Why the focus on Libya as the perpetrator of Lockerbie?

[An article headed Chaos: the complete disarray of the now “free” Libya published yesterday on the website of American magazine The Source contains the following:]

Libya finds itself in a state of complete disarray increasing day by day in the three years following the coup of its notorious leader, Mu’ammar Al-Gaddafi.  Just last week the former prime minister, Ali Zeidan, was voted out of office by parliament and has fled the country.

Currently, the common place rule of law is scattered, finding itself in the hands of violent and fiercely independent militias based in Misrata, in western Libya, who have launched an offensive against eastern rebels that could very well spark an all out civil war very soon.

This picture reflects an uncanny resemblance to Iraq, but without the major US or NATO oversight, since the US largely sat behind the scenes as a rebel-led overthrow of the former Libyan government took place.  Nonetheless, it still paints a valid picture of the current status of several countries in the Middle East today, following the 2011 Arab Spring.  Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria – all countries either currently or successfully having attempted to overthrow leaders – all have one common factor or potential possibility:  complete and utter chaos playing out in all out civil war due to the lack of central government.

It was also last week, that Al-Jazeera had broadcast the final piece of a 3 year investigation of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing that killed 270 people over Lockerbie, Scotland, which revealed information disproving the long believed fact that Libya – more specifically Al-Gaddafi – was responsible for the crime.  This information was revealed by former Iranian intelligence officer Abolghasem Mesbahi, who later defected from the country, and has now confirmed that it was not Libya who committed the bombing, but Iran.  For decades the only official conviction in the plot was Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was sent to prison in Scotland, and famously released in 2009 under compassionate grounds due to terminal prostate cancer.  He died in 2012, still denouncing his conviction, and his family is appealing the conviction to this day. [RB: There is no current appeal. It has, however, been announced that a group of UK Lockerbie relatives intends to apply to the SCCRC for a further appeal.]

This new information proves incredibly strongly beyond any reasonable doubt that al-Megrahi was indeed innocent, and that Iran, working through the Palestinian Front for The Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), ordered the blowing up of Pan Am 103 in revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by the US navy earlier in 1988.  US Naval reports claimed they had mistook the plane for a belligerent F-14 fighter jet.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Mesbahi states, “Iran decided to retaliate as soon as possible. The decision was made by the whole system in Iran and confirmed by Ayatollah Khomeini.  The target of the Iranian decision makers was to copy exactly what’s happened to the Iranian Airbus. Everything exactly same, minimum 290 people dead. This was the target of the Iranian decision makers.”

The Crown Office, the prosecution service for Scotland, had even previously noted that the PFLP-GC was allegedly involved at the original Lockerbie trial. [RB: It was the defence, not the prosecution, that sought to incriminate the PFLP-GC at the Zeist trial. But it is certainly the case that, until the focus shifted in 1990, the evidence amassed by the Lockerbie investigators led them to the conclusion that the PFLP-GC was responsible.] US Defense Intelligence Agency reports at the time also confirmed the leader of the PFLP-GC was paid to carry out the attacks.  So, with high ranking and politically esteemed individuals in both the US and Scotland reaching the conclusion that it was in fact Iran and not Libya who carried out the attacks, why would officials fail to accuse the real perpetrator?

Looking much deeper into the Libyan coup, and the overall dissatisfaction of Gaddafi for decades leading up to it, it becomes clear that the reason the trigger was pulled on Gaddafi was not only his many tyrannical policies, unjust rule, and the supposed responsibility of the Pan Am 103 attacks – those were just surface reasons fueling a more in depth cause.  It was really much simpler… Oil.