[The following are excerpts from a letter dated 23 June 1997 from distinguished Scottish lawyer Peter Anderson to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as quoted in a speech by Tam Dalyell, MP for Linlithgow:]
My attention has been drawn to the question put to you by the MP for Linlithgow on 18 June 1997 (Hansard 309/310). Whilst mention of my name contributed nothing to their weight and substance, can I nevertheless respectfully suggest that the question and proposal which were advanced, merit very careful additional consideration by your new Government.
My interest and involvement in the appalling tragedy of the Lockerbie disaster is well known. I have acted for Pan Am and its insurers throughout and do still have some limited involvement in defending personal injury claims of alleged stress from Lockerbie area residents where liability is denied. This letter however is not written in any capacity as representative of my clients and is not on their instructions or with a view to promoting their interests. Pan Am effectively went out of business following the disaster and the insurers have paid out many millions of dollars which cannot be recovered just because the Libyan connection is doubted.
As a result of my fairly extensive knowledge of the background, I do have scepticism as to whether the Crown Office have properly identified the correct accused, and that is shared by many, journalists, lawyers and others. That scepticism grew during my representation of Pan Am and its insurers in the course of the five month Fatal Accident Inquiry in 1990/91, when, as I am sure you have been advised, the now Lord Advocate [RB: Andrew Hardie QC] was senior Crown Counsel assisting the then Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC. It was heightened during the civil damages trial in New York by what I understand was the evidence led there before Chief Judge Platt, and also, importantly by the evidence which he excluded.
It would be unfair to ask you to consider the series of detailed points that exist made to question whether the two Libyans are still properly to be regarded as the murderers. In my assessment however, the Crown case to the effect that the Libyans achieved the destruction of Flight 103 over Lockerbie by introducing in Malta an unaccompanied bag containing the bomb for transit to Frankfurt and subsequent transfer has always been highly questionable and circumstantial.
There is a strong body of evidence from Air Malta to the effect that no unaccompanied bag did travel to Frankfurt carrying an interline tag showing the ultimate destination of New York. For reasons a British lawyer finds extraordinary, Chief Judge Platt chose to exclude that evidence from the consideration of the Jury in the New York civil damages trial.
Even if that evidence is disregarded, it has always seemed to me inherently improbable that sophisticated terrorists would adopt a method which required an unaccompanied bag containing a bomb to travel undetected through Malta Airport, then through Frankfurt and then by transfer at London Heathrow onto the Boeing 747 which was ultimately destroyed. The prospects of discovery, inadvertent detonation on some non-US flight or failure to make a connection, makes that scheme full of uncertainty. Such a plot becomes even less likely given that it is known that in late 1988 an Arab terrorist group had a bomb maker in Germany [RB: Marwan Khreesat] who had been detected fitting explosives in a radio of the same type which is said to have contained the Lockerbie bomb…
It seems to me that there is a difficulty now, nearly 20 years later, that this line of argument simply becomes stale. It was a valid argument then and it's a valid argument now. More so, because substantial additional evidence has come to light to reinforce it. However, we face an establishment that simply says, we've been ignoring that argument for 20 years and we have no intention of listening to it now, give it up, why don't you.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is exactly what is happening now. However owing to the serious nature of what happened at Lockerbie we should never give up until we find out the Real truth. Clearly there are people within the British Establishment who have something to hide and they will do their utmost to make sure the truth never comes out. Since they control the levers of power they obviously see themselves as "above the law" However nobody should be above the law and that is why we need to know the Real truth. Yes they have lied, planted evidence and bribed witnesses which all lead to the detruction of a country and its people. That is a crime that must not go unpunished. There is no statue of limitations on a crime of that magnitude. The Real truth needs to be exposed and the people who have helped to hide that truth from being exposed also need to be held to account and there appears to have been quite a few of them. I was doing it "in the national interest" should never be accepted as a valid excuse for what happened here.
DeleteWe do not know that anyone planted evidence. It's possible, but nothing has been proved.
Delete"We do not know that anyone planted evidence. It's possible, but nothing has been proved."
DeleteIt depends on what you call "proof". In math you can somehow, for qualified mathematicians on a sufficient level, build a chain of conclusions, which is then agreed to be a proof.
As we all know. in real life "proof" is a more flexible affair. The absense of any known plausible explanation is sufficient to be regarded as proof.
As you have pointed out often, the timer fragment is not the most crucial argument for the innocense of Megrahi. The absurdities in disregarding the Bedford suitcase, and the totally unconvincing argumentation (which at times seems like "none at all") for the related events, bypassing the critical witnesses and discarding obvious facts, yes, that is more important in the question of innosense and guilt. The matters are just a bit more complex.
But the timer fragment remains simple:
If it a) MEBO did not ever deliver a timer with an Sn-only printed circuit board and b) there is no even remotely plausible explanation for its existense then c)the fragment is a deliberately planted piece of evidence.
If a man takes out 50,000 USD of his account, and a hired killer is seen to have received that amount to murder his wife, we will convict the man if a motive exists, he can not account for the money, and no other contradictory proof exists.
We will not say "Well, there may me an explanation that we just don't have yet".
Surely there may be, and a million of them, but status is still: proven, beyond reasonable doubt.
I wrote "The absense of any known plausible explanation is sufficient to be regarded as proof."
DeleteShould have written "The absense of any known plausible alternative explanation is sufficient to have the only plausible theory being accepted as proven."
I challenge anyone to find one single example in the world of such a reproduction of a pcb, something which, for the sole matter of making product with similar functionality, would make no sense whatsoever.
We don't ever get certainty. To any set of arguments it would take a very limited mind to not be able to find a remotely possible alternative. That this at times may even be true does not make a difference.
So, if MEBO did not produce a timer of which PT/35b is a fragment, the statement "The PT/35b was produced to be used as fake evidence" is proven to me.
Did e.g. Lumpert in all secrecy start his own production, Sn-only based, to be sold as genuine MEBO to clients that might even open the timer to verify it?
It is a totally far-fetched explanation, but unthinkable it is not. If true it would not mean that I was not justified in making the conclusion "proven" above, it would only mean that it was wrong.
So, for your statement "... nothing has been proved" we do not agree.