[What follows is an item published today by former UK ambassador and Scottish university rector Craig Murray on his blog:]
The information on Lockerbie published in today’s Daily Mail from an Iranian defector, matches precisely what I was shown in a secret intelligence report in the FCO just around the time of the first Iraq war – that a Syrian terrorist group was responsible acting on behalf of Iran. It was decided that this would be kept under wraps because the West needed Iran and Syria’s quiescence in the attack on Iraq.
I was at the time Head of Maritime Section in the FCO’s Aviation and Maritime Department. I was shown the report by the Head of the Aviation Section, who was deeply troubled by it.
The UK authorities have known for over 20 years that Megrahi was innocent. The key witness, a Maltese shopkeeper named Tony Gauci, was paid a total of US $7 million for his evidence by the CIA, and was able to adopt a life of luxury that continues to this day. The initial $2 million payment has become public knowledge but that was only the first instalment. This was not an over-eagerness to convict the man the CIA believed responsible; this was a deliberate perversion of justice to move the spotlight from Iran and Syria to clear the way diplomatically for war in Iraq.
It will of course be argued, probably correctly, that now Syria and Iran are the western targets, it is in the interests of the CIA for the true story to come out, (minus of course their involvement in perverting the course of justice). That is why we now hear it was Syria and Iran. But it so happens that is in fact the truth. Even the security services and government can tell the truth, when the moment comes that the truth rather than a deceit happens to be a tactical advantage to them.
"What our response will be we do not say, but it will be an appropriate response to the magnitude of the American Crime."
ReplyDelete- statement in English by London Iranian Embassy spokesman Mohammed Beshti July 1988.
Of course they have known, not for twenty but for twenty-five years and some months. I am interested in the extent to which the authorities (i.e. the spooks) tolerated or colluded in the bombing.
The problem for the West and the Americans in particular was that if they acknowledged the bombing the be quid pro quo for the Vincennes Incident there was nothing they could do about it.
Better to pretend retaliation had not occurred draw a line in the sand and blame somebody else for intelligible and even laudable objectives.
Of course evidence had to be fabricated and a handful of other people murdered but no big deal.
It was an abuse of the Criminal Justice system but so what?