[This is the heading over three letters published in today's edition of The Herald. They read as follows:]
The defection of Muammar Gaddafi’s foreign minister (...) may be a case of a rat deserting a sinking ship, prematurely.
When Moussa Koussa baled out, the rebel forces were at the gates of Sirtre, Gaddafi’s home town. Had that fallen it would have been game over for Gaddafi.
We should, though, welcome the junking of Mr Koussa’s loyalty to the colonel for the light he might shed on the Lockerbie bombing for which he was allegedly responsible.If the allegation has merit then the UK and US will have a casus belli against the colonel himself, who must have given the order.
On the other hand, Mr Koussa may share the view of the US Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence bureaux around the globe, that the bombing of Pan Am 103 was ordered by Iran using a Syrian-based proxy, the PFLP-GC. In which case, a can of worms inside a Pandora’s box is opened; not least for Scottish politicians now on the election stump.
Thomas McLaughlin
The French Napoleonic justice system identified Gaddafi’s brother [-in-law] Abdullah Senoussi as the main perpetrator of the UTA aircraft bombing which followed Lockerbie, but Mr Koussa was not found to have been a perpetrator.
The Scottish system of justice had nothing to say in the Lockerbie case about any Libyan other than the two men, indicted by them and presented for trial, Al Amin Khalifa Fhima and Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.
The French reaction underlines the importance of Scottish investigators having access to Mr Koussa to find out whether he can help with their claimed active and ongoing criminal investigation into the Lockerbie tragedy.
If the profound doubts many of us have over the conviction of Megrahi were to be supported by Mr Koussa’s contribution, it might finally galvanise the Scots into examining at last why their Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, after studying the case for three years, came to the conclusion that the Zeist trial might have been a miscarriage of justice.
At the elections next month, voters might like to consider which candidates are most likely to support sweeping reforms to their criminal justice system, and vote for them.
Meanwhile Mr Koussa has not been accused (except in the US) over either atrocity, and his presence here, if he is treated with courtesy, may encourage others to defect.
Dr Jim Swire
Why do Scottish prosecutors insist on ignoring what is undoubtedly the only independent report on the case against Megrahi, and on taking serious steps to ensure the report is never published? The SCCRC found six grounds to suggest a miscarriage of justice may have occurred at the original trial.
Those findings make up a report which all of us should be free to read, yet we have been denied this right. Politicians do not have the right to interfere with our justice system in order to prevent uncomfortable truths from being exposed about particular cases, and nor does the judiciary have the right to delay the hearing of appeals related to those cases. Yet it has happened in this case.
Consider some of those truths: the US paid two witnesses, the Gauci brothers, $3 million for testimony. In fact, let’s stop right there. Had the US told the Scottish court at Zeist that it intended to pay such vast sums to any witness in that trial, those witnesses would have been rejected immediately. Scots law would have deemed it bribery.
Let us not rely on Mr Koussa. Let us begin with the SCCRC report. That, at least, is independent. It was almost four years in the making and cost a fortune. It should not be wasted.
Mrs J Greenhorn
MISSION LOCKERBIE, 2011, doc. nr.1232.rtf.
ReplyDeleteThe conclusion is clear. The "manipulated" MST-13 fragment which was a key evidence (PT/35) cannot be connected to Libya because it originates from a non-functional “brown” prototype circuit board with 8 (eight) layers of fibreglass. A "brown" board was stolen from the Mebo Ltd. Laboratories and manipulated in a criminal manner by officials and presented as fragment "PT/35"! (See affidavit (Official Certification) from 18th July 2007, of Engineer Ulrich Lumpert and statement by witness Edwin Bollier, by Procurator Ms. M. Watson (13th Sept 1999) in Dumfries UK).
The new forensic pictures, from Forensic Institute of the Canton Police, Zurich/Switzerland, have been sent to Scotland to Mr. Walter Drummond-Murray Criminal Law and Licensing.
The "Lockerbie fraud" is now forensically provable. It could dramatically change the history of the tragic Pan Am 103 crash. It is high time that the Scottish authorities do not delay the opening of documents any longer and that they do not tolerate the severe miscarriage of justice. The truth shall prevail!
see images on: www.lockerbie.ch
by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Telecommunication Switzerland
They butchered my letter! Grrrr.
ReplyDeleteBear up, Jo. I know the feeling, really I do, but at least you managed to draw attention to the one thing that is beyond speculation in the midst of all the fog.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I thought it was such a good letter too. I'll bet it was even better before they "edited" it though. They really messed up my previous one too.
ReplyDeleteI gave them 150 words on this today, we'll see what happens. If anything.
Rolfe I am thankful that at least they left this one grammatically correct. They destroyed the last one and I was mortified!
ReplyDeleteThis was the original version.
ReplyDelete"I am intrigued by the hysteria, in Mr Cameron's government and beyond, surrounding the arrival in the country of the Libyan, Mr Koussa, and the accompanying claims about his ability to shed "light" on the terrible Lockerbie atrocity. I am particularly unmoved by the enthusiasm of the group described as "Scottish prosecutors" to interview him in relation to "the ongoing investigation" to get to "the truth" about Lockerbie.
One question: If the truth about Lockerbie is what they are all about why do they still insist on ignoring what is undoubtedly the only independent report on the case against Megrahi and, indeed, on taking serious steps to ensure the report is never published? The Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission found six grounds to suggest a miscarriage of justice may have occurred at the original trial.
Those findings make up a report which all of us should be free to read and absorb. Yet we have been denied this right. Politicians do not have the right to interfere with our Justice System in order to prevent uncomfortable truths from being exposed about particular cases, nor does the Scottish Judiciary have the right to delay the hearing of appeals related to those cases. Yet it has happened in this case.
Let's consider some of those truths: the US paid two witnesses, the Gauci brothers, $3 million for testimony. In fact, let's stop right there. For had the US told the Scottish court at Zeist that it intended to pay such vast sums to any witness in that trial, those witnesses would have been rejected immediately. For Scots Law would have deemed it bribery.
So let us not rely on Mr Koussa. Let us begin with the SCCRC report. That, at least, is truly independent. It was almost four years in the making and it cost the taxpayer a mint to produce. It should not be wasted. If truth is what we are after let us begin there. For anyone who wishes to "investigate" Lockerbie while ignoring the SCCRC findings has a great deal to hide and the first casualty is justice."
I agree, that is a lot better. But the printed version was still good.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why they do this. I don't necessarily suspect them of an agenda, but it's pervasive. Forty years ago, I could get letters published in the Herald verbatim, and if they were edited (seldom) it was generally to felicitate the presentation. But now, every letter is being tampered with and meddled with and in some cases seriously emasculated. It's got to the point that when I read a letter I think, but what did that person really say?
I blame the teachers.
You know, I think I'm going to start sending letters marked, for publication as written, or not at all. They'll probably just bin them, but it might get a point over. If a letter isn't excessively long and is grammatically correct, they should respect such a request.
ReplyDeleteJo's original was 349 words. That is not excessive. They should have left it. It gets the point over far better than the shortened version.
ReplyDeleteI diagnose a sub-editor who thinks he'll be made redundant if he doesn't look as if he's working.
Well, mine didn't make it. Only one letter today (reproduced above) but a good one. Maybe they decided only to include one today, after the group yesterday, and the other one was better.
ReplyDeleteHere's mine for comparison.
So the Scottish police want to question Moussa Koussa. What about?
Ever since the verdict at Camp Zeist, the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has been widely regarded as perverse. Reading the Judgement of the Court with even a semblance of an open mind reveals virtually no support for the prosecution’s case that the bomb travelled as unaccompanied luggage from Malta, and very compelling evidence that it was in fact smuggled into a luggage container at Heathrow airport, while the baggage handler in charge was on his tea break. Further examination of the evidence in the public domain only serves to strengthen this interpretation.
Who smuggled that device into Heathrow and into the baggage container that afternoon, and who were they working for? Megrahi certainly didn’t do that, as he was verifiably in Tripoli at the time. Somebody knows what happened. Does Moussa Koussa know? Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
I think this is an important point to keep getting across. The SCCRC report majored on the clothes purchase, because that's where the "new evidence" was relevant. So, Megrahi didn't buy the clothes. Nevertheless, one encounters the objection, "So what, he was at the airport when the bomb was loaded, a Libyan security officer, yeah right."
There was no "new evidence" regarding the route the bomb took, but one doesn't need it. The existing evidence points quite clearly to the Heathrow ingestion. Add to what was presented at Zeist, the evidence led at the FAI that showed Bedford's suitcase did not belong to any of the passengers on the plane, and the asymmetric packing of the bomb suitcase strongly suggesting that whoever packed it was expecting to be the one to place it in the container, and it's a slam-dunk.
So long as the investigation keeps banging on and on about a magic invisible suitcase being teleported past Malta security, they'll continue to get nowhere. Which may be the object of the exercise I suppose.
"Jo's original was 349 words."
ReplyDeleteI know Rolfe, quite a feat for me as you know! I was ruthless yet they still cropped it.
I think you're right that they limit topics from day to day. And I suppose in the run to May the focus will be on the election.
Like you I sometimes find myself thinking, when reading letters, "I wonder what it said to start with."
The thing is, I don't mind in the slightest if they improve my prose. It's not that deathless. And I don't mind if they trim some fat while leaving the thrust of the argument intact. Both are possible, for a skilled copy-editor. They used to have such people. No longer, it would appear.
ReplyDelete