash while looking for belongings of its deceased personnel which was found by Bureau agents in early 1990 while they were searching for evidence of what caused the crash.
As in the Palme fiasco, Scarlett worked with the former SIS agent in Oslo, Robert Andrew Fulton apparently aka Mack Falkirk, who became its chief agent in Washington. While Scarlett was persuading his superiors to allow the CIA and FBI complete access to the Lockerbie crash site, Fulton was priming their superiors back in Washington to make the most of the opportunity. Scarlett put the icing on the cake, it seems, by persuading Abd Al-majid Jaaka, a Libyan intelligence officer who had defected to the British embassy in Tunis, to tell his story to the Americans in Rome, and claim that two former colleagues had prepared the bomb which blew up the airliner in revenge for the UK/USA bombing of Tripoli after the Palme assassination. The ruse was so successful that by the time Libya finally handed over the two fallguys for trial in Holland, Anglo-American covert operators were completely in charge of the prosecution. [RB: I know of no evidence supporting the statement that Giaka defected to the British embassy in Tunis rather than from Malta via a US Navy ship.]
Scarlett's particular contribution to their conviction, as MI6's Director of Security and Public Affairs, was to persuade disgruntled MI5 whistleblower Daivd Shayler to join SIS, and to claim that Gaddafi's destruction of Pan Am flight 103 had so angered SIS that it had plotted to assassinate him, with Al-Qaeda's help, in 1995/6. As Shayler and his former mistress Annie Machon have written in Spies, Lies & Whistleblowers: while there was no credible evidence that the Iranians were behind the Lockerbie bombing there was no question that Gaddafi was. With everyone fixed on the alleged SIS assassination of the Libyan leader, it helped make their claim about Lockerbie tragedy a foregone conclusion.
To add injury to injury, Machon and Shayler made it sound as if Scarlett was the victim of some kind of British Stalinism where intelligence service chiefs were obliged to go along with what their political bosses demanded. As Dame Stella Rimington had explained her appointment to head the Security Service in her autobiography, Open Secret, as learning to go along with her superiors, so Scarlett became SIS director general after his time as head of the Joint Intelligence Committee where he supinely agreed to the doctoring of the 'dodgy dossier' on Iraq's alleged WMD to suit the demands of Downing Street. They added:
"David has always said that the intelligence services are anything but meritocratic, with those not rocking the boat more likely to be promoted than those who stand up for what is right. Scarlett's appointment has provided more than ample proof of that." (p 357)
To show that this was anything but the truth, Scarlett then arranged for his buddy Andrew Fulton to officially resign from SIS, and take up a visiting professorship at Glasgow's School of Law, though he had had no legal training, much less any legal degrees. In 2000, he volunteered his services as legal advisor to the Lockerbie Commission on briefing the press about the trial [sic; a reference to Glasgow University's Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit], and his handiwork became so notorious that he was forced to resign, once his background became known. For a sample of it, see what Machon and Shayler did with the British media's attempts to exonerate Qaddafi for Lockerbie.
Monday 14 July 2014
Pan Am 103 and UTA 772
Today being Bastille Day, I felicitate this blog’s followers in France (the tenth largest source of its traffic).
On this day it seems appropriate to provide a reminder of what may be regarded as the principal link between France and the Lockerbie disaster. This is the destruction of UTA flight 772 over Niger on 19 September 1989 resulting in the deaths of all 170 passengers and crew on board the DC-10 aircraft. References to this tragedy on this blog can be accessed here.
On this day it seems appropriate to provide a reminder of what may be regarded as the principal link between France and the Lockerbie disaster. This is the destruction of UTA flight 772 over Niger on 19 September 1989 resulting in the deaths of all 170 passengers and crew on board the DC-10 aircraft. References to this tragedy on this blog can be accessed here.
Saturday 9 September 2017
France delays removal of UN sanctions against Libya
The United Nations Security Council has postponed until Friday a vote to lift more than a decade of sanctions against Libya, following French objections.
The draft resolution - tabled by Britain and Bulgaria - calls for an immediate end to a ban on arms sales and air links with Tripoli, imposed after the bombing of an aircraft over Scotland in 1988.
Libya has admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, and has offered $2.7bn to relatives of the 270 victims.
But France asked the Council to delay the vote over what it described as inadequate compensation from Libya for the bombing of a French airliner in 1989.
"In the absence of a fair agreement between the families and the Libyan side - which seems at this stage to be within reach - France would have no other choice than to oppose the draft resolution," a French foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement before the Council met.
Both Britain and the United States have said Libya has met all the requirements to have the sanctions removed.
The sanctions were suspended in 1999 after Libya handed over two men accused of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the town of Lockerbie in which 270 people died.
Libya agreed on a settlement for the victims' families, but the figure overshadowed the $33m compensation Tripoli awarded relatives of 170 people killed when a French UTA flight was bombed over Niger in September, 1989.
French authorities have been negotiating with Libya for an improved deal and have threatened to block the resolution unless an agreement is struck.
"What we hope is that the vote will be a little bit more delayed to obtain a settlement, and if the British insist on calling for a vote, we hope that France will veto the resolution," said Francoise Rudetzki, a representative of the French victims' families.
The French foreign ministry has said the victims' relatives will have the final say on any deal.
The vote had already been delayed to give France more time to resolve the issue.
Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has been hoping for an end to the sanctions, which have isolated Libya from the international community for many years.
Libya has never accepted responsibility for the downing of the UTA flight, but agreed to pay compensation after a Paris court convicted six Libyans of the bombing in absentia.
Sunday 14 July 2013
UTA 772 and Pan Am 103
Today being Bastille Day, it seems appropriate to provide a reminder of what may be regarded as the principal link between France and the Lockerbie disaster. This is the destruction of UTA flight 772 over Niger on 19 September 1989 resulting in the deaths of all 170 passengers and crew on board the DC-10 aircraft. References to this tragedy on this blog, dating from 7 January 2008 to 28 May 2013, can be accessed here.
Wednesday 21 January 2009
Pan Am 103 and UTA 772
The latest post on The Masonic Verses blog concerns the destruction of UTA 772 over Niger on 19 September 1989. Interesting parallels and contrasts are drawn with the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.
Friday 8 April 2011
Jim Swire on "Gaddafi Terror Victims' Initiative"
[I am grateful to Dr Jim Swire for allowing me to publish here his reaction, contained in an e-mail sent to UK Lockerbie relatives, to the proposal soon to be announced by a number of US relatives of Lockerbie victims to launch a Gaddafi Terror Victims Initiative.]
I have no doubt that the 'Gaddafi terror victims initiative' from Victoria Cummock and Paul Hudson is launched with the very best of intentions and with sincerity. However I personally fear that, in terms of the Lockerbie atrocity it is unwise and may lead to unnecessary further grief for them, and perhaps all of us Lockerbie relatives. I hope it may empower those thousands of other victims of a long and brutal regime, though the healing of all that must come surely from within Libyan society,
I understand that a UK based lawyer is in Benghazi to gather and orchestrate support, and fully expect that the result will be an initiative supported by those now opposing Gaddafi there.
So far as Lockerbie is concerned, this initiative is, I believe, based on profoundly insecure foundations. Its title presupposes the guilt of the Gaddafi regime, its content presupposes the guilt of Megrahi.
The words of defectors to Benghazi, or of Moussa Koussa, come to that, should be regarded with the greatest circumspection, taking their present situations into account. War generates fog, and truth is then even harder to come by.
It has now become possible for those who were not present throughout the trial of Megrahi/Fhima to see with greater clarity, if they have the open-mindedness and patience to look, that Megrahi could not have been guilty as charged.
Without the certainty that Megrahi was guilty, which is implicit in this initiative, there can as yet be no certainty that the Libyan regime itself was involved, at least in the way that most in America believe.
In order to achieve the verdict against Megrahi, it was necessary both to conceal some evidence, some of which has now become available, but it also seems to have been necessary to inject some evidence which appears to have been deliberately fabricated.
Some of the crucial concealment of evidence appears to have been the responsibility of the investigating Scottish police, and perhaps their mentors.
Some of the apparently fabricated introduced evidence appears to have originated from intelligence sources operating in support of the US government, but also requiring collusion within the UK investigation.
Throughout the post-tragedy years there has been an undertow of a lust for revenge against the alleged perpetrators, without first establishing a sound basis for believing in their guilt. That was true even before the trial in Zeist had begun.
There are real suspicions that the UK Government of the day may also have interfered in the structure of the ensuing investigation into the tragedy, reducing the visibility of their own culpability in the process.
Press reports in the intervening years have suggested that both the UK and US leaders agreed that the investigation of the tragedy should be kept 'low key'.
Following the UTA (French) disaster, Moussa Koussa was investigated by Judge Brugiere and rejected as a suspect in that atrocity. The French investigation named Senussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law as the main perpetrator, and he was sentenced to 'life', in absentia. For the sake of the UTA relatives, it is to be hoped that he, and those named with him, may be 'flushed out' by present events, to serve their sentences.
That does not imply that the Libyan regime was directly responsible for Lockerbie, any more than it exonerates them. The Lockerbie investigation did not assess evidence for or against members of the Libyan regime per se, merely alleging that the two accused Libyans had colluded with others. To search for truth amongst the ruins of Libya would be more likely to bear fruit when the fog of war has settled, but one can only admire the determination of those behind this initiative to seek out the truth: but how can they recognise it, if the core presumptions of the searchers turn out to be incorrect?
For some of us, one of the main reasons for seeking trial under Scottish rather than American law, was to avoid the possibility of the death penalty. Megrahi, now so widely acknowledged to be innocent of the charges against him, would no doubt be long dead had he been tried in the USA.
I believe there is a better way forward, and that is first to allow a complete review of the Megrahi verdict through whatever legal process can be engaged to achieve that, making use of all the evidence now available. Such a process will have to exclude the possibility that executives who have made serious mistakes, or even acted criminally in their work on this case, might try to damage the review process.
From 1991 onwards I had presumed that the two indicted Libyans must be among the guilty. It was the evidence I heard throughout the Zeist trial, specially the forensic evidence about the PFLP-GC IEDs, which converted me to believing that I had not heard the truth, and that they were not guilty as charged. Only after my conversion and after the verdict did we discover the evidence of the break-in.
Meanwhile we should remember a number of existing concerns about the trial itself.
1. The UN's special observer of the Megrahi/Fhima trial has roundly condemned it as not having represented justice.
2. Intelligence assets from the US and from Libya were present amongst the prosecution and defence teams in the well of the court. This even opened the possibility of covert prompting of witnesses.
3. Scotland's own Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission spent three years studying all the evidence then available and came to the conclusion that this trial may have been a miscarriage of justice. Political intervention has stifled publication of their full reasons to this day.
4. In Megrahi's first appeal his then defence team chose not even to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence heard in his main trial. Current knowledge has underlined how rash that was.
5. Scotland has had the opportunity for frank re-assessment of this case for 10 years, but has failed to do so, except through the SCCRC's findings, still partly politically suppressed. Megrahi's second appeal in Edinburgh was confounded by a combination of political interference and deliberate delaying tactics, until the issue of his illness put a stop to it. That court was briefly attended by two of the same officials from the US Department of Justice who had been active during the trial itself. They circulated emails which alleged that British relatives 'only attended while the press cameras were there'. In fact we were there to watch one DoJ official snoring during the proceedings, and we were there again after they had left. Again this does not suggest a scrupulous care for the truth.
6. An ever growing number of experienced lawyers and media commentators now believe that Megrahi should never have been convicted.
7. Nelson Mandela, himself a staunch supporter of getting the two accused Libyans to trial, said of it " No one country should be complainant prosecutor and judge." This principle was breached by the closeness of the US and the UK in assembling evidence, prosecuting and judging this case. It would be far more severely breached now, were the USA to assume sole responsibility for a renewed prosecution, as this initiative seems to hope.
8. The British Prime Minister at the time of Lockerbie, commanding huge respect in the USA, was Margaret Thatcher. In her book The Downing Street Years (ISBN 0 00 255049 0 published 1993) on pages 448/9, referring to her support for the USAF bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi under President Reagan in 1986, wrote: "It [the USAF bombing of Tripoli] turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined....the much vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place......there was a marked decline in Libyan sponsored terrorism in succeeding years"
One is left wondering what connection there may be between this extraordinary claim, and the suppression of the evidence of the break-in at Heathrow, so close to the baggage assembly shed, and to the Iran Air facility, on the night before Lockerbie.
If this break-in, as seems so likely, was the real portal of entry of the device, it would mean that the total failure of the Heathrow authorities to find out who broke in or why, or to suspend outgoing flights till they had some answers, would amount to nothing less than criminal negligence. I believe they did suspend outward bound flights eventually - after 19.03 on the 21st of December 1988 that is. Till that point there was simply money to be made as usual.
The break-in evidence coupled to the 38 minute flight time of the Lockerbie aircraft, when assessed together with the German forensic evidence led at Zeist, strongly suggest the use of a specialised type of IED, unique to the PFLP-GC Palestinian terrorist group in Syria. These IEDs all guaranteed a flight time of 35 to 45 minutes before exploding, required no setting by the user, and were unaffected by having to wait around in an airport, or anywhere else at ground level, no matter for how long, until required for use, when they would still always allow approximately 38 minutes flight time before exploding if put in an aircraft.
Do read the court transcripts.
We know from evidence led at Zeist that a substantial number of these IEDs had been made, though almost all had been confiscated by the (West) German police in October 1988. These IEDs had an air pressure sensitive switch; if exposed to the lower air pressure in a flying jet, they would all have exploded about 35-40 minutes from take-off, hence the need for bringing one by a surface route to Heathrow, to be introduced via a break-in requiring and absolutely no intervention within an airport, save that of getting them into an aircraft's hull.They were unique in their deadliness and in their fitness for purpose. Thus they could be left undisturbed, hidden in a suitcase.The break-in offered the ideal portal of entry. The overturning of the verdict against Megrahi will demonstrate just how unlikely the story that the IED ever came from Malta via Frankfurt always was
Whatever happened to the need to exclude 'reasonable doubt' in a criminal trial?.
Had the break-in evidence been available to the trial court, it is doubtful whether the trial could have continued.
Who suppressed it, and for what motive? Does Stuart Henderson of the investigating Scottish police force now admit knowing of its existence before the trial? If so why did the court not know of it too?
Do you feel angry that your family boarded a plane that night at an airport, which, despite having been warned of increased terrorist threat, didn't even bother to investigate a break-in which gave immediate access, not only to where the interline bags for their aircraft were assembled the following evening, but also to the Iran Air facility at that airport?
Then there is the disturbing fact that Iran lost an airbus and 290 people to a missile fired by the USS Vincennes only 6 months before Lockerbie, (in a ghastly error I believe). Iran then had to watch as the captain of that ship, Will Rogers, was awarded a medal after his return to the USA.. None need doubt that Lockerbie was an act of revenge, but by which country? If we were to get that wrong, the scene might be set for a further cycle of revenge.
However strong our need to find the truth about why our loved ones died, I believe we have an absolute obligation to find out what that truth really is, lest from our activities further injustice and revenge should be unleashed. We must not fall into that trap: surely the victims would not be proud of us if we did.
If we can exhibit a little more patience on top of the last 22 years, we shall see more of the truth. War, as over Libya now, generates fog not clarity, now is not the time to try to add an extra level onto the existing structure created in the hope of explaining what happened, its foundations will soon collapse anyway.
The allegations of those in Benghazi or from the likes of Moussa Koussa are particularly difficult to assess at this time, laced as they will be with strong but partially hidden motivations.
It has been difficult to keep referring to the growing doubts over 'the official version' all these years, precisely because of the distress it may have caused to others wishing to find closure in their acceptance of the Zeist verdict.
Of course all relatives of the dead are free to cope the best way they can, but I hope that there will be restraint over putting reliance on the claims of those whose country and futures are being so torn apart in Libya at this time.
Failure to show restraint now may make coping even harder in the years ahead.
Meanwhile the initiative's last sentence deserves everyone's total support: it reads: "No government should be able to suppress truth, justice and accountability for the sake [of] diplomatic convenience and oil money."
[This story has now been picked up and reported -- without acknowledgment, of course -- by The Guardian.]
I have no doubt that the 'Gaddafi terror victims initiative' from Victoria Cummock and Paul Hudson is launched with the very best of intentions and with sincerity. However I personally fear that, in terms of the Lockerbie atrocity it is unwise and may lead to unnecessary further grief for them, and perhaps all of us Lockerbie relatives. I hope it may empower those thousands of other victims of a long and brutal regime, though the healing of all that must come surely from within Libyan society,
I understand that a UK based lawyer is in Benghazi to gather and orchestrate support, and fully expect that the result will be an initiative supported by those now opposing Gaddafi there.
So far as Lockerbie is concerned, this initiative is, I believe, based on profoundly insecure foundations. Its title presupposes the guilt of the Gaddafi regime, its content presupposes the guilt of Megrahi.
The words of defectors to Benghazi, or of Moussa Koussa, come to that, should be regarded with the greatest circumspection, taking their present situations into account. War generates fog, and truth is then even harder to come by.
It has now become possible for those who were not present throughout the trial of Megrahi/Fhima to see with greater clarity, if they have the open-mindedness and patience to look, that Megrahi could not have been guilty as charged.
Without the certainty that Megrahi was guilty, which is implicit in this initiative, there can as yet be no certainty that the Libyan regime itself was involved, at least in the way that most in America believe.
In order to achieve the verdict against Megrahi, it was necessary both to conceal some evidence, some of which has now become available, but it also seems to have been necessary to inject some evidence which appears to have been deliberately fabricated.
Some of the crucial concealment of evidence appears to have been the responsibility of the investigating Scottish police, and perhaps their mentors.
Some of the apparently fabricated introduced evidence appears to have originated from intelligence sources operating in support of the US government, but also requiring collusion within the UK investigation.
Throughout the post-tragedy years there has been an undertow of a lust for revenge against the alleged perpetrators, without first establishing a sound basis for believing in their guilt. That was true even before the trial in Zeist had begun.
There are real suspicions that the UK Government of the day may also have interfered in the structure of the ensuing investigation into the tragedy, reducing the visibility of their own culpability in the process.
Press reports in the intervening years have suggested that both the UK and US leaders agreed that the investigation of the tragedy should be kept 'low key'.
Following the UTA (French) disaster, Moussa Koussa was investigated by Judge Brugiere and rejected as a suspect in that atrocity. The French investigation named Senussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law as the main perpetrator, and he was sentenced to 'life', in absentia. For the sake of the UTA relatives, it is to be hoped that he, and those named with him, may be 'flushed out' by present events, to serve their sentences.
That does not imply that the Libyan regime was directly responsible for Lockerbie, any more than it exonerates them. The Lockerbie investigation did not assess evidence for or against members of the Libyan regime per se, merely alleging that the two accused Libyans had colluded with others. To search for truth amongst the ruins of Libya would be more likely to bear fruit when the fog of war has settled, but one can only admire the determination of those behind this initiative to seek out the truth: but how can they recognise it, if the core presumptions of the searchers turn out to be incorrect?
For some of us, one of the main reasons for seeking trial under Scottish rather than American law, was to avoid the possibility of the death penalty. Megrahi, now so widely acknowledged to be innocent of the charges against him, would no doubt be long dead had he been tried in the USA.
I believe there is a better way forward, and that is first to allow a complete review of the Megrahi verdict through whatever legal process can be engaged to achieve that, making use of all the evidence now available. Such a process will have to exclude the possibility that executives who have made serious mistakes, or even acted criminally in their work on this case, might try to damage the review process.
From 1991 onwards I had presumed that the two indicted Libyans must be among the guilty. It was the evidence I heard throughout the Zeist trial, specially the forensic evidence about the PFLP-GC IEDs, which converted me to believing that I had not heard the truth, and that they were not guilty as charged. Only after my conversion and after the verdict did we discover the evidence of the break-in.
Meanwhile we should remember a number of existing concerns about the trial itself.
1. The UN's special observer of the Megrahi/Fhima trial has roundly condemned it as not having represented justice.
2. Intelligence assets from the US and from Libya were present amongst the prosecution and defence teams in the well of the court. This even opened the possibility of covert prompting of witnesses.
3. Scotland's own Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission spent three years studying all the evidence then available and came to the conclusion that this trial may have been a miscarriage of justice. Political intervention has stifled publication of their full reasons to this day.
4. In Megrahi's first appeal his then defence team chose not even to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence heard in his main trial. Current knowledge has underlined how rash that was.
5. Scotland has had the opportunity for frank re-assessment of this case for 10 years, but has failed to do so, except through the SCCRC's findings, still partly politically suppressed. Megrahi's second appeal in Edinburgh was confounded by a combination of political interference and deliberate delaying tactics, until the issue of his illness put a stop to it. That court was briefly attended by two of the same officials from the US Department of Justice who had been active during the trial itself. They circulated emails which alleged that British relatives 'only attended while the press cameras were there'. In fact we were there to watch one DoJ official snoring during the proceedings, and we were there again after they had left. Again this does not suggest a scrupulous care for the truth.
6. An ever growing number of experienced lawyers and media commentators now believe that Megrahi should never have been convicted.
7. Nelson Mandela, himself a staunch supporter of getting the two accused Libyans to trial, said of it " No one country should be complainant prosecutor and judge." This principle was breached by the closeness of the US and the UK in assembling evidence, prosecuting and judging this case. It would be far more severely breached now, were the USA to assume sole responsibility for a renewed prosecution, as this initiative seems to hope.
8. The British Prime Minister at the time of Lockerbie, commanding huge respect in the USA, was Margaret Thatcher. In her book The Downing Street Years (ISBN 0 00 255049 0 published 1993) on pages 448/9, referring to her support for the USAF bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi under President Reagan in 1986, wrote: "It [the USAF bombing of Tripoli] turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined....the much vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place......there was a marked decline in Libyan sponsored terrorism in succeeding years"
One is left wondering what connection there may be between this extraordinary claim, and the suppression of the evidence of the break-in at Heathrow, so close to the baggage assembly shed, and to the Iran Air facility, on the night before Lockerbie.
If this break-in, as seems so likely, was the real portal of entry of the device, it would mean that the total failure of the Heathrow authorities to find out who broke in or why, or to suspend outgoing flights till they had some answers, would amount to nothing less than criminal negligence. I believe they did suspend outward bound flights eventually - after 19.03 on the 21st of December 1988 that is. Till that point there was simply money to be made as usual.
The break-in evidence coupled to the 38 minute flight time of the Lockerbie aircraft, when assessed together with the German forensic evidence led at Zeist, strongly suggest the use of a specialised type of IED, unique to the PFLP-GC Palestinian terrorist group in Syria. These IEDs all guaranteed a flight time of 35 to 45 minutes before exploding, required no setting by the user, and were unaffected by having to wait around in an airport, or anywhere else at ground level, no matter for how long, until required for use, when they would still always allow approximately 38 minutes flight time before exploding if put in an aircraft.
Do read the court transcripts.
We know from evidence led at Zeist that a substantial number of these IEDs had been made, though almost all had been confiscated by the (West) German police in October 1988. These IEDs had an air pressure sensitive switch; if exposed to the lower air pressure in a flying jet, they would all have exploded about 35-40 minutes from take-off, hence the need for bringing one by a surface route to Heathrow, to be introduced via a break-in requiring and absolutely no intervention within an airport, save that of getting them into an aircraft's hull.They were unique in their deadliness and in their fitness for purpose. Thus they could be left undisturbed, hidden in a suitcase.The break-in offered the ideal portal of entry. The overturning of the verdict against Megrahi will demonstrate just how unlikely the story that the IED ever came from Malta via Frankfurt always was
Whatever happened to the need to exclude 'reasonable doubt' in a criminal trial?.
Had the break-in evidence been available to the trial court, it is doubtful whether the trial could have continued.
Who suppressed it, and for what motive? Does Stuart Henderson of the investigating Scottish police force now admit knowing of its existence before the trial? If so why did the court not know of it too?
Do you feel angry that your family boarded a plane that night at an airport, which, despite having been warned of increased terrorist threat, didn't even bother to investigate a break-in which gave immediate access, not only to where the interline bags for their aircraft were assembled the following evening, but also to the Iran Air facility at that airport?
Then there is the disturbing fact that Iran lost an airbus and 290 people to a missile fired by the USS Vincennes only 6 months before Lockerbie, (in a ghastly error I believe). Iran then had to watch as the captain of that ship, Will Rogers, was awarded a medal after his return to the USA.. None need doubt that Lockerbie was an act of revenge, but by which country? If we were to get that wrong, the scene might be set for a further cycle of revenge.
However strong our need to find the truth about why our loved ones died, I believe we have an absolute obligation to find out what that truth really is, lest from our activities further injustice and revenge should be unleashed. We must not fall into that trap: surely the victims would not be proud of us if we did.
If we can exhibit a little more patience on top of the last 22 years, we shall see more of the truth. War, as over Libya now, generates fog not clarity, now is not the time to try to add an extra level onto the existing structure created in the hope of explaining what happened, its foundations will soon collapse anyway.
The allegations of those in Benghazi or from the likes of Moussa Koussa are particularly difficult to assess at this time, laced as they will be with strong but partially hidden motivations.
It has been difficult to keep referring to the growing doubts over 'the official version' all these years, precisely because of the distress it may have caused to others wishing to find closure in their acceptance of the Zeist verdict.
Of course all relatives of the dead are free to cope the best way they can, but I hope that there will be restraint over putting reliance on the claims of those whose country and futures are being so torn apart in Libya at this time.
Failure to show restraint now may make coping even harder in the years ahead.
Meanwhile the initiative's last sentence deserves everyone's total support: it reads: "No government should be able to suppress truth, justice and accountability for the sake [of] diplomatic convenience and oil money."
[This story has now been picked up and reported -- without acknowledgment, of course -- by The Guardian.]
Saturday 27 August 2016
UN Security Council welcomes Lockerbie trial plan
[On this date in 1998 the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution welcoming the proposal made by the United Kingdom and the United States for a trial before a Scottish court in the Netherlands of the Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing, and directing all UN member states to cooperate with it. A press release issued by the Security Council reads as follows:]
The Security Council tonight welcomed a joint United Kingdom-United States initiative for the trial of the two suspects before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands, as well as the willingness of the Netherlands Government to cooperate in implementing this initiative. It called on the Governments of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to take the necessary steps to implement the proposal, including the conclusion of arrangements to enable the court to exercise jurisdiction in the terms of the agreement between the two Governments.
The Council also demanded again that the Libyan Government comply without delay with its resolutions relating to the terrorist bombings of a United States airliner, Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, and a French airliner, Union de transports aeriens (UTA) flight 772, the following year.
By the terms of its resolution (1192 [1998]), adopted unanimously, the Council decided that the Libyan Government should ensure the appearance of the two accused in the Netherlands for trial, and also ensure that any evidence or witnesses in Libya were promptly made available to the court upon request. It decided further that the suspects should be detained by the Dutch Government on arrival in the Netherlands and asked the Secretary-General to assist the Libyan Government with the physical arrangements for their transfer from Libya directly to the Netherlands.
The Council reaffirmed that the wide range of aerial, arms and diplomatic sanctions it imposed against Libya by its resolutions 748 (1992) and 883 (1993) remained in effect and binding on all Member States. It decided, however, that they would be suspended immediately once the Secretary- General reported that the two accused had arrived at the Netherlands for trial, or had appeared before an appropriate court in the United Kingdom or the United States, and that the Libyan Government had satisfied French judicial authorities investigating the 1989 bombing of UTA flight 772 over Niger, in which 171 people died. A total of 270 people were killed in the air and on the ground when a bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103 exploded over the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.
The Council expressed its intention to consider additional measures if the two accused did not arrive or appear for trial promptly in the Netherlands. It invited the Secretary-General to nominate international observers to attend the trial.
(By its resolution 731 [1992], the Council demanded immediate compliance by Libya to the requests made to it by France, the United Kingdom and the United States to cooperate fully in establishing responsibility for the terrorist acts against the two airliners. Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Council by resolutions 748 [1992] and 883 [1992] repeated those demands. Resolution 883 [1993] also required Libya to ensure that the two accused in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 appeared for trial in the appropriate United Kingdom or United States court.)
Statements were made by the representatives of the United States, Portugal, France, Brazil, Russian Federation, Japan, Sweden, Gambia, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Gabon, China, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. A representative of Libya also spoke.
The meeting, which was convened at 9:44 pm, adjourned at 11:10 pm.
Saturday 2 April 2011
'Koussa told me Lockerbie wasn't Libya's fault' – Dalyell
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads in part:]
Former MP and veteran campaigner Tam Dalyell says the high-level Libyan defector who arrived in the UK this week told him the Gaddafi regime had not been responsible for the Lockerbie bomb and pointed the finger at Palestinian terrorists.
Mr Dalyell also claimed that Scottish authorities could not be trusted to question former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, who has been a key figure in the Gaddafi regime for most of its 42 years. (...)
He is being kept in a safe house and has been questioned by MI6 officers and diplomats, but the Crown Office in Scotland is still pressing its claim to interview him about Lockerbie.
Mr Dalyell, who has long campaigned to find the truth behind the murder of 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988, held a one-and-a-half-hour meeting Mr Koussa at an Inter Parliamentary Union conference in Syria in March 2001.
The former MP said: "He asked to see me and we met along with John Cummings, who was then the MP for Easington. He wanted to discuss how to bring Libya back into the international community.
Obviously, Lockerbie played a large part in our discussions, but when I asked him about it, he said ‘that was none of my doing'."
Mr Dalyell maintains the real perpetrator of the crime was the Iranian-funded Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headed by Ahmed Jibril, although the main suspect, Abu Nidal, was probably tortured to death by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2002.
The organisation has been linked in a conspiracy theory involving a tacit agreement between the US authorities and the Iranian regime to allow a tit-for-tat revenge attack following the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in July 1988 by the USS Vincennes, with the loss of 290 lives .
Mr Dalyell told The Scotsman: "When I asked him [Koussa] about Nidal and Jabril, he said ‘you may not be wrong'.
"I do believe he knew a lot more about what happened than he was willing to tell me."
Despite the former spymaster's formidable reputation, Mr Dalyell said he found him "extremely friendly and frank".
"Other people have described him as scary, but I saw none of that," he said. (...)
But Mr Dalyell did not believe the Scottish authorities should be allowed to speak to Koussa. He said: "I think that two generations on, the officers at Dumfries and Galloway police force will be under terrible pressure to justify the investigation carried out by their predecessors."
He was more scathing about the Crown Office, which he has criticised for its handling of the case of Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, the only man found guilty of the attack, a conviction Mr Dalyell has claimed was wrong. "As I have said before, I believe that at times the Crown Office has been duplicitous about this," he said. "So they would be the wrong people to question him."
He said British diplomat Sir Richard Dalton was best-qualified to lead the questioning of Gaddafi's former close aide.
The Crown Office said it did not wish to comment on an "individual's comments" but that it was still in discussions with the Foreign Office regarding interviewing Mr Koussa over the Lockerbie bombing.
A spokesman said: "We are liaising with the Foreign Office regarding an interview with Mr Koussa. As with any ongoing investigation, we will not go into the details of our inquiries which includes the dates of interviews with any individuals."
[This story has now been picked up by the Libyan Enlish-language newspaper The Tripoli Post.
Moussa Koussa has also in conversation with me denied that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie. The response to this from those still blindly convinced of the truth of the official version of events will, of course, be "He would say that, wouldn't he?"
The following are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Herald:]
A friend of Moussa Koussa, who claims he helped to co-ordinate his defection to the UK, has said the former Libyan foreign minister will be very co-operative in giving key evidence about the Lockerbie bombing.
Noman Benotman, who now works as an analyst with the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-terrorism think-tank, made it clear that Koussa would be willing to open up to the British authorities about Libya’s past involvement in international terrorism, including the 1988 Lockerbie bombing which claimed 270 lives. (...)
Mr Benotman, who said he helped Koussa escape from Tripoli, said it would “not be an issue” for the UK Government to get information about Libyan-sponsored terrorism, including the bombing of a UTA flight in Niger in 1989.
He said: “It’s going to be very easy to handle all these issues regarding Lockerbie, UTA and the IRA as well. It’s not a problem, I’m sure about this.”
He said Koussa “is the regime – everybody knows that” and that he was one of only five people during the last 30 years who was close to Gaddafi.
“I want to emphasise ... why he chose London. It’s very important. He believes in the system of justice regardless of the outcomes. He is very co-operative regarding crucial intelligence,” added Mr Benotman, who was the leader of the jihadist and anti-Gaddafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group before he worked for the Quilliam Foundation.
First Minister Alex Salmond said police want to talk to Koussa “on the basis of information that might be provided” and that there was no suggestion at this stage that he was being treated as a suspect.
“Nonetheless, there is every reason to believe that this individual can shed light on the Lockerbie atrocity and the circumstances that led up to it,” Mr Salmond said.
[The Herald has an editorial on the Moussa Koussa "defection" issue which can be read here.
I find it more than a little surprising that a person who was "the leader of the jihadist and anti-Gaddafi Islamic Fighting Group" should be a friend of decades-long Gaddafi loyalist and henchman Moussa Koussa. As for helping him "to escape from Tripoli", Moussa travelled to Djerba in Tunisia in an official Libyan Government car, accompanied by Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, one of Gaddafi's most trusted counsellors.]
Former MP and veteran campaigner Tam Dalyell says the high-level Libyan defector who arrived in the UK this week told him the Gaddafi regime had not been responsible for the Lockerbie bomb and pointed the finger at Palestinian terrorists.
Mr Dalyell also claimed that Scottish authorities could not be trusted to question former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, who has been a key figure in the Gaddafi regime for most of its 42 years. (...)
He is being kept in a safe house and has been questioned by MI6 officers and diplomats, but the Crown Office in Scotland is still pressing its claim to interview him about Lockerbie.
Mr Dalyell, who has long campaigned to find the truth behind the murder of 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988, held a one-and-a-half-hour meeting Mr Koussa at an Inter Parliamentary Union conference in Syria in March 2001.
The former MP said: "He asked to see me and we met along with John Cummings, who was then the MP for Easington. He wanted to discuss how to bring Libya back into the international community.
Obviously, Lockerbie played a large part in our discussions, but when I asked him about it, he said ‘that was none of my doing'."
Mr Dalyell maintains the real perpetrator of the crime was the Iranian-funded Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headed by Ahmed Jibril, although the main suspect, Abu Nidal, was probably tortured to death by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2002.
The organisation has been linked in a conspiracy theory involving a tacit agreement between the US authorities and the Iranian regime to allow a tit-for-tat revenge attack following the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in July 1988 by the USS Vincennes, with the loss of 290 lives .
Mr Dalyell told The Scotsman: "When I asked him [Koussa] about Nidal and Jabril, he said ‘you may not be wrong'.
"I do believe he knew a lot more about what happened than he was willing to tell me."
Despite the former spymaster's formidable reputation, Mr Dalyell said he found him "extremely friendly and frank".
"Other people have described him as scary, but I saw none of that," he said. (...)
But Mr Dalyell did not believe the Scottish authorities should be allowed to speak to Koussa. He said: "I think that two generations on, the officers at Dumfries and Galloway police force will be under terrible pressure to justify the investigation carried out by their predecessors."
He was more scathing about the Crown Office, which he has criticised for its handling of the case of Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, the only man found guilty of the attack, a conviction Mr Dalyell has claimed was wrong. "As I have said before, I believe that at times the Crown Office has been duplicitous about this," he said. "So they would be the wrong people to question him."
He said British diplomat Sir Richard Dalton was best-qualified to lead the questioning of Gaddafi's former close aide.
The Crown Office said it did not wish to comment on an "individual's comments" but that it was still in discussions with the Foreign Office regarding interviewing Mr Koussa over the Lockerbie bombing.
A spokesman said: "We are liaising with the Foreign Office regarding an interview with Mr Koussa. As with any ongoing investigation, we will not go into the details of our inquiries which includes the dates of interviews with any individuals."
[This story has now been picked up by the Libyan Enlish-language newspaper The Tripoli Post.
Moussa Koussa has also in conversation with me denied that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie. The response to this from those still blindly convinced of the truth of the official version of events will, of course, be "He would say that, wouldn't he?"
The following are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Herald:]
A friend of Moussa Koussa, who claims he helped to co-ordinate his defection to the UK, has said the former Libyan foreign minister will be very co-operative in giving key evidence about the Lockerbie bombing.
Noman Benotman, who now works as an analyst with the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-terrorism think-tank, made it clear that Koussa would be willing to open up to the British authorities about Libya’s past involvement in international terrorism, including the 1988 Lockerbie bombing which claimed 270 lives. (...)
Mr Benotman, who said he helped Koussa escape from Tripoli, said it would “not be an issue” for the UK Government to get information about Libyan-sponsored terrorism, including the bombing of a UTA flight in Niger in 1989.
He said: “It’s going to be very easy to handle all these issues regarding Lockerbie, UTA and the IRA as well. It’s not a problem, I’m sure about this.”
He said Koussa “is the regime – everybody knows that” and that he was one of only five people during the last 30 years who was close to Gaddafi.
“I want to emphasise ... why he chose London. It’s very important. He believes in the system of justice regardless of the outcomes. He is very co-operative regarding crucial intelligence,” added Mr Benotman, who was the leader of the jihadist and anti-Gaddafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group before he worked for the Quilliam Foundation.
First Minister Alex Salmond said police want to talk to Koussa “on the basis of information that might be provided” and that there was no suggestion at this stage that he was being treated as a suspect.
“Nonetheless, there is every reason to believe that this individual can shed light on the Lockerbie atrocity and the circumstances that led up to it,” Mr Salmond said.
[The Herald has an editorial on the Moussa Koussa "defection" issue which can be read here.
I find it more than a little surprising that a person who was "the leader of the jihadist and anti-Gaddafi Islamic Fighting Group" should be a friend of decades-long Gaddafi loyalist and henchman Moussa Koussa. As for helping him "to escape from Tripoli", Moussa travelled to Djerba in Tunisia in an official Libyan Government car, accompanied by Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, one of Gaddafi's most trusted counsellors.]
Sunday 14 August 2016
The French DST: Yves Bonnet & Lockerbie
[This is the headline over an article posted today on the GOSINT website. It reads in part:]
The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST; English: Directorate of Territorial Surveillance) was a directorate of the French National Police operating as a domestic intelligence agency. It was responsible for counterespionage, counterterrorism and more generally the security of France against foreign threats and interference.
It was created in 1944 with its headquarters situated at 7 rue Nélaton in Paris. On 1 July 2008, it was merged with the Direction centrale des renseignements généraux into the new Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur.
The DST Economic Security and Protection of National Assets department had units in the 22 regions of France to protect French technology. It operated for 20 years, not only on behalf of defense industry leaders, but also for pharmaceuticals, telecoms, the automobile industry, and all manufacturing and service sectors. [Wikipedia]
Yves Bonnet was the DST Director November 1982 to August 1985.
The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST; English: Directorate of Territorial Surveillance) was a directorate of the French National Police operating as a domestic intelligence agency. It was responsible for counterespionage, counterterrorism and more generally the security of France against foreign threats and interference.
It was created in 1944 with its headquarters situated at 7 rue Nélaton in Paris. On 1 July 2008, it was merged with the Direction centrale des renseignements généraux into the new Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur.
The DST Economic Security and Protection of National Assets department had units in the 22 regions of France to protect French technology. It operated for 20 years, not only on behalf of defense industry leaders, but also for pharmaceuticals, telecoms, the automobile industry, and all manufacturing and service sectors. [Wikipedia]
Yves Bonnet was the DST Director November 1982 to August 1985.
Yves Bonnet
In the following video, Bonnet makes a remarkable allegation: he claims that Libya is NOT responsible for Lockerbie!
“Ce n’est pas un ouvrage* consacrée à l’activité terroriste de la Libye, parce que je pense que sur ce sujet comme sur beaucoup d’autres, on a largement dépassé les limites de la verité et même du crédible.
Je prends pour exemple cette affaire de Lockerbie et également l’affaire du Ténéré** qui ont été imputées à la Libye alors que tous les Services de Renseignements savent que ces attentats ont été commis par Ahmed Jibril sous l inspiration et le financement de l’Iran.
Et cela, on le sait. Les Services Américains le savent, le MOSSAD le sait, la DGSE le sait et d ailleurs le Directeur de la DGSE de l’époque — Claude Silberzahn — ne s’est pas privé de le dire.
On peut écrire “La Libye’ d’une autre façon; on peut l’écrire ‘L’Alibi’.
Je pense que ce pays est devenu, de part le personalité de son principal dirigeant — Muamar Kadhafi — un pays cible assez commode.”
Here is a rough translation:
“This is not a book* about to the terrorist activities of Libya, because I think that, on this subject as on many others, we have far exceeded the limits of the truth and indeed credibility.
Let me take, for example the Lockerbie case and also the case of the Ténéré** that were blamed on Libya when all intelligence services know that these attacks were committed by Ahmed Jibril under the inspiration and funding from Iran.
We know this. The American Intelligence Agencies know it, the MOSSAD knows it, the DGSE knows it and, in fact, the then Director of the DGSE – Claude Silberzahn – was not shy to say it out loud.
You know, in French, ‘La Libye” and “L’alibi” sound the same….
I think Libya has become, because of the personality of its chief – Muammar Gaddafi — a rather convenient target country.”
[RB: *Yves Bonnet published two books in 2009 (the year of the video interview). It is not clear, at least to me, which one he is referring to. Details of the books can be found here and here.
** The Ténéré region of Chad is where UTA flight 772 was destroyed by a bomb on 19 September 1989.]
Thursday 6 September 2012
Senussi extradition could help Lockerbie inquiry
[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The Herald. The following is an excerpt:]
Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland travelled to Libya in April to meet Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib and pave the way for the new Lockerbie inquiry, announced last autumn.
A statement from the Crown Office said: "We note the position in relation to the extradition of Senussi to Libya and we will continue to liaise with our colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as the Libyan authorities, to pursue all available lines of inquiry."
It would not be drawn on whether active steps were being made to interview Senussi, who has been accused of crimes against humanity – including murder and persecution – by the International Criminal Court.
[The Scotsman’s report contains the following:]
(...) his trial may also make some feel uncomfortable – he may reveal the details of the rapprochement brokered during the famous “meeting in the desert” between Gaddafi and former prime minister Tony Blair in 2004, which saw international sanctions lifted.
Senussi will also have the answers to what part Abdulbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who died in Tripoli earlier this year, played in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing – and will be able to answer questions about whether the deal to send Megrahi back to Libya was linked to concessions for British oil companies.
[The following are excerpts from the report in The Times (behind the paywall):]
Western diplomats said the Libyan Government would also face inquiries from Britain, the US and France over al-Senussi’s knowledge of international crimes linked to the Gaddafi regime.
These include the bombing of Pan Am Flight 174 over Lockerbie, the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and the bombing of a French airliner over Niger in 1989 — for which al-Senussi was convicted in absentia by a French court. (...)
A British Foreign Office spokesman said last night: “There are a number of open UK police investigations in relation to the activities of the Gaddafi regime. The police will follow the evidence wherever it leads and we will continue to provide them what support we can. The Libyan authorities are in no doubt of the importance the UK attaches to seeing progress made on these investigations.”
[The report in The Independent contains the following:]
The French government has already sentenced Mr Senussi to life imprisonment after a case heard in absentia, involving the shooting down of a UTA airliner over Niger in 1989 in which 170 people were killed. It has also been claimed that he was involved in the destruction of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie.
However, Libya became a staunch ally of the West against Islamists following the rapprochement with Gaddafi led by the US and UK, and Mr Senussi will have details of co-operation which could cause embarrassment on both sides of the Atlantic if aired publicly.
Abdul Hakim Belhaj, a former head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is currently suing the British Government and senior officials in this country over his rendition to Libya.
Earlier this year, US House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who led a delegation to the region, said Washington had a "particular interest" in seeing Mr Senussi arrested "because of his role with the Lockerbie bombing".
There are, however, doubts over Libyan culpability in the attack, with strong feeling among many close to the case that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted of the bombing.
[A report in the Daily Telegraph can be read here.]
Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland travelled to Libya in April to meet Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib and pave the way for the new Lockerbie inquiry, announced last autumn.
A statement from the Crown Office said: "We note the position in relation to the extradition of Senussi to Libya and we will continue to liaise with our colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as the Libyan authorities, to pursue all available lines of inquiry."
It would not be drawn on whether active steps were being made to interview Senussi, who has been accused of crimes against humanity – including murder and persecution – by the International Criminal Court.
[The Scotsman’s report contains the following:]
(...) his trial may also make some feel uncomfortable – he may reveal the details of the rapprochement brokered during the famous “meeting in the desert” between Gaddafi and former prime minister Tony Blair in 2004, which saw international sanctions lifted.
Senussi will also have the answers to what part Abdulbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who died in Tripoli earlier this year, played in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing – and will be able to answer questions about whether the deal to send Megrahi back to Libya was linked to concessions for British oil companies.
[The following are excerpts from the report in The Times (behind the paywall):]
Western diplomats said the Libyan Government would also face inquiries from Britain, the US and France over al-Senussi’s knowledge of international crimes linked to the Gaddafi regime.
These include the bombing of Pan Am Flight 174 over Lockerbie, the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and the bombing of a French airliner over Niger in 1989 — for which al-Senussi was convicted in absentia by a French court. (...)
A British Foreign Office spokesman said last night: “There are a number of open UK police investigations in relation to the activities of the Gaddafi regime. The police will follow the evidence wherever it leads and we will continue to provide them what support we can. The Libyan authorities are in no doubt of the importance the UK attaches to seeing progress made on these investigations.”
[The report in The Independent contains the following:]
The French government has already sentenced Mr Senussi to life imprisonment after a case heard in absentia, involving the shooting down of a UTA airliner over Niger in 1989 in which 170 people were killed. It has also been claimed that he was involved in the destruction of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie.
However, Libya became a staunch ally of the West against Islamists following the rapprochement with Gaddafi led by the US and UK, and Mr Senussi will have details of co-operation which could cause embarrassment on both sides of the Atlantic if aired publicly.
Abdul Hakim Belhaj, a former head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is currently suing the British Government and senior officials in this country over his rendition to Libya.
Earlier this year, US House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who led a delegation to the region, said Washington had a "particular interest" in seeing Mr Senussi arrested "because of his role with the Lockerbie bombing".
There are, however, doubts over Libyan culpability in the attack, with strong feeling among many close to the case that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted of the bombing.
[A report in the Daily Telegraph can be read here.]
Monday 26 October 2015
Why does Lockerbie rhyme with irony?
[This is the headline over an article by Michael Glackin published today by the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star. It reads as follows:]
Oh the irony. What are we to make of news last week that Scottish prosecutors suddenly want to interview two Libyans they have identified as “new suspects” in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, in which 270 people were killed? The short answer is not much. One reason is that the suspects are hardly new. Both men were of interest to the original investigation in 1991. Abdullah al-Senussi, a former Libyan intelligence chief and brother in law of Moammar Gadhafi, was convicted in absentia by a French court in 1999 after having been found guilty of involvement in the bombing of a French UTA airliner over Niger in 1989. How ironic is that? He is currently on death row in Tripoli for crimes committed by the Gadhafi regime.
The other suspect, Mohammed Abouajela Masud, is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Tripoli for bomb-making. Masud was almost indicted for the Pan Am bombing in 1991, alongside Abdelbaset Ali Megrahi, the former head of security at Libyan Arab Airlines and the only person convicted of the atrocity.
Masud is also thought to have been involved in the bombing of a Berlin discotheque in 1986 frequented by American military personnel. The attack led to US airstrikes against Libya soon thereafter. Ironically, and depending on your point of view, this is what led to the bombing of Pan Am 103.
But the chances of either man appearing in a Scottish court are slim. The Tripoli-based General National Congress, backed by Islamist extremists and not recognized by the West, controls the fate of both men. It’s unlikely they will be extradited, and hard to see anyone volunteering to travel to Tripoli to interview them.
The conviction of Megrahi, who died in 2012, three years after he was released from a life sentence “on compassionate grounds,” was based on the theory that Gadhafi had ordered the bombing in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes against Libya.
Gadhafi admitted responsibility in 2003, but this was always seen as an economically pragmatic move, rather than an admission of guilt. A former Libyan prime minister, Shukri Ghanem, said as far back as 2005 that the decision to accept responsibility was to “buy peace and move forward.”
Another irony is that while the authorities insist the investigation into the bombing remains “ongoing,” the Scottish judiciary recently refused a request from some of the relatives of victims to hear an appeal against Megrahi’s conviction that would have allowed new evidence to be presented in court.
The legal case against Megrahi had more holes in it than Swiss cheese. His early release from jail in 2009, after being convicted of the biggest mass murders in British history, only added to the bad smell around the entire case.
The key witness against Megrahi, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, was given a $2 million reward for his evidence by the CIA and a place in a witness-protection program. Gauci, who even the Scottish prosecutor who indicted Megrahi described as being “an apple short of a picnic,” is now understood to be living in Australia.
It’s worth remembering that in October 1988, two months before the Pan Am bombing, German police raided an apartment in Frankfurt and arrested several Palestinians. The raid unearthed explosives, weapons and, crucially, a number of radio cassette recorders similar to the one used to detonate the Pan Am 103 bomb. Most of the Palestinians were members of the Syrian-controlled Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmad Jibril, a Palestinian former Syrian Army officer. Jibril has spent recent years defending the regime of President Bashar Assad. He was reported to have been killed in August although this has since been denied.
Much of the evidence indicates Jibril and the PFLP-GC carried out the bombing on behalf of Iran and Syria to avenge the July 1988 accidental downing of an Iranian commercial airliner by a US warship, killing 290 people. This is backed up by evidence from the US Defense Intelligence Agency showing that the PFLP-GC was paid $1 million to carry out the bombing. The DIA also claimed that Jibril was given a down payment of $100,000 in Damascus by Iran’s then-ambassador to Syria, Mohammad Hussan Akhari.
Many believe then-Syrian President Hafez Assad’s support for the U.S.-led alliance to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991 meant Syria’s role in the bombing was swept under the carpet. It is worth pointing out that Megrahi was not formally indicted by the United States and the United Kingdom until November 1991.
But the PFLP-GC is not the only non-Libyan suspect. The Frankfurt raid also revealed compelling evidence against Muhammad Abu Talib, a former leader of the Palestine People’s Struggle Front. Oddly enough Talib was released from a life sentence he was serving in Sweden for involvement in bomb attacks weeks after Megrahi’s release in 2009.
Finally, given that the authorities remain keen to pursue the Libyan angle, it is odd they spent so little time interviewing Gadhafi’s former spymaster Moussa Koussa when he fled to London as the regime was collapsing in 2011. Koussa, who in the words of one British government official was “up to his neck” in the bombing, spent just three days in London and then flew on to Qatar, where he remains, living on assets that were quietly unfrozen by the West around the same time. Oh the irony.
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