tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post2299044296563057387..comments2024-03-15T06:02:30.623+00:00Comments on The Lockerbie Case: The centrepiece of the case against MegrahiRobert Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-60062383605206902172017-09-01T11:15:16.824+01:002017-09-01T11:15:16.824+01:00What a very thought-provoking observation. Thank y...What a very thought-provoking observation. Thank you, Rolfe.Robert Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-37056853032917294412017-09-01T11:09:15.817+01:002017-09-01T11:09:15.817+01:00People often forget Megrahi's words on his dea...People often forget Megrahi's words on his death-bed. He said he knew he was dying and he hoped that in the fulness of time he would meet Tony Gauci in heaven and he'd ask him why he did it and he would forgive him.<br /><br />This is worth a bit of analysis. Megrahi, a devout Moslem, believed that he would inhabit the same heaven as Tony Gauci, a Christian. He believed that Tony would indeed go to heaven, despite what he'd done. No screeching of "burn in hell, unbeliever" in this narrative. And he wanted to forgive Tony, personally.<br /><br />This is so far from the fanatical jihadist Moslem that Megrahi is sometimes portrayed as by the utterly ignorant that it's worth remarking on. The theological sophistication of the recognition that heaven is heaven (and presumably God is God) no matter which faith journey you've come on to get there is something a lot of people around the world would do well to take on board.Rolfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849975010197698907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-41277077881529274172017-09-01T10:32:38.873+01:002017-09-01T10:32:38.873+01:00What nobody seems to remember is that the entire c...What nobody seems to remember is that the entire case hinges on this identification, including the route of the bomb.<br /><br />There was no evidence of the bomb at Luqa, and the evidence from Frankfurt was weak and confused. Why Malta? The eventual decision was that while the route of the bomb had not been clearly demonstrated, the fact that the man who bought the clothes in the bomb suitcase was at the airport when flight KM180 departed for Frankfurt was too much of a coincidence so it had to have been that.<br /><br />But if Megrahi wasn't the man who bought the clothes, then there is no evidence at all that the man who bought the clothes was at the airport that morning. Poof, there goes the entire case.<br /><br />You'd think lawyers and clever people like that would be able to work that out, wouldn't you? But a lot of them can't.Rolfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849975010197698907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-7093669601029727122017-09-01T10:28:13.566+01:002017-09-01T10:28:13.566+01:00Tony's first words after viewing the line-up? ...<br /><br />Tony's first words after viewing the line-up? "NOT the man I saw in my shop..." He went on to say, "... but the man who LOOKS LIKE HIM is the number five." He was saying he recognised Megrahi as being the man he'd been saying RESEMBLED the purchaser, but he wasn't actually him. And the judges said that was a reliable identification.<br /><br />Of course if you'd pressed Tony on that you'd have got a string of internally contradictory waffle and obfuscation, but from what he actually said, he was indicating that the man who was no. 5 in the line-up WASN'T the purchaser.<br /><br />It beggars belief that the judges accepted that as reliable evidence of identification. Their reasoning, as laid out in the Opinion of the Court, is bizarre. "Well of course he couldn't have been certain after all this time so it's as you'd expect. He wasn't dogmatic about it so he wasn't just doing it for the money, so it must have been the same man." More or less.<br /><br />How anyone can read any of this and claim for one second that this was a strong identification boggles my mind.Rolfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849975010197698907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-61719040857487227992017-09-01T10:28:01.347+01:002017-09-01T10:28:01.347+01:00The evidence is strong that someone came into Tony...The evidence is strong that someone came into Tony Gauci's shop, probably on 23rd November, and bought some items which were later found burned on the ground at Lockerbie in a condition consistent with them having been in the suitcase close to the bomb. The brown checked Yorkie trousers are the most convincing item, with a complete chain of evidence connecting this uniquely identifiable pair of cheap slacks to Mary's House. That being the case it seems almost irrefutable that Tony Gauci did speak to one of the terrorist gang that day.<br /><br />The completeness of the chain of evidence identifying that unremarkable garment is itself a bit of a facer. It looks too good to be true and it does raise some questions. However, if we take that at face value, where does it leave us?<br /><br />The police attempts to get Tony to "remember" selling every bloody item they thought had been in the bomb suitcase were really ill-advised. There's no law of nature that says the terrorists must have stocked the bomb suitcase all from the same shop. Who cares if the man bought the Slalom shirts in a different shop? Do we really care whether the Babygro had a lamb or a sheep on it? (Can anyone really distinguish, given that it will have been a cartoon motif?)<br /><br />The Yorkie trousers were solid, and linked the buyer Tony saw that evening to the bombing. Maybe some of the other items were also bought at the same time (the pyjamas, the umbrella, the Angia jacket) but it's not that important. It's certainly not necessary to get him to remember selling the shirts. Why were the cops so exercised to tie all the items down to the one shop? Did they even try any other local clothes shops to see if anyone else remembered the man shopping there? No, they put all their eggs in the basket labelled Tony.<br /><br />But Tony didn't remember. Or rather, he remembered very well, but not what the cops wanted him to remember. His recollection of that one particular purchase was remarkable, ten months, a summer season and many hundreds of other customers later. It was an amazing stroke of luck that he remembered anything. The trouble was, he didn't remember the man's face.<br /><br />Tony sold clothes for a living. He looked at people's bodies, not their faces. He gave a remarkable description of the man's vital statistics (initially nothing like Megrahi's), but only an impression of a clean-shaven face and a full head of black frizzy hair. How many faces in the middle east fit that description?<br /><br />But the cops ignored the vital statistics and spent months showing Tony head-only mugshots of people with hair on their heads. No clue as to the shape of the bodies attached to these heads. Whatever hazy memory Tony had of the original purchaser would soon have been drowned under the deluge of new images.<br /><br />His uncertainty as regards later sightings of the same man should have disallowed his evidence also. At least twice he told the police he thought he'd seen the man again, but it's clear he wasn't sure and he kept changing his mind. If he couldn't be sure that he'd seen the same man again only months later, how reliable was his tentative "identification" at Camp Zeist ten years later?<br /><br />Dr Bannon doesn't mention age in that particular extract, but Tony's evidence was consistent in estimating the purchaser's age as being about 50, that is older than himself, at the time of the purchase. Megrahi was 36 in 1988, several years younger than Tony. Nevertheless at the identity parade at Camp Zeist Megrahi, by then 47, was the second-oldest of the men in the line-up. The only man older than him (by a year) was only 5' 3" in height, so couldn't possibly have been the sic-foot purchaser. Some of the other men were impossibly young to have been the purchaser, and some of them weren't even Arab.Rolfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849975010197698907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-80087797174433034182017-09-01T10:00:35.222+01:002017-09-01T10:00:35.222+01:00THey couldn't strip someone of their pension f...THey couldn't strip someone of their pension for breaking ranks nearly 30 years later, could they?Rolfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849975010197698907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1073021351804532798.post-57831579443348964242017-09-01T08:37:51.506+01:002017-09-01T08:37:51.506+01:00Dr Bannon is a living example of the process that ...Dr Bannon is a living example of the process that has occurred with all who take the trouble to objectively study the facts of Lockerbie. When the full panoply of events - statements, police evidence revealed, police evidence concealed, huge offers of money in exchange for evidence, forensic facts - are available, in every case their conclusion is that the trial was a travesty, and the judges made a serious mistake. <br /><br />The one exception to this is the iron-clad mindset of certain American relatives, and members of the legal profession, the FBI and CIA whose careers then, and pensions now, rely on maintaining a defensive front. About us ...https://www.blogger.com/profile/10861835905210461367noreply@blogger.com