[What follows is excerpted from a report by Jack Dennison-Thompson published today on the Maghrebi.org website:]
Fresh allegations accusing Libya, once again, to be the architect of the Lockerbie bombing in 1998 have arisen, with the US quick to endorse their validity.
According to the BBC, Samir Shegwara, a Libyan writer and politician, has published documents in his new book Murderer Who Must Be Saved, which contains classified documents that he claims he took from the archives of Libya’s former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi after the collapse of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime in 2011. No one, so far, not least the Americans nor the Libyans, have validated the documents and so question marks arise over whether they are genuine or have been created by those with vested interests in keeping the blame for Lockerbie firmly with Colonel Gadaffi.
The classified documents are claimed to have been dated October 4th 1988 with the handwritten report labelled as “top secret” alongside one of the files containing the subject matter “Experiments on the use of the suitcase and testing its effectiveness.”
The report later explains that the tests were effective in avoiding X-ray scanners ideal considering the Pan Am flight did not hand check the bags on the flight but rather just X-rayed them.
The report also details an agent by the name of Aboujila Kheir – believed to be Abu Agila Masud Kheir Al-Marimi – who was involved in the tests. More details are believed to involve the “expenses” of an agent who traveled to Malta days before the attack on Pan Am 103, despite the island effectively being the international base for all of Libya’s foreign intelligence operatives.
The documents reportedly implicate Abdullah Senussi, Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, in planning both the Lockerbie bombing and UTA Flight 772 attack. Senussi was convicted in absentia for the UTA bombing in 1999 but never served his sentence. Scottish and American prosecutors later named him as a Lockerbie suspect in 2015.
Sami Shegwara was arrested on the 20th of March after the documents he released were seen as a national security risk. His publishers have come out and stated that Mr Shegwara is facing legal proceedings over the “alleged possession of classified security documents, without legal justification.”
The strange case around this arrest is that Shegwara who is the mayor of Hay al Andalous in Tripoli has openly shown his possession of these documents since 2018.
Some believe this shows that the document must be real for the arrest to take place yet it also calls into question why it would take seven years for such documents to become of such importance.
The documents have now been described by a former FBI agent as “dynamite” and will be used to prosecute Abu Agila Mas’id Kheir Al-Marimi, known as Masud, who is accused of building the bomb for his trial in Washington.
While these new documents have surfaced and become “dynamite” evidence in the past month, the case of Lockerbie has been a whirlwind of truth and lies.
This is so much so that Nelson Mandela himself was sceptical to blame Libya.
Documents in the National Archive of the UK have shown that Nelson Mandela told the UK that it was wrong to hold Libya responsible for the Lockerbie bombing.
Mandela was acting as the intermediary for Libya and in a conversation with Tony Blair on April 30th 2001 “Mandela argued it was wrong to hold Libya legally responsible for the bombing,” the cables revealed.
Mandela believed that the UN was wrong to impose economic sanctions on Libya after Al Megrahis’s extraction to the Netherlands for trial where he was convicted controversially. (...)
The unusual actions in this case echo a familiar pattern, as the US faces accusations of violating international laws to abduct a Libyan national, fuellng suspicions regarding Libyan involvement in the Pan Am attack.
This occurred in November of 2022 Libyan militiamen captured Abu Agila Mas’ud, accused of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. US agents took custody of the suspect in a controversial midnight raid in Tripoli. The operation highlights ongoing tensions surrounding the Lockerbie terrorist attack.
After decades of silence, the Lockerbie victims’ families have erupted in a rare public challenge, casting doubt on the US justice system’s ability to deliver a truly impartial trial.
Dr Swire who leads representations for the families who have lost loved ones in the attack and who lost his daughter himself believes the US has blurred the lines of this situation even more, with a UN trial being the more just prosecution.
“There are so many loose ends that hang from this dreadful case, largely emanating from America, that I think we should remember what (former president of South Africa Nelson) Mandela said to the world and to us then, and seek a court that is free of being beholden to any nation directly involved in the atrocity itself,” Swire told BBC Radio Scotland.
Their unprecedented call for a UN-led prosecution speaks volumes about the deep-seated suspicions surrounding America’s long-standing narrative of the terrorist attack.
Whilst Libya has been at the forefront for blame over the Lockerbie bombing, there are alternative theories which suggest Libya was not at the forefront for the bombing.
Many journalists support the opposing argument, suggesting that a bomb was planted on the plane at Heathrow Airport by a Syrian terrorist cell that was paid for by Iran.
Whether this theory of the attack is true or whether Libya is involved it appears that the bombardment of blame onto Libya which has been carried for 37 years feels unjust and excessive, to say the least.
The current investigations have begun with the new documents as the Scottish detectives have now been examining the new files to verify Libyans involvement, alongside the US trials still taking place.
After three decades, the case for Lockerbie seems to have a new lease of life rather, it appears it never really lost it as it has constantly been dug up by countless finger-pointing to Libya by the US and the West with no tangible evidence sticking.
These new documents could potentially reshape the understanding of the case. However, a lingering question remains: why are files that have existed for seven years now being presented as urgent and pivotal evidence?
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