[This is the headline over a report on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]
A Scottish Parliament committee could [today] decide to close its inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
The justice committee has been investigating the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, on compassionate grounds.
It is due to decide whether the move by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has been adequately scrutinised.
The committee has already been told that medical advice on Megrahi's health was "quite clear".
MSPs must now decide whether there are further issues to pursue surrounding the release of the Libyan in August this year.
Last week the committee heard from Mr MacAskill, who insisted medical advice had been clear. (...)
Megrahi's release angered many US families of the victims of the bombing.
However, the committee inquiry is not considering whether the justice secretary was correct to conclude that compassionate release was justified.
[The above report has now been superseded by one which contains the following:
"The Scottish Parliament inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber is to be closed. (...)
"MSPs on the cross-party committee have decided not to take any further evidence, although they will still publish a report, due next year. (...)
"The inquiry has already heard from Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who insisted the medical advice surrounding the release which was given had been clear.
"MSPs, who were considering whether there were further issues to pursue surrounding the release of the Libyan in August this year, decided to bring the inquiry to an end."
The inquiry is, and always was, a complete waste of time and resources, given that among the other matters excluded from the scope of the committee's inquiry are:
• the circumstances surrounding the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988
• the trial and conviction of Mr al-Megrahi for murder, his subsequent appeals against conviction, or the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in relation to his case
• the circumstances surrounding the negotiation of the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement, or the content of that agreement.]
People are now tired of the saturation in the media concerning Megrahi. The UK government can now sit back and congratulate itself on its media campaign to manipulate the public.
ReplyDeleteIt's successfully shored up public interest of what really went on in the negotiations for the release of Megrah.
It's very successfully stopped criminal charges being brought against all those who conspired to frame an innocent man.
It's very successfully concealed the perpetrators, whoever they might be.
I agree with Ruth and with Prof. Black: what a complete and utter waste of time and resources by the Scottish Parliament!
ReplyDeleteThese should of course have been fully deployed in search of "all those who conspired to frame an innocent man" and "the perpetrators, whoever they might be"!
Elsewhere on this blog, I have suggested that the apartheid regime of South Africa was responsible for targeting UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt
Carlsson, in the Lockerbie bombing.
The antics of Holyrood and Westminster can only be making those responsible in Afrikanerdom for the crime of Lockerbie chuckle with self-satisfaction.
A 1980s editorial in The Guardian proclaimed: there are more ways of saying "sucker" in Afrikaans than in any other language!
Maybe we only have one way of saying "closed-minded", but it'll do.
ReplyDeleteChange the record, Patrick. It wore out a long time ago.
Nowadays, gramophone records tend to be somewhat old-fashioned and unfortunately do wear out.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the fact that UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was targeted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing by apartheid South Africa is supported by a number of reliable sources which are available on the Internet.
For example, see http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UNInquiry/ and http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/ .
Rolfe said...
ReplyDelete"Change the record, Patrick..."
Well, of course all the regulars here know about Patrick's views, so he writes them for the daily newcomers.
In email and some boards there are room for a "signature", i.e. a small piece of text following all mail/postings. On boards the poster will this way get some "advertising" for his point of view, in reward for (hopefully) relevant postings.
At the same time, board-members, who already know the content, can skip over it.
I realize the idea is not new. Cato introduced it with his ending statement that 'Carthago should be destroyed', regardles of the content of what else he talked about.
We all have our own agendas and causes to promote. The bottom line is that IMHO it is OK to repost short statements, but it would be a good idea if they would come as a signature, like below, so the body of the posting could be kept fully on-topic.
I think this might just solve the broken-record problem?
- - - - - -
Patrick Haseldine - was apartheid South Africa behind the Lockerbie bombing?
Visit http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UNInquiry/ and http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/
The trouble is, if you extract the "it was the South Africans wot did it" parts from Patrick's posts, there's pretty much nothing left. He almost never discusses the point at issue, merely gives it a passing nod then goes on to repeat for the gadzillionth time that "UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was targeted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing by apartheid South Africa".
ReplyDeleteHe won't even discuss the suggestion that Carlsson may have been manoeuvred aboard the flight by someone who had received a credible warning that it was a terrorist target.
If your suggestion was implemented, he'd simply be re-posting his sig line in every thread, and nothing else.
Why so angry, Rolfe? PH has not run to the American Embassy in Vienna to save his own soul by groundless blaming others. PH only has a different theory of events that others do not believe in. That is his basic right, I think. And he is participating in the search for a new inquiry into the case.
ReplyDeleteI'm just tired of it. I've been reading this blog for a lot longer than I've been posting, and I can't remember Patrick making a substantive point, ever. He doesn't even engage in discussion about the South African aspects of the affair. He simply repeats the same baseless assertion time and time again, never varying it, never speculating, and above all, never providing any evidence.
ReplyDeleteEven our very own Swiss Cheese changes the record from time to time, and even, occasionally, makes reference to actual evidence. Not so Patrick. It's boring.
Dear Rolfe,
ReplyDeleteearlier I called for moderation in relation to a certain poster.
RB has since expressed that he in general wants to avoid moderation if at all possible. Case closed. Thinking back on it I think I should not have brought it up on the board.
After that I decided not to participate in discussions about other posters - it is likely to disturb more than improve.
I broke the decision in this tread to suggest a possibly constructive trade-off.
But, as the can is now open:
Let PH consider if he wants to add more relevancy to his postings, and use a signature. Let's all consider whether we should initiate and/or participate in discussions like these.
In one posting you wrote "Ignoring Mission Spam above..." after which you continued with relevant matters. An excellent short way of addressing the problem without letting it steal the show.
SFM nails it. Mr. Haseldine can take or leave what he will, as can we all. But Rolfe also has a right to get annoyed and say so. Yay, we can all do our thing!
ReplyDeleteDr Swire wrote: The astoundingly amateurish attitude attributed to DC Crawford, as to the significance of Carlsson in all this supports my worst fears as to the competence of the police force involved to cope with so great a disaster and investigation. If DC Crawford or his force really was prepared to write off the possible significance of Carlsson on the hearsay evidence of a single librarian, that says a great deal about the confidence we should have in other aspects of the investigation.
ReplyDeleteOwing to the refusal to launch a properly empowered inquiry, it has been impossible thus far to probe the work of the Dumfries and Galloway police, nor indeed the Thatcher government's decision to put them in charge rather than the more experienced teams available in London.
In his 2002 book, Detective Constable John Crawford says he was aware that [Bernt Carlsson] had survived a previous attack on an aircraft he had been travelling on in Africa, but gives no details about the attack or whether it was an assassination attempt on Carlsson.
DC Crawford's book is silent on the matter of the UN Commissioner for Namibia being pressed by the South Africans to stopover in London, so that Carlsson would have no alternative but to take Pan Am Flight 103 if he were to get there in time for the Namibia Independence Agreement signing ceremony on 22 December 1988 at United Nations headquarters. Carlsson would then have taken charge of the country on behalf of the UN in the run-up to the November 1989 independence elections.
Since the Reuters report about Pik Botha's flight change was not available until 12 November 1994, DC Crawford was presumably unaware of the cancelled booking on PA 103 by the 23-strong South African delegation, and that only six of them actually travelled to New York on flight PA 101 on 21 December 1988.
In 2009, it is probably too late for Scotland Yard to review DC Crawford's flawed investigation, which concluded that any alleged assassination attempt on Carlsson was almost totally beyond the realms of feasibility.
Therefore, in the search for the truth, our best hope now must reside in a "United Nations Inquiry into the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing."