International probe call into “linked” Lockerbie and Iranian passenger jet bombings
An SNP Member of the Scottish Parliament has called for an international inquiry to be established to examine the full circumstances that led to the blowing up of Pan Am 103 in December 1988 and the shooting down of Iranian Flight 655, by the US navy five months before the Lockerbie attack.
Christine Grahame MSP believes that the two incidents are “inextricably linked” and expressed a hope that an internationally backed inquiry would lead to the real perpetrators of both attacks being brought to justice. Ms Grahame said:
“Amongst all the furore surrounding Abdelbaset al Megrahi’s release from prison in August, the wider substantive issues have been left obscured.
“I and many others who have examined this case believe on the evidence we have seen that the murder of 270 people over Lockerbie in December 1988 was a revenge attack sponsored by the Iranians in response to the shooting down of one of their passenger jets, Flight 655, five months earlier by the US navy. That vessel, the USS Vincennes, entered Iranian waters in a deliberately provocative move, before firing a surface to air missile at a schedule passenger flight taking Iranian pilgrims [to] Mecca.
“The US claim that this incident was an ‘accident’ simply does not hold water. It was, like the attack on Pan Am 103 five months later, a crime against humanity that targeted civilians and in the Iranian incident led to the deaths of 290 passengers.
“I am today calling on an international inquiry to be established to consider and examine these two inter-related atrocities and I would hope that ultimately this may lead to some effort being made to bring to justice those responsible.
“I accept that the US failure to be a signatory to the International Court of Criminal Justice makes it unlikely that the officers of the USS Vincennes or their Commander in Chief at the time of the blowing up of Flight 655, will face any due legal process. That will also be the case for the Iranian Government officials who authorised and sponsored the attack on Pan Am 103. Nonetheless such an inquiry would help expose the reality of what took place and the hypocrisy of those who are arguing that justice has been served in the Pan Am 103 attack by the wrongful conviction of Abdelbaset al Megrahi.”
Ms Grahame has today (Monday) lodged a parliamentary motion at the Scottish Parliament which calls on an independent inquiry to be established and urges relevant Scottish public authorities, such as the Crown Office and police, to co-operate fully with it.
Text of parliamentary motion:
International Inquiry, Pan Am 103 and Flight 655
That the Parliament supports the establishment of an international inquiry into the circumstances that led to the blowing up of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988 that murdered 270 passengers and urges all relevant Scottish authorities to co-operate with it; further supports that such an inquiry should also consider the relationship of that atrocity to the shooting down of Iranian flight 655 over the Straits of Hormuz five months before by a US warship, which claimed the lives of 290 passengers, and urges the international community to pursue, investigate and bring to justice all those ultimately responsible for these two terrorist attacks, which it considers constitute crimes against humanity.
[The above is the text of a press release issued today by Christine Grahame MSP.]
The proposed International Inquiry will doubtless also need to pay particular attention to the involvement of apartheid South Africa in the murder of Pan Am Flight 103's most prominent victim - UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson (see http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/).
ReplyDeleteLet us today commemorate Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes who was assassinated by London police officers in 2005. It was a case that the police top (Sir Ian Blair) tried to keep secret by lying to the public. Today they aknowledge that Menenzes was totally innocent and offer a compensation to the family. I assume if Mr. Henderson would be in charge we would still have to fight for the truth.
ReplyDeleteWe should also remember the Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven, the Birmingham Six and - in recent days - the police fairy tales around the Wood Green ricin plot. Or the incomparable hysteria they created when they closed the London airports in spite of the fact that the people they were looking for had neither tickets nor passports to enter any flight. Well, the action fitted a meeting of EU security ministers of the EU that needed the hysteria to tighten flight security according to US demands - meassures they btw now are stepping back from again.
We should also remember all the innocent people convicted of excise and VAT carousel fraud who are used by the government to shield the real perpetrators
ReplyDeleteProf Black, Ms. Grahame, all concerned:
ReplyDeleteThis in my opinion is an awesome move, and something dear to my heart. On looking into this and seeing the clear evidence and reeasoning for the Iran-PFLPGC link, the awkward twist sideways, the lean toward Libya, the fake stuff and bought fingerpoints, it just strengthens that. I think others deserve to be able to see it this way but it's hard when the world crystalizes around official - not real - truths.
If Libya ever is taken "off the scale" of official justice, as real truth would dictate and as is still possible, who would go on in their place? Iran of course. And then I get a sinking feeling. We were messing with them bad at the time, using Iraq as a weapon against them, were openly shooting at them, ultimately because they wouldn't play by the West's script. To cap it off, just before the ceasefire was finally decided, an odd naval encounter results in the tragic loss of 290 (IIRC) lives - falling miles to the sea. The Iranian public stunned, their morale falling under relentless loss on all sides, they surrendered and sued for peace.
The Iranians never felt this was an American accident, and Americans have failed to appreciate this properly. The whole debacle leading to Zeist has in fact allowed this disconnect to function by drawing away attention.
I'm not for nuking Iran over Lockerbie any more than George Bush was in 1989. I wouldn't want to have contributed to that by now by helping usher in a new investigation. I think precisely this context will help give the whole thing some historical context and perhaps a more real, less cartoonish type of closure than we've all got now.
There are miracles in the air! Yesterday it was decided (published) to compensate the family of murdered Charles de Menenzes. Today a public inquiry into the British participation in the Iraq war started. So, Scottish parliamentarians, come on, adopt that proposal of Christine Grahame!
ReplyDeleteThe International Court of Justice (ICJ) did hold hearings into "The Vincennes Incident" and concluded on the 6.11.2003 that the American navy's actions in the Persian Gulf on that day were unlawful. However what precisely was unlawful is not clear.
ReplyDeleteFor a brief introduction to "The Vincennes Incident" see "The Shootdown of Iranair Flight 655 - "The Vincennes Incident" " at part IV of The Masonic Verses http://e-zeecon.blogspot.com or for a more detailed and scholarly account of the background see "The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment" by Sasan Fayazmanesh.
May I also suggest viewing the Cold War thriller "Fail Safe" (or read the novel) to gain some insight into the relationship between Lockerbie and "The Vincennes Incident".
In July 1990, the Iranian Government submitted to the International Court of Justice at The Hague a 328-page dossier on the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by USS Vincennes two years earlier ( see http:www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/79/6629.pdf ).
ReplyDeleteOn 6 November 2003, the ICJ ruled, by 14 votes to two, that a series of retaliatory attacks by the US Navy against certain Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf in 1987 and 1988, although constituting an unlawful use of force, did not violate a 1955 commerce treaty between the US and Iran since the attacks did not adversely affect freedom of commerce between the territories of the parties. This decision concluded a series of cases against the United States. On 10 September 2003, Libya's case against the US arising from the aftermath of the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was discontinued and removed from the ICJ's General List of cases. The case had been pending for more than a decade.
An earlier case between Iran and the US arising out of the shooting down by the USS Vincennes of an Iranian Airbus over the Gulf on 3 July 1988, was settled and discontinued on 22 February 1996, after having been pending for almost seven years ( see http://www.asil.org/insigh119.cfm ). Under the terms of this settlement, the US Government agreed to pay Iran $61.8 million ex gratia compensation whilst denying responsibility or liability for the incident ( see http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/shootingdown_iranair_flight655.php ).
Christine Grahame's parliamentary motion seeks to classify both IR 655 and PA 103 as crimes against humanity which are defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum as "particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority." Neither incident appears to qualify under this definition.
However, a crime against humanity will almost certainly have been committed if the South African apartheid regime were to be deemed responsible for the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_humanity#Apartheid ).
I believe that "The Vincennes Incident" is intimately related to the Lockerbie case and without "The Vincennes Incident" the Lockerbie bombing would not have occurred. It was also imperative that the authorities deny this link and pretend that "Iran" had decided to forgive and forget.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is blindingly obvious that "The Vincennes Incident" gave "Iran" a motive for revenge it is not so obvious that "The Vincennes Incident" gave the US Government a motive to accept or collude in an appropriate and proximate response, draw a line in the sand and "move on". "Iran" had decided to forgive and forget.
While this is elementary International Relations theory it is not something that can be proven in the Judicial or Criminal sense.
Libya was blamed for reasons largely, but not entirely unrelated to the bombing. It was, for example, necessary to create a false solution, any false solution. The "truth" was not an option.
I think Ms Graeme's motion is wildly overambitious and will be soundly defeated. My suggestion would be for a far more limited inquiry, one that is within the power and remit of the Scottish parliament.
In my view an objective investigation was abandoned when the OIC CSP John Orr "eliminated" Heathrow in the face of the evidence, and this dubious logic was the basis of the conclusion of the Fatal Accident Inquiry that the primary suitcase arrived at Heathrow unaccompanied from Frankfurt. There were political considerations behind this dubious decision not least of which was which Police Force would lead the inquiry and indeed in which country a trial would be held.
Having pointed out the authorities in 1996 who built the bomb, and how, where and by whom it was introduced I wrote to the Chief Constable of the Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary thanking him for his letter of the 25th August 1994 which stated "the matters you raise are outwith the scope of my enquiry" and drawing his attention to my article "Lockerbie - the Heathrow Evidence." I have of course received no acknowledgement or reply.
So according to Mr Haseldine Lockerbie was only a Crime Against Humanity if you can prove the South African Apartheid regime was responsible? Good luck with proving that!
ReplyDeleteMy original point was an enquiry as to whether the shooting down of Iranair 655 was illegal under International Law or Iranian Law and whether the position of The Vincennes within Iranian territorial waters was of any Legal significance.
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ReplyDelete"As part of the settlement, the United States agreed to pay US$61.8 million in compensation for the people killed."
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
"After many painful years of negotiations, the Libyan government finally agreed to pay $10 million to each victim's family."
(this blog)
Nobody should of course take this as an indication that we think a our citizens are worth fifty times more than an Iranians, nor that we think that Libya is so much richer than the US, so they can afford to pay more.
We are not like that.
In Iraq the families to "wrongfully" killed civilians - if recognized as such by the Americans - are paid up to some tens of thousand Dollars.
ReplyDeleteIn Vietnam no one was ever paid anything, as far as I know.
So we can surely create a certain "hit list".
The famiilies of the Lockerbie victims also received a fair bit of compensation from Pan Am as well, I believe.
ReplyDelete