[This is the headline over an
article in today's edition of the
New York Daily News. It reads as follows:]
Justice, so very long delayed, may finally be coming to the families of those murdered on Pan Am Flight 103.
It has been 23 years since the Pan Am plane bound for JFK from London was blasted out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people — most of them Americans, many of them New Yorkers.
It has been 23 years of excruciating failure to bring those responsible to justice. In 2009, victims’ loved ones watched powerlessly as the only man convicted for his role in the crime, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was released from a Scottish prison — and given a
hero’s welcome in Libya.
The Libyans and the Scottish courts then insisted Megrahi had late-stage prostate cancer and was sure to die within a matter of weeks, but he has yet to do the world the honor of keeling over.
And the notion that this was a one-man crime has always offended common sense.
Now, fingers crossed, comes the possibility of some clarity.
Last week, FBI Director Robert Mueller and US Attorney General Eric Holder met with Scotland’s Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, to start a new investigation into who, exactly, brought down the jetliner.
Part of the reason a new probe could bear fruit is that the fall of Moammar Khadafy’s regime has suddenly made former Libyan government functionaries more willing to speak honestly about his policy of state-sponsored terrorism — perhaps for no other reason than to settle old scores.
That’s all well and good, as long as they tell the truth about Lockerbie.
Among the potential witnesses are former
Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul-Jalil and former
Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, who may finally be eager to talk about what role their government played in the attack — and who else was involved.
One obvious candidate is Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, who stood trial with Megrahi but was acquitted. Also suspected are Khafady’s brother-in-law
Abdullah Senussi, who then led Libya’s intelligence services, and
Ibrahim Nayili, former head of airline security.
As for Megrahi, every breath he continues to draw reminds those who suffer of how much damage was done and how few perpetrators have paid the price.
In a talk with the BBC published right after the Dec. 21 anniversary of the attack — one advertised by the convicted murderer as his “last interview” — Megrahi brazenly said, “I am an innocent man. I am about to die and I ask now to be left in peace with my family.”
To be with family — that is exactly what Megrahi and his accomplices denied their victims at Lockerbie. They must pay for it once and for all.
[
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
The above are three quotations from, or attributed to, Joseph Goebbels.] 
Cecil Parkinson had promised the families of the British victims a Public Inquiry, only qualified by the need for Prime Ministerial aprroval. This was withheld!
ReplyDeleteWas this on American orders? If yes, this would be odd because it was an American plane and mostly American victims.
And a British government would hardly refuse an American request for a Public Inquiry?
However instead of a Public Inquiry we have had to endure the smokescreen of a bogus criminal investigation.
A genuine newspaper would examine this part of the story. Hopefully one will be found.