[Lockerbie bomb was loaded at Heathrow is the heading over a press release issued to mark the appearance of Dr Morag Kerr’s book Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies. The official publication date is 21 December, the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster, but the book will be available on 10 December or very shortly thereafter. The press release reads as follows:]
A new book proves that the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie originated at Heathrow and not at Malta as the Court accepted.
Adequately Explained by Stupidity? - Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies has been written by Dr Morag Kerr, Secretary-Depute of the Justice for Megrahi committee.
It’s the only book about Lockerbie to deal specifically with the detail of the transfer baggage evidence. It exposes shocking deficiencies in both the police enquiry and the forensic investigation which led the hunt in entirely the wrong direction.
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the outrage, the 220-page book comprehensively destroys the official account of what happened on December 21, 1988.
Dr Kerr’s book, described by Terry Waite in his foreword as “a masterpiece of forensic investigation”, shows with faultless logic that the bomb was loaded at Heathrow.
This means that Megrahi, the only man convicted of the bombing, is innocent. He didn’t do it.
“I have proved the bomb originated at Heathrow,” says Dr Kerr.
“I have been given access to statements, reports and photographs, some of which have not until now been publicly available. Detailed analysis of the forensic findings, something not done by the investigators themselves, contradicts the conclusions reached by the court.
“It is a very simple narrative. Heathrow was indeed the scene of the crime. There is irrefutable evidence the bomb was in a suitcase seen at Heathrow before the feeder flight from Frankfurt landed. Megrahi was nowhere near the place at the time and could not possibly have had anything to do with it. The Lockerbie investigation was horrifically bungled thanks to stupidity, carelessness and tunnel vision. The Police made a fatal error in 1989 and eliminated Heathrow on a false assumption.
”The damaged suitcases which were recovered at Lockerbie are like the pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle. The forensic scientists made no attempt to solve this puzzle but it’s actually not difficult. Once the puzzle is solved, the truth is revealed.
”The prosecution’s case was that two Libyans, Megrahi and Fhimah, had placed the bomb in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta. They then put the suitcase into the baggage system at Malta’s Luqa Airport as unaccompanied luggage. It then went on an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, it was transferred to a feeder flight to Heathrow and was subsequently loaded onto Pan Am 103 where it exploded after thirty-eight minutes killing 270 people.”
Dr Kerr says: “The biggest mystery of the entire saga is why the police persisted in their absolute conviction that the bomb had travelled on that flight from Malta. All the luggage loaded onto the aircraft in question was accounted for and there were no unaccompanied bags.
“This is even more surprising when you realise that within weeks of the disaster, the investigation had very strong evidence indicating that the bomb had actually been smuggled into a baggage container at Heathrow Airport, an hour before the feeder flight from Frankfurt landed.”
In early January 1989, John Bedford, a baggage handler in the Heathrow interline shed, said he had seen a brown Samsonite suitcase which had mysteriously appeared in the bottom front left-hand corner of an aluminium baggage container, AVE4041, on his return from a tea break. This container held luggage that was to be loaded onto Pan Am 103 and that precise corner of the container was known by investigators to be where the explosion had happened.
The case John Bedford saw that afternoon has become known as the “Bedford suitcase”.
Dr Kerr writes: “Rather than pursuing this vital lead vigorously, the police more or less ignored it. Everyone seemed to be waiting for the forensic results to declare: bomb on second layer, no Heathrow-origin luggage on second layer, therefore bomb arrived fromFrankfurt.”
But by meticulously scrutinising baggage records, witness statements, police memos, forensic reports and original case photographs, Dr Kerr has pinpointed the precise location of the blast-damaged suitcases inside AVE4041 in relation to the seat of the explosion to show that the “Bedford suitcase” contained the bomb.
“We have to ask how the Scottish police managed to overlook a shed-load of evidence showing that the bomb had been introduced at Heathrow; how the forensic scientists and Air Accident Investigation Branch inspectors compounded this error by misinterpreting and failing to interpret the evidence from the recovered debris; and why the Crown prosecution at the Camp Zeist trial chose to conceal so much important information from the court and present a contrived scenario that was entirely at odds with fundamental forensic thinking about the case since 1989.”
She adds: “We convicted Megrahi on evidence that wouldn’t support the issuing of a parking ticket, imprisoned him 1800 miles from his home and family and turned him into an international hate figure while he was in the terminal stages of aggressive prostate cancer.
“They say “never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity”, but is that enough to account for what happened in the Lockerbie inquiry? Was this simply incompetence and tunnel vision or were the investigators deliberately lured away from making the Heathrow connection?”
Professor Robert Black QC commented: “Morag Kerr has analysed the information with forensic rigour and the prosecution scenario of the bomb being in an unaccompanied bag from Malta via Frankfurt to Heathrow is utterly destroyed. Whoever was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, Morag Kerr has conclusively demonstrated that it was not Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.”
Dr Kerr's detailed findings have been in the hands of the Scottish police for over a year now as part of the investigations surrounding allegations of criminality lodged by Justice for Megrahi against forensic, legal and police officials involved in the Lockerbie investigation and subsequent Camp Zeist trial.
The book’s publication date is December 21 but it has been released early by publishers Troubador Publications (www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=2499).
Morag Kerr was born in Lanarkshire in 1953. She qualified as a veterinary surgeon fromGlasgow University in 1976 and continued postgraduate study in biochemistry. She was awarded her PhD in 1985 and specialised in clinical pathology and laboratory medicine. She taught at the Royal Veterinary College from 1982-8 and then worked in private diagnostic laboratories in Scotland and England. She joined Justice for Megrahi in 2010. She lives in Peeblesshire
[Today's edition of The Scotsman carries this story. The Herald also carries a report, which can be read here. The reaction of the Crown Office is reported in it as follows:]
A new book proves that the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie originated at Heathrow and not at Malta as the Court accepted.
Adequately Explained by Stupidity? - Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies has been written by Dr Morag Kerr, Secretary-Depute of the Justice for Megrahi committee.
It’s the only book about Lockerbie to deal specifically with the detail of the transfer baggage evidence. It exposes shocking deficiencies in both the police enquiry and the forensic investigation which led the hunt in entirely the wrong direction.
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the outrage, the 220-page book comprehensively destroys the official account of what happened on December 21, 1988.
Dr Kerr’s book, described by Terry Waite in his foreword as “a masterpiece of forensic investigation”, shows with faultless logic that the bomb was loaded at Heathrow.
This means that Megrahi, the only man convicted of the bombing, is innocent. He didn’t do it.
“I have proved the bomb originated at Heathrow,” says Dr Kerr.
“I have been given access to statements, reports and photographs, some of which have not until now been publicly available. Detailed analysis of the forensic findings, something not done by the investigators themselves, contradicts the conclusions reached by the court.
“It is a very simple narrative. Heathrow was indeed the scene of the crime. There is irrefutable evidence the bomb was in a suitcase seen at Heathrow before the feeder flight from Frankfurt landed. Megrahi was nowhere near the place at the time and could not possibly have had anything to do with it. The Lockerbie investigation was horrifically bungled thanks to stupidity, carelessness and tunnel vision. The Police made a fatal error in 1989 and eliminated Heathrow on a false assumption.
”The damaged suitcases which were recovered at Lockerbie are like the pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle. The forensic scientists made no attempt to solve this puzzle but it’s actually not difficult. Once the puzzle is solved, the truth is revealed.
”The prosecution’s case was that two Libyans, Megrahi and Fhimah, had placed the bomb in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta. They then put the suitcase into the baggage system at Malta’s Luqa Airport as unaccompanied luggage. It then went on an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, it was transferred to a feeder flight to Heathrow and was subsequently loaded onto Pan Am 103 where it exploded after thirty-eight minutes killing 270 people.”
Dr Kerr says: “The biggest mystery of the entire saga is why the police persisted in their absolute conviction that the bomb had travelled on that flight from Malta. All the luggage loaded onto the aircraft in question was accounted for and there were no unaccompanied bags.
“This is even more surprising when you realise that within weeks of the disaster, the investigation had very strong evidence indicating that the bomb had actually been smuggled into a baggage container at Heathrow Airport, an hour before the feeder flight from Frankfurt landed.”
In early January 1989, John Bedford, a baggage handler in the Heathrow interline shed, said he had seen a brown Samsonite suitcase which had mysteriously appeared in the bottom front left-hand corner of an aluminium baggage container, AVE4041, on his return from a tea break. This container held luggage that was to be loaded onto Pan Am 103 and that precise corner of the container was known by investigators to be where the explosion had happened.
The case John Bedford saw that afternoon has become known as the “Bedford suitcase”.
Dr Kerr writes: “Rather than pursuing this vital lead vigorously, the police more or less ignored it. Everyone seemed to be waiting for the forensic results to declare: bomb on second layer, no Heathrow-origin luggage on second layer, therefore bomb arrived fromFrankfurt.”
But by meticulously scrutinising baggage records, witness statements, police memos, forensic reports and original case photographs, Dr Kerr has pinpointed the precise location of the blast-damaged suitcases inside AVE4041 in relation to the seat of the explosion to show that the “Bedford suitcase” contained the bomb.
“We have to ask how the Scottish police managed to overlook a shed-load of evidence showing that the bomb had been introduced at Heathrow; how the forensic scientists and Air Accident Investigation Branch inspectors compounded this error by misinterpreting and failing to interpret the evidence from the recovered debris; and why the Crown prosecution at the Camp Zeist trial chose to conceal so much important information from the court and present a contrived scenario that was entirely at odds with fundamental forensic thinking about the case since 1989.”
She adds: “We convicted Megrahi on evidence that wouldn’t support the issuing of a parking ticket, imprisoned him 1800 miles from his home and family and turned him into an international hate figure while he was in the terminal stages of aggressive prostate cancer.
“They say “never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity”, but is that enough to account for what happened in the Lockerbie inquiry? Was this simply incompetence and tunnel vision or were the investigators deliberately lured away from making the Heathrow connection?”
Professor Robert Black QC commented: “Morag Kerr has analysed the information with forensic rigour and the prosecution scenario of the bomb being in an unaccompanied bag from Malta via Frankfurt to Heathrow is utterly destroyed. Whoever was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, Morag Kerr has conclusively demonstrated that it was not Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.”
Dr Kerr's detailed findings have been in the hands of the Scottish police for over a year now as part of the investigations surrounding allegations of criminality lodged by Justice for Megrahi against forensic, legal and police officials involved in the Lockerbie investigation and subsequent Camp Zeist trial.
The book’s publication date is December 21 but it has been released early by publishers Troubador Publications (www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=2499).
Morag Kerr was born in Lanarkshire in 1953. She qualified as a veterinary surgeon fromGlasgow University in 1976 and continued postgraduate study in biochemistry. She was awarded her PhD in 1985 and specialised in clinical pathology and laboratory medicine. She taught at the Royal Veterinary College from 1982-8 and then worked in private diagnostic laboratories in Scotland and England. She joined Justice for Megrahi in 2010. She lives in Peeblesshire
[Today's edition of The Scotsman carries this story. The Herald also carries a report, which can be read here. The reaction of the Crown Office is reported in it as follows:]
Last night a Crown Office spokesman dismissed Ms Kerr's claims. He said: "The theory set out in this book was rejected as speculation by the court. [RB: The evidence uncovered and analysed by Dr Kerr was never placed before the court at Zeist. The Crown Office, as so often in this case, is being economical with the truth.]
"The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court, and Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously by three senior judges. His conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges, in an Appeal Court presided over by the Lord Justice General, Scotland's most senior judge.
"As the investigation remains live, it would not be appropriate to offer further comment."
MISSION LIFE WITH LOCKERBIE, 2013 - Go to new facts on the ground. (google translation, german/english):
ReplyDeleteThis book by Dr Morag Kerr, supports my complaint to the 'AB-BA' (Supervisory Authority over the Swiss Federal Prosecutor Law Office) because of legal delay and additional for my application for state liability (finacial damages) at the Swiss Federal Court in connection with the deception from a chance discovery (MST-13 timer fragment, 'PT-35').
Misleading the public prosecutor and the Court of the Origin about the piece of evidence, or that in the investigation file an untrue facts was deposited, is a violation of the principle, in accordance with Article 6 of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Even if for tactical reasons in preliminary investigation, a person is deceived in the short term, the Act of deception must during the investigation to disclose.
The Human Rights Act 1998 is an act of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it lays down that all human rights, which are enshrined in the European human rights Convention, expressly also apply in the United Kingdom.
Thanks and congratulations to Mrs Dr. Morag Kerr, for their crucial work.
by Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Telecommunication Switzerland. Webpage: www.lockerbie.ch
To the best of my knowledge the Crown Office has not read the book. Very few people have, as it isn't back from the printer yet.
ReplyDeleteThe book is ABOUT how the court was misled, by having important evidence withheld.
MISSION LIFE WITH LOCKERBIE, 2013 - Go to new facts on the ground. (google translation,german/english):
ReplyDeleteTo a question "What responsible WHO ?" From Safety Reasons known - I will not speak out a PRESUMPTION - who then was responsible for the attack on PanAm 103.
It is not my final goal to find the real criminals behind the "Lockerbie Tragedy". These extremely difficult investigations have to be executed by the official investigation authorities of the involved countries, mainly the Federal aviation association (FAA), the German Bureau of criminal investigation (BKA), the FBI, Scottish Police in connection with Swiss Police (ex BUPO).
The true terrorists behind the bombing of "PanAm 103" were not yet prosecuted because of capital errors of investigation and politically motivated, secret intrigues.
Our first concern is to reverse the wrong trial against the deceased Libyan ex official Abdelbaset al Megrahi and reestablish the honour of Libya (Libya Now). MEBO LTD and myself have obviously been misused by the English Justice and Lord Advocate Colin Boyd to construct a wrong link from Lockerbie to Libya.
America and Great Britain have indicted on the 13th and 14th of November 1991 the two Libyan citicens Lamin Khalifah Fhimah and Abdelbaset Al Megrahi for being responsible of the explosion of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie.
Furthermore Pan American World Airways Inc. deposed a plaint for compensation of US$ 32 millions against MEBO LTD for total destruction of the Boeing 747.
This claim brought MEBO LTD near to ruin and was a heavy weight on us.
We had only one chance: to prove that the shown MST-13 timer fragment (PT-35)was a manipulated piece of evidence - what MEBO soon will succeed by a court legal judgment !
by Edwin Bollier, MEBO ltd. Telecommunication Switzerland. Webpage: www.lockerbie.ch
Dear Mr Mulholland,
ReplyDeleteIn comments to the Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman, the Crown Office parrot their usual hackneyed mantra (variation on a theme): "The theory set out in this book was rejected as speculation by the court." The evidence set out in this book was not presented at Zeist. Only those privy to proof copies have been aware of the book's content. and the Crown Office certainly wasn't. So, how has Chambers Street managed to come into possession of a copy of Kerr's book prior to publication in order to make such a judgement? I think, Lord Advocate, we should be told. Methinks your spokesperson has made a wee blunder, sir.Par for the course really. Adequately explained by stupidity perhaps?
Yours most respectfully,
Robert Forrester (Sec. JFM).
Dear Lord Advocate,
ReplyDeleteIf you permit, let me make it easy on you. I'll be your script writer for today. Why not say something like: "The Bedford evidence was thoroughly and scrupulously analysed and tested by expert Crown Office officials at the time and found to be wanting." Well, I'm just attempting to adopt your mindset. I can't dig you out of every iceberg you have chosen to become frozen into. I feel for you, I really do.
Pip, pip.
PS
Simply dying to see what rabbits you pull out of the hat for the 25th anniversary. Feel sure we're in for a treat. How many Libyans have you got lined up? Quite a number by now, I guess.
Good to see news of this book now hitting the media. I've seen it in at least three different places today.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to Dr Kerr. Hoping for much more coverage. Surely after nearly twenty-five years people must start to pay attention.
The Hootsmon's article is disappointing. Morag's points are all introduced by 'she claims' or 'she says', and speech marks are used to further distance the paper from the arguments being presented. Morag is described as 'a vet', rather than a veterinary pathologist. And the CO is given the opportunity for two put-downs, both disingenuous as usual.
ReplyDeleteFirst they imply that the Maltese origin of the clothes packed around the IED somehow proves ingestion at Luqa - it proves nothing of the sort.
Secondly they trot out the well-worn argument that ingestion at Heathrow was considered and rejected by the court as 'speculation'. In fact, the possibility that the Bedford suitcase contained the IED was dismissed by the court by means of the following wild speculation: that if Amarjit Sidhu, presented with a well-configured baggage container, and having only fifteen minutes to add the Frankfurt bags in the wind and rain, had taken it upon himself to rearrange the contents (which he repeatedly denied doing,) then he may have moved the Bedford suitcase to some far corner of the container, whence it vanished during the crash down some wormhole in space.
Now, the context in which this obvious nonsense gained acceptance was the consensus that the IED was in the second layer of baggage, based on certain dubious assertions made by the forensics boffins. This is by no means certain, and in fact Morag has uncovered equally strong evidence that the IED was in the bottom layer in the exact position of the Bedford suitcase.
A question which may be asked is why was it left to Dr Kerr to attempt a reconstruction of the way AVE4041 was loaded - why didn't Feraday and Hayes attempt it?
I think the main reason is that no-one asked them to. Their brief seems to have been simply to catalogue the debris and where possible match contents to bags and bags to owners, in order to first identify the bomb bag and secondly either identify its owner or establish that it was unaccompanied.
I'm open to correction here, but I believe there is no sign that the RARDE chaps were ever shown the witness statements from Heathrow or the records showing the arrival times of the feeder flights. Without this evidence it's much more difficult to piece together the arrangement of bags in AVE44041. It seems it never occurred to the police that evidence of this sort might be of use in making sense of the physical evidence. Job demarcation, you might call it.
'Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously by three senior judges. His conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges, in an Appeal Court presided over by the Lord Justice General, Scotland's most senior judge.'
ReplyDeleteThis is meaningless. In sensitive cases judges, prosecutors and even the defence can play a role in which each does something not quite right, which brings about a perverse result. This takes away personal responsibility or responsibility from one area.
Recommendation:
ReplyDeleteDeath flight Pan Am 103 - The mystery of Lockerbie
Swiss TV, history on SRF1, only in german language
Today - 11:12. 2013 on 22:55 CET clock and repeat on 05:15 CET clock
16:12. 2013 - repeat on 11:15 CET clock
+++
Empfehlung:
Todesflug Pan Am 103 - Das Rätsel von Lockerbie
Swiss TV Sendung auf SRF1
Heute - 11.12. 2013, um 22:55 Uhr und Wiederholung um 05:15 Uhr
16.12. 2013 - Wiederholung um 11:15 Uhr
Mehr Informationen über die "Lockerbie-Affäre" - auf unserer Webpage: www.lockerbie.ch
Re. that TV programme Ebol just mentioned, I think I'm in it.
ReplyDeleteA question which may be asked is why was it left to Dr Kerr to attempt a reconstruction of the way AVE4041 was loaded - why didn't Feraday and Hayes attempt it?
ReplyDeleteI think the main reason is that no-one asked them to. Their brief seems to have been simply to catalogue the debris and where possible match contents to bags and bags to owners, in order to first identify the bomb bag and secondly either identify its owner or establish that it was unaccompanied.
I'm open to correction here, but I believe there is no sign that the RARDE chaps were ever shown the witness statements from Heathrow or the records showing the arrival times of the feeder flights. Without this evidence it's much more difficult to piece together the arrangement of bags in AVE44041. It seems it never occurred to the police that evidence of this sort might be of use in making sense of the physical evidence. Job demarcation, you might call it.
Pete, are you reading my mind? Seriously?
At the risk of the Prof not posting this comment, the only apposite word I can find for what seems to have happened is clusterfuck. Several different foul-ups happening together and combining to make an absolutely atrocious debacle. And you have encapsulated it rather well.
First, the cops don't seem to have taken Bedford's evidence seriously. I don't know why. His tale of the mysteriously-appearing brown Samsonite simply didn't become part of the narrative of the case in 1989. It seems to fit with the ignoring of Manly's evidence, although Bedford's evidence wasn't buried as Manly's was. They interviewed Bedford several times, but there's absolutely no sense of urgency, or a feeling that they're on to something. The police investigation knew that the bottom case had been loaded at Heathrow and the ones above it were from Frankfurt but that's all.
There's no positive sign that the RARDE people even knew that. The only thing that makes me think they did, is why else would they have been exerting so much effort to deny that the bomb had been in the suitcase on the bottom?
They don't seem to have known which suitcases belonged to the Heathrow interline passengers and which to the Frankfurt people. They don't seem to have known what Bedford said about the pattern in which he loaded the container. (When you know that, the appearance of the panel of lining fabric in the Carlsson case is quite extraordinary.)
Even more so, at the FAI Peter Fraser pointed out to Feraday that the lock of the bomb suitcase was found blasted into one of the Bernstein cases, which would have been in the row at the back, and didn't that exclude his favourite position for the bomb suitcase (in the overhang, handle-up). Feraday replied that "obviously" he wasn't privy to that sort of information. Well for God's sake, why not? (And is it not a bit interesting that Peter Fraser, that bear of very little brain, worked it out?)
Hayes said, in a memo dated 19th Jan 1989, that he intended to figure out where each item of luggage had been positioned in the container relative to the centre of the explosion. He didn't do it. I don't think you need Bedford's evidence to see that the Tourister was on top of the bomb suitcase, mind you. You do need it to be 100% sure there was nothing under it though. [....]
[....] So, second, Hayes didn't solve the jigsaw puzzle that was right under his nose.
ReplyDeleteAnd third, Feraday, Cullis and a couple of bods from the AAIB were positively falling over themselves to declare that the condition of the container floor meant that there MUST have been another suitcase under the bomb. That is quite obviously wrong. I mean, even if they thought it was probable there was another case there, it's obviously crazy to say that a bottom-level position can be 100% ruled out.
That's the bit that intrigues me most. Just what prompted these guys to insist they were so certain of that? Especially Peter Claiden of the AAIB, who stated it in a report he submitted in April 1989. It wasn't even his area of expertise, but that's the first recorded expression of the idea.
Omnishambles. Will that do?
The container floor was not ‘blackened and pitted’ by the explosion!
ReplyDeleteThe official explanation for this was because the IED suitcase was on the second layer up and thus the suitcase underneath protected the floor from the blast.
Rolfe says the IED suitcase was on the container floor, but the floor was protected from the blast by clothing in the suitcase and because the container floor opened like a trap door!
Is either explanation credible or do you think a powerful explosion would leave blast damage on the container floor?
Also to believe an IED that can blast a hole through metal, but leave clothing in an identifiable condition requires impressive credulity!
Thus speculation about the exact position of the IED suitcase becomes academic if the damage inflicted does not match with the alleged power of the IED.
I.e. An explosion powerful enough to cut through metal would not leave unidentifiable clothing.
Dave, get back to me when you've actually looked at the photographs of the items you're wittering on about with such refrshing ignorance.
ReplyDeleteAs I pointed out in an earlier thread the Crown Office response was just so predictable!
ReplyDeleteOops, I meant an explosion powerful enough to cut through metal would not leave identifiable clothing.
ReplyDeleteDear Dave,
ReplyDeleteyou wrote:
"Oops, I meant an explosion powerful enough to cut through metal would not leave identifiable clothing."
But what you actually wrote was correct.
Dave's bomb-in-suitcase theorem:
"If a bomb in a suitcase can blow a hole in metal, no clothes inside it will be identifiable"
As support you do not provide any references, OK, neither will I, then:
Frank's bomb-in-suitcase theorem:
"Even if a bomb in a suitcase can blow holes in metal it is likely that some clothing items in the suitcase would be identifiable afterwards. Whether this would be the case depends on a huge set of parameters."
And there we stand.
SM
ReplyDeleteI think you’re back to confusing likely probability with theoretical possibility.
A Maltese tourist shop will sell identical clothing that is mass produced.
Thus more than one item of the same clothing will be sold in Mary’s House and the same item will be sold elsewhere.
Thus it would be impossible to distinguish between identical items and say that one particular item was definitely sold to a particular person on a particular day.
And if this applies to fully intact clothing then it applies to burnt-scraps too.
Rolfe’s explanation is that the burnt remains of a pair of bespoke ‘yorky’ trousers allegedly in the IED suitcase was traced to Mary’s House.
But how can you conclude beyond reasonable doubt that burnt remains belong to a specific bespoke item, even if bespoke items are sold in tourist shops.
I recall Rolfe recently saying that the clothing was clearly delivered to Gauci and referred to the evidence for this. Did not leave room for reasonable doubt, as far as I recall.
ReplyDelete"I think you’re back to confusing likely probability with theoretical possibility."
Why do you think that?
Even if we accept that a bespoke pair of trousers were supplied to Mary’s House and then sold it is impossible to say that the burnt remains of the bespoke trousers were the same trousers sold.
ReplyDeleteMany bespoke items are also the same because all bespoke means is made to a particular width and length with ‘a tuck in' that could be purchased anywhere.
Thus the idea that you could tell whether the burnt scraps belonged to a 34W 34L rather than a 33W 32L and purchased from a particular shop is silly.
"their Lordships got around this difficulty by speculating that the contents of luggage container AVE 4041 may or must have been re-arranged" (from my online article Lockerbie - The Heathrow Evidence para.106.)
ReplyDeleteGood to see news of this book now hitting the media. I've seen it in at least three different places today. Cheap gatwick parking
ReplyDelete