[This is the heading over a letter from Duncan McFarlane published in The Herald on 15 March. It reads as follows:]
Too many people, including myself, have been looking at what’s happening in Libya with wariness after war propaganda from Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq from 2002.
There is propaganda today: Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s trial was a sham and no-one knows who carried out the Lockerbie bombing; and Muammar Gaddafi has never used chemical weapons against Libyan rebels.
What’s happening in Libya is like Iraq in 1991, when there were rebellions with majority support against the dictatorship, but the dictatorship crushed them because the US and its allies allowed them to, on the calculation that a successful Shia rebellion would increase Iranian influence in Iraq. Similarly the Barack Obama administration is wary of supporting rebels, some of whom, such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), have been allies of Al Qaeda.
The rebels are mostly not LIFG. If we don’t back them the likelihood is they will be massacred just like Shia rebels and civilians in the south of Iraq were in 1991. It’s right to be uncertain of reports based on past propaganda; and right to remember the ulterior motives of most governments, but we know from Gaddafi’s past practice that many who criticised him will be killed in public hangings or private disappearances if his forces win.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Sunday, 13 March 2011
EU support for Arab rebels is shamefully late
[This is the headline over an article by Nick Cohen in today's edition of The Observer. On the subject of Libya and Megrahi, it reads as follows:]
Europeans did not investigate Arab suffering, because they did not believe they had a democratic duty to help it end. To add obfuscation to indifference, they could not admit their accommodation with autocracy honestly. Instead, the left pretended criticism of intolerable regimes was cultural imperialism; an "orientalist" interference in the affairs of "the other". The right hymned the virtues of "stability" and "strong rulers". (...)
Meanwhile the British know that BP lobbied Gordon Brown to secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber. With luck, we may learn more if the rebels can reverse their defeats, and open the secret police archives in Tripoli. Those files may also explain why Silvio Berlusconi felt it necessary to corral 500 "hostesses" and "escorts", and send the perplexed ladies to hear Gaddafi read from the Koran at the Libyan ambassador's Rome residence.
However, readers who see corruption as a universal explanation should take a deep breath and remember Humbert Wolfe's line:
"You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God! the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to."
Most of the apologists for dictatorship do not need bribes, whether they are Foreign Office Arabists, Little England columnists for the Tory press or the Livingstone/Galloway breed of brutal leftist. They will apologise when there is no prospect of profit for them. The Scottish Nationalist party released Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, not Labour, and no one has produced evidence that money made it hand Gaddafi a propaganda coup before Scottish appeal judges had ruled on al-Megrahi's guilt. Instead of looking like a bought man, Alex Salmond [RB: this should read Kenny MacAskill] posed as a tartan Che Guevara, who was defying the Yankee oppressors by freeing a criminal convicted of destroying a Pan Am plane and all its passengers and crew. [RB: Defying the Yankee oppressors, forsooth! Kenny MacAskill's principal stated reason for denying prisoner transfer was his (correct) belief that an obligation that Megrahi's sentence would be served in the UK had been undertaken towards the US and other countries, prior to devolution, by the UK government. Not much sign of defiance there.]
I guess that Salmond is typical and a majority of Europeans believe Libya is a distant land, whose affairs have nothing to do with us. (...)
Europeans did not investigate Arab suffering, because they did not believe they had a democratic duty to help it end. To add obfuscation to indifference, they could not admit their accommodation with autocracy honestly. Instead, the left pretended criticism of intolerable regimes was cultural imperialism; an "orientalist" interference in the affairs of "the other". The right hymned the virtues of "stability" and "strong rulers". (...)
Meanwhile the British know that BP lobbied Gordon Brown to secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber. With luck, we may learn more if the rebels can reverse their defeats, and open the secret police archives in Tripoli. Those files may also explain why Silvio Berlusconi felt it necessary to corral 500 "hostesses" and "escorts", and send the perplexed ladies to hear Gaddafi read from the Koran at the Libyan ambassador's Rome residence.
However, readers who see corruption as a universal explanation should take a deep breath and remember Humbert Wolfe's line:
"You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God! the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to."
Most of the apologists for dictatorship do not need bribes, whether they are Foreign Office Arabists, Little England columnists for the Tory press or the Livingstone/Galloway breed of brutal leftist. They will apologise when there is no prospect of profit for them. The Scottish Nationalist party released Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, not Labour, and no one has produced evidence that money made it hand Gaddafi a propaganda coup before Scottish appeal judges had ruled on al-Megrahi's guilt. Instead of looking like a bought man, Alex Salmond [RB: this should read Kenny MacAskill] posed as a tartan Che Guevara, who was defying the Yankee oppressors by freeing a criminal convicted of destroying a Pan Am plane and all its passengers and crew. [RB: Defying the Yankee oppressors, forsooth! Kenny MacAskill's principal stated reason for denying prisoner transfer was his (correct) belief that an obligation that Megrahi's sentence would be served in the UK had been undertaken towards the US and other countries, prior to devolution, by the UK government. Not much sign of defiance there.]
I guess that Salmond is typical and a majority of Europeans believe Libya is a distant land, whose affairs have nothing to do with us. (...)
Friday, 11 March 2011
Will any aspect of the Lockerbie affair be an election issue?
In his column headlined What else can the SNP do to claw back votes? in yesterday's edition of The Herald, Iain Macwhirter wrote: "As for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi – the issue that some commentators said could lose the SNP the election – well the boot is now on the other foot following the revelations about Gordon Brown’s dealings with Colonel Gaddafi."
It is probably true to say that the release of Megrahi will not be a vote loser for the SNP. But is it possible that the attitude of Scottish political parties to the question of an inquiry into the circumstances of his conviction could become an issue in the election? Or is the general public perception now that, because Libyan politicians jockeying for position in that country are lining up to say that Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing, the issue of whether one particular Libyan was properly convicted by a Scottish court of the murder of 270 people is a matter of no particular concern or importance?
It is probably true to say that the release of Megrahi will not be a vote loser for the SNP. But is it possible that the attitude of Scottish political parties to the question of an inquiry into the circumstances of his conviction could become an issue in the election? Or is the general public perception now that, because Libyan politicians jockeying for position in that country are lining up to say that Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing, the issue of whether one particular Libyan was properly convicted by a Scottish court of the murder of 270 people is a matter of no particular concern or importance?
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
New revelation over Lockerbie air tragedy
[This is the headline over an editorial in today's edition of the Maltese newspaper, The Times. It reads in part:]
A new revelation about the downing of the Pan Am 103 that killed 270 people over Lockerbie in 1988 would have had far more news coverage than it did had Muammar Gaddafi not opted to turn on his own people in an uprising that is threatening to further undermine peace and security in the Mediterranean.
When the Gaddafi regime’s Justice Minister, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, stepped down a few days ago he was reported telling a Swedish tabloid he had proof the Libyan leader had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. The problem is he did not describe the proof but, according to The Sunday Times (of London), the man convicted of the bombing, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, had warned Col Gaddafi he would “reveal everything” about the downing of the airliner unless he was rescued from the Scottish prison where he was being held.
The story, which is, of course, of direct interest to Malta because the bomb that killed the passengers was said to have started its journey from the airport here – a claim the government has consistently strongly denied – once again opens wide the whole debate over who actually ordered the downing of the aircraft, the motive behind the order and the real perpetrator of the heinous crime. There are analysts who still believe the Pan Am was downed by a Palestinian faction acting in concert with Iran. (...)
It is very important now for the former Libyan Justice Minister to come out with the evidence of the claim he made, if he has any, because if he does not, it would remain just an allegation. Not that Col Gaddafi now needs an allegation of this sort to tarnish his image; his determination to crush his own people for demanding freedom from tyranny is more than enough to stir deep revulsion among the international community, which has unequivocally called for his stepping down.
Even so, the Lockerbie story has not been concluded yet and, with the situation now being so uncertain, it would seem unlikely it would be picked up again any time soon.
A new revelation about the downing of the Pan Am 103 that killed 270 people over Lockerbie in 1988 would have had far more news coverage than it did had Muammar Gaddafi not opted to turn on his own people in an uprising that is threatening to further undermine peace and security in the Mediterranean.
When the Gaddafi regime’s Justice Minister, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, stepped down a few days ago he was reported telling a Swedish tabloid he had proof the Libyan leader had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. The problem is he did not describe the proof but, according to The Sunday Times (of London), the man convicted of the bombing, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, had warned Col Gaddafi he would “reveal everything” about the downing of the airliner unless he was rescued from the Scottish prison where he was being held.
The story, which is, of course, of direct interest to Malta because the bomb that killed the passengers was said to have started its journey from the airport here – a claim the government has consistently strongly denied – once again opens wide the whole debate over who actually ordered the downing of the aircraft, the motive behind the order and the real perpetrator of the heinous crime. There are analysts who still believe the Pan Am was downed by a Palestinian faction acting in concert with Iran. (...)
It is very important now for the former Libyan Justice Minister to come out with the evidence of the claim he made, if he has any, because if he does not, it would remain just an allegation. Not that Col Gaddafi now needs an allegation of this sort to tarnish his image; his determination to crush his own people for demanding freedom from tyranny is more than enough to stir deep revulsion among the international community, which has unequivocally called for his stepping down.
Even so, the Lockerbie story has not been concluded yet and, with the situation now being so uncertain, it would seem unlikely it would be picked up again any time soon.
'No question' Gadhafi ordered Pan Am bombing, ex-CIA official says
[This is the headline over a report on the MSNBC News website on 7 March. It reads in part:]
A former top CIA official who helped oversee the agency’s investigation into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, tells NBC News there is "no doubt" that Moammar Gadhafi personally approved the bombing.
"There are two things that you can take to the bank," said Frank Anderson, who served as the agency's Near East affairs chief between 1991 and his retirement in 1995. "The first one is, Pan Am 103 was perpetrated by agents of the Libyan government. And the second thing is, that could not have happened without Moammar Gadhafi's knowledge and consent.
"There is no question in my mind that Moammar Gadhafi authorized the bombing of Pan Am 103." (...)
Anderson acknowledged that the CIA never had direct evidence tying Gadhafi to the bombing. But during Anderson's tenure as chief of the CIA's Near East affairs division U.S. and British officials were able to wrap up an investigation that uncovered forensic and other evidence linking the planting of the bomb to Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer.
While there have long been suspicions of Gadhafi's involvement, Anderson has particular credibility on the issue. As one of the CIA's top experts on Libya — he had served as a case officer in Tripoli in the early 1970s after Gadhafi first came to power — Anderson dismissed the possibility that Megrahi could have been acting as a "rogue" agent without the knowledge of the regime's top leader. By the time of the bombing, he said, Gadhafi had so consolidated his hold over the regime that there was "absolutely no way" for Libyan intelligence officials to have carried out the bombing without the dictator's authorization.
Geopolitical and other realities led U.S. officials to handle the matter as a criminal case, resulting in a federal indictment of Megrahi and an alleged co-conspirator, rather than with military force, noted Anderson, who now serves as the president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based think tank. President Ronald Reagan ordered a bombing of Libya in 1986 after U.S. officials linked Libya's intelligence service to an earlier terrorism bombing in Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen.
In a separate interview, Richard Marquise, who was the chief FBI agent on the Lockerbie case, said he and other bureau officials always assumed that senior Libyan officials were complicit in blowing up the aircraft, but never had enough evidence to build a case against them.
When Megrahi and an alleged co-conspirator, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, were indicted by a federal grand jury in 1991, FBI officials were eager to convict them in a U.S. court – and then get them to finger the higher level officials who gave them their orders, said Marquise. Some evidence against higher level Libyan intelligence officials had surfaced in the course of the probe, said Marquise. He even considered seeking "material witness" warrants that would authorize FBI agents to apprehend the suspects and force them to testify.
"We always hoped that had we gotten (access to Megrahi and Fhimah) they would start to roll," said Marquise. "There was always an expectation that we would get further up the chain."
But much to the frustration of U.S. officials, that never happened. As part of a deal to get the Libyans to turn over Megrahi and Fhimah, the U.S. agreed to allow them to be tried in Scotland — and Scottish officials agreed to restrict the case only to them, preventing the disclosure of any evidence that might point to higher-ups. (...)
[Posted to the blog from Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital of South Africa, indeed the world.]
A former top CIA official who helped oversee the agency’s investigation into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, tells NBC News there is "no doubt" that Moammar Gadhafi personally approved the bombing.
"There are two things that you can take to the bank," said Frank Anderson, who served as the agency's Near East affairs chief between 1991 and his retirement in 1995. "The first one is, Pan Am 103 was perpetrated by agents of the Libyan government. And the second thing is, that could not have happened without Moammar Gadhafi's knowledge and consent.
"There is no question in my mind that Moammar Gadhafi authorized the bombing of Pan Am 103." (...)
Anderson acknowledged that the CIA never had direct evidence tying Gadhafi to the bombing. But during Anderson's tenure as chief of the CIA's Near East affairs division U.S. and British officials were able to wrap up an investigation that uncovered forensic and other evidence linking the planting of the bomb to Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer.
While there have long been suspicions of Gadhafi's involvement, Anderson has particular credibility on the issue. As one of the CIA's top experts on Libya — he had served as a case officer in Tripoli in the early 1970s after Gadhafi first came to power — Anderson dismissed the possibility that Megrahi could have been acting as a "rogue" agent without the knowledge of the regime's top leader. By the time of the bombing, he said, Gadhafi had so consolidated his hold over the regime that there was "absolutely no way" for Libyan intelligence officials to have carried out the bombing without the dictator's authorization.
Geopolitical and other realities led U.S. officials to handle the matter as a criminal case, resulting in a federal indictment of Megrahi and an alleged co-conspirator, rather than with military force, noted Anderson, who now serves as the president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based think tank. President Ronald Reagan ordered a bombing of Libya in 1986 after U.S. officials linked Libya's intelligence service to an earlier terrorism bombing in Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen.
In a separate interview, Richard Marquise, who was the chief FBI agent on the Lockerbie case, said he and other bureau officials always assumed that senior Libyan officials were complicit in blowing up the aircraft, but never had enough evidence to build a case against them.
When Megrahi and an alleged co-conspirator, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, were indicted by a federal grand jury in 1991, FBI officials were eager to convict them in a U.S. court – and then get them to finger the higher level officials who gave them their orders, said Marquise. Some evidence against higher level Libyan intelligence officials had surfaced in the course of the probe, said Marquise. He even considered seeking "material witness" warrants that would authorize FBI agents to apprehend the suspects and force them to testify.
"We always hoped that had we gotten (access to Megrahi and Fhimah) they would start to roll," said Marquise. "There was always an expectation that we would get further up the chain."
But much to the frustration of U.S. officials, that never happened. As part of a deal to get the Libyans to turn over Megrahi and Fhimah, the U.S. agreed to allow them to be tried in Scotland — and Scottish officials agreed to restrict the case only to them, preventing the disclosure of any evidence that might point to higher-ups. (...)
[Posted to the blog from Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital of South Africa, indeed the world.]
Monday, 7 March 2011
Who was the Lockerbie bomber?
[This is the headline over an article by Stephen Blease in today's edition of the News & Star, a newspaper circulating in the Carlisle area. It reads as follows:]
With Libya in the news again, there has been more argument over the compassionate release of Abelbaset al-Megrahi , the man accused of the Lockerbie bombing.
We might ask whether a mass murderer deserves compassion. But is al-Megrahi a mass murderer?
Not everyone thinks so. Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was one of the 270 people killed, doesn’t think Libya was even involved. And Hans Koechler, an observer at the trial, called al-Megrahi’s treatment “a spectacular miscarriage of justice”.
Consider these facts. In July 1988, six months before the Lockerbie attack, the US shot down an Iranian airbus, killing 290 people. The Ayatollah Khomeini vowed that “vengeance would rein down from the skies”.
Iranian officials then met a terrorist group whose favoured tactic was to place explosives inside radio cassette players with timers triggered by air pressure. The remains of radio cassette players were found among the wreckage.
At the time, nobody mentioned Libya. It was only in 1991 during the first Gulf War – when Britain and America wanted Iran on side – that Libya was first accused.
So can we really say al-Megrahi did it beyond reasonable doubt?
With Libya in the news again, there has been more argument over the compassionate release of Abelbaset al-Megrahi , the man accused of the Lockerbie bombing.
We might ask whether a mass murderer deserves compassion. But is al-Megrahi a mass murderer?
Not everyone thinks so. Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was one of the 270 people killed, doesn’t think Libya was even involved. And Hans Koechler, an observer at the trial, called al-Megrahi’s treatment “a spectacular miscarriage of justice”.
Consider these facts. In July 1988, six months before the Lockerbie attack, the US shot down an Iranian airbus, killing 290 people. The Ayatollah Khomeini vowed that “vengeance would rein down from the skies”.
Iranian officials then met a terrorist group whose favoured tactic was to place explosives inside radio cassette players with timers triggered by air pressure. The remains of radio cassette players were found among the wreckage.
At the time, nobody mentioned Libya. It was only in 1991 during the first Gulf War – when Britain and America wanted Iran on side – that Libya was first accused.
So can we really say al-Megrahi did it beyond reasonable doubt?
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Barack Obama orders Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi be seized
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of the Sunday Mirror. It reads as follows:]
Barack Obama will demand the Lockerbie bomber as the price of supporting a new government in Libya.
The US President says the deportation of freed Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi is a condition of him backing the rebels if they win power.
Mr Obama wants Megrahi to be tried in the States for putting a bomb on the New York-bound jet that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, a crime for which he was convicted by a Scottish court.
Cancer-stricken Megrahi has disappeared in Libya where he has been living after being released from jail because he supposedly had only months to live.
Intelligence sources fear he has been taken into ruler Colonel Muhamar Gaddafi’s own compound - and that Libyan leader would rather kill him than let his Lockerbie secrets be revealed.
Megrahi is believed to know the full story of the bombing in which 270 died and can name everyone involved - including Gaddafi.
The Sunday Mirror understands that top US officials have held talks with rebel leaders and demanded Megrahi be handed over.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a conference on Wednesday with FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney-General Eric Holder about how bring Megrahi and Gaddafi to justice.
A Washington source said: “This is seen as a real chance to get hold of the bomber who killed 189 American citizens.
“He may have spent a few years in a Scottish prison but in the eyes of the American people he has never faced justice.
"The US Justice Department said the indictment of Megrahi and another suspect remained pending and the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 remains open.”
Democratic Senator Robert Menendez said the deportation of al-Megrahi should be a condition of the US recognising a new Libyan government.
[The United States Government, along with that of the United Kingdom, proposed the UN Security Council resolutions that set up the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist. Both governments thereby undertook internationally binding obligations to comply with the legal processes thus set in motion. The United States cannot lawfully renounce those obligations either unilaterally or in conjunction with whatever new government it chooses to recognise in Libya. To have Abdelbaset Megrahi lawfully handed over to the US would require a further UN Security Council resolution. The United States, as a permanent member of the Security Council could, of course, propose such a resolution. But would the other members support it? The US could also, naturally, simply ignore international legality (as it did, with the UK's supine support, in launching the invasion of Iraq) and seize Megrahi by force (with or without the connivance of a new Libyan regime).
The IntelliBriefs website yesterday published an interesting article entitled Libya, Kaddafi and Lockerbie. It incorporates articles from Tam Dalyell, Robert Fisk and others.
An article by Susan Lindauer on Lockerbie and Libya can be read here on The People's Voice website.]
Barack Obama will demand the Lockerbie bomber as the price of supporting a new government in Libya.
The US President says the deportation of freed Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi is a condition of him backing the rebels if they win power.
Mr Obama wants Megrahi to be tried in the States for putting a bomb on the New York-bound jet that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, a crime for which he was convicted by a Scottish court.
Cancer-stricken Megrahi has disappeared in Libya where he has been living after being released from jail because he supposedly had only months to live.
Intelligence sources fear he has been taken into ruler Colonel Muhamar Gaddafi’s own compound - and that Libyan leader would rather kill him than let his Lockerbie secrets be revealed.
Megrahi is believed to know the full story of the bombing in which 270 died and can name everyone involved - including Gaddafi.
The Sunday Mirror understands that top US officials have held talks with rebel leaders and demanded Megrahi be handed over.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a conference on Wednesday with FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney-General Eric Holder about how bring Megrahi and Gaddafi to justice.
A Washington source said: “This is seen as a real chance to get hold of the bomber who killed 189 American citizens.
“He may have spent a few years in a Scottish prison but in the eyes of the American people he has never faced justice.
"The US Justice Department said the indictment of Megrahi and another suspect remained pending and the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 remains open.”
Democratic Senator Robert Menendez said the deportation of al-Megrahi should be a condition of the US recognising a new Libyan government.
[The United States Government, along with that of the United Kingdom, proposed the UN Security Council resolutions that set up the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist. Both governments thereby undertook internationally binding obligations to comply with the legal processes thus set in motion. The United States cannot lawfully renounce those obligations either unilaterally or in conjunction with whatever new government it chooses to recognise in Libya. To have Abdelbaset Megrahi lawfully handed over to the US would require a further UN Security Council resolution. The United States, as a permanent member of the Security Council could, of course, propose such a resolution. But would the other members support it? The US could also, naturally, simply ignore international legality (as it did, with the UK's supine support, in launching the invasion of Iraq) and seize Megrahi by force (with or without the connivance of a new Libyan regime).
The IntelliBriefs website yesterday published an interesting article entitled Libya, Kaddafi and Lockerbie. It incorporates articles from Tam Dalyell, Robert Fisk and others.
An article by Susan Lindauer on Lockerbie and Libya can be read here on The People's Voice website.]
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Libyan leader ordered Lockerbie bombing, envoy tells NJ senators
[This is the headline over a report published on Thursday on the New Jersey Courier Post Online website. I refer to it (and to a further news report that can be read here) because the ambassador to the US, Ali Aujali, had previously stated that Libya had agreed to compensate the relatives of the victims only in order to get back into normal diplomatic and commercial relations with the US, the UK and the rest of the Western world, and not because of any recognition of responsibility for the bombing. The report reads in part:]
But Ali Suleiman Aujali didn’t produce evidence to back up his claim during a meeting with New Jersey Democrats Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg and New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.
He offered to put U.S. officials in touch with the just-resigned Libyan justice minister, who has proof, Lautenberg said. (...)
Before the U.S. establishes diplomatic ties with a new government, Menendez said he would push for the Libyans to extradite Abdel Basset al-Megrahi so he could spend the rest of his life in an American prison. (...)
Of the 189 Americans on board, 38 were from New Jersey.
[Because of continuing problems with the telephone service and with electricity supply here in the Roggeveld Karoo, postings on this blog are likely to remain intermittent.]
But Ali Suleiman Aujali didn’t produce evidence to back up his claim during a meeting with New Jersey Democrats Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg and New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.
He offered to put U.S. officials in touch with the just-resigned Libyan justice minister, who has proof, Lautenberg said. (...)
Before the U.S. establishes diplomatic ties with a new government, Menendez said he would push for the Libyans to extradite Abdel Basset al-Megrahi so he could spend the rest of his life in an American prison. (...)
Of the 189 Americans on board, 38 were from New Jersey.
[Because of continuing problems with the telephone service and with electricity supply here in the Roggeveld Karoo, postings on this blog are likely to remain intermittent.]
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Clinton: We'll investigate Gadhafi over Pan Am 103
[This is the headline over a report published today on the MSNBC website. It reads in part:]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that the Obama administration may seek the prosecution of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Responding to a question by Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle, R-NY, about what the US is doing to build a case against Gadhafi, Clinton said that former Gadhafi officials have made statements in the past few days that he was behind the terrorist attack and that the U.S. would "move expeditiously." (...)
Clinton said that she would be in touch with FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday about how to move on this case. (...)
If there is evidence that he was behind the attack, Clinton said, that would be one of the many counts against Gadhafi in the international criminal court "if he is ever captured alive for justice proceedings."
Clinton said it was a matter of personal importance for her given that she used to represent the Syracuse area. Thirty-five students from Syracuse University were aboard the flight, coming home from overseas study.
Over the weekend, the former Libyan justice minister was quoted as saying the man convicted of the bombing had blackmailed Gadhafi into securing his release by threatening to expose his role in the attack.
The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Mustafa Abdel-Jalil as saying that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi had warned Gadhafi that he would "reveal everything" about the bombing if he wasn't rescued from a Scottish prison.
Abdel-Jalil told a Swedish tabloid last week that he had proof Gadhafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. He did not describe the proof.
Al-Megrahi was the only man convicted for the attack, which killed 270 people. He was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He remains alive.
[Any genuine investigation into the role (if any) played by Gaddafi in the Lockerbie bombing would be most welcome, as Dr Jim Swire says in this report on the Channel 4 News website. A genuine investigation would inevitably discover that the version of events accepted by the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist was fallacious. This, of course, is precisely the reason why no such investigation can realistically be anticipated.]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that the Obama administration may seek the prosecution of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Responding to a question by Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle, R-NY, about what the US is doing to build a case against Gadhafi, Clinton said that former Gadhafi officials have made statements in the past few days that he was behind the terrorist attack and that the U.S. would "move expeditiously." (...)
Clinton said that she would be in touch with FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday about how to move on this case. (...)
If there is evidence that he was behind the attack, Clinton said, that would be one of the many counts against Gadhafi in the international criminal court "if he is ever captured alive for justice proceedings."
Clinton said it was a matter of personal importance for her given that she used to represent the Syracuse area. Thirty-five students from Syracuse University were aboard the flight, coming home from overseas study.
Over the weekend, the former Libyan justice minister was quoted as saying the man convicted of the bombing had blackmailed Gadhafi into securing his release by threatening to expose his role in the attack.
The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Mustafa Abdel-Jalil as saying that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi had warned Gadhafi that he would "reveal everything" about the bombing if he wasn't rescued from a Scottish prison.
Abdel-Jalil told a Swedish tabloid last week that he had proof Gadhafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. He did not describe the proof.
Al-Megrahi was the only man convicted for the attack, which killed 270 people. He was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He remains alive.
[Any genuine investigation into the role (if any) played by Gaddafi in the Lockerbie bombing would be most welcome, as Dr Jim Swire says in this report on the Channel 4 News website. A genuine investigation would inevitably discover that the version of events accepted by the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist was fallacious. This, of course, is precisely the reason why no such investigation can realistically be anticipated.]
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Lockerbie, Guilt & Gaddafi
[This is the heading over a post published yesterday on Ian Bell's blog. It reads in part:]
Mustafa Abdel-Jalil is quick on his feet, if nothing else. From senior functionary in a despised and brutish regime to freedom-loving “head of the provisional government” in under a fortnight is smart work indeed.
It is reassuring, too, that Gaddafi’s former justice minister has been “chosen”, in the Scotsman’s words, “to head new regime”. Alternatively – the Sky News version – Abdel-Jalil has been “elected... president of Libya’s newly-formed National Council”.
As it turns out, the born-again democrat appears to have done all the electing and choosing himself, backed by the overwhelming support of persons named Abdel-Jalil. (...)
He calculates, no doubt, that his access to the world’s media will bolster his status in a post-Gaddafi Libya. Name recognition, they call it. But to pull off that trick, Abdel-Jalil must first tell the western press what the western press wants to hear, and bet – a safe enough bet – that reporters will not think beyond the headlines. Over the weekend, he made excellent use of his brief spell as Mr President.
So here’s Murdoch’s Sunday Times, a paper to which the phrase “once great” attaches itself like a faded obituary. “Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing” was done and dusted by the weekend. A new line was required. Any ideas?
The Lockerbie bomber blackmailed Colonel Gaddafi into securing his release from a Scottish prison by threatening to expose the dictator’s role in Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity, a former senior Libyan official [guess who] has claimed.
Now, let’s keep this simple. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was handed over to Scottish police on April 5, 1999, and released on compassionate grounds on August 20, 2009. Clearly, this was the most patient blackmailer the world has seen. If we believe a word, the man nursed his threat to exact “revenge” for over a decade, until terminal cancer intervened. As you do.
According to Abdel-Jalil and the Sunday Times, nevertheless, “Megrahi’s ploy led to a £50,000-a-month slush fund being set up to spend on legal fees and lobbying to bring him back to Tripoli”. Since the entire Libyan exchequer was Gaddafi’s personal slush fund, the sum seems niggardly. If vastly more was not spent on the case, I’d be astonished. And why wouldn’t it be spent? Wasn't Megrahi threatening to “spill the beans”?
But here Abdel-Jalil pulls out another of his plums. Again, he provides nothing resembling the whiff of proof. Al-Megrahi “was not the man who carried out the planning and execution of the bombing, but he was ‘nevertheless involved in facilitating things for those who did’”.
So where does that leave us? Megrahi – what with “planning and execution” omitted – didn’t do it. Another sensation. Or is that revelation perhaps designed to solve several tiny issues raised by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) and others over a miscarriage of justice and sundry associated issues?
Never fear: Gaddafi certainly did do it. That’s “on the record”, placed there by the erstwhile “head of the provisional government”, no less. So what then of “planning and execution”; what of “those who did”? Yet again, Abdel-Jalil doesn’t say. Why not?
Smoke and mirrors is a cliché, God knows. You only wish they would polish the mirrors occasionally, and puff up some properly thick smoke. But why bother? It works. First: make sure that “everyone knows” Gaddafi did it. Secondly, as though inferentially, throw in a few details based on a “fact” established by hearsay and mere assertion. This is how you build a lie.
What happened – what is established by the evidence as having happened – matters less than perception and belief. Gaddafi, with his multifarious actual crimes, is now the handiest scapegoat imaginable. Perhaps he should complain to Tony Blair.
Or perhaps he should get himself to the Hague, and to a proper court. It would do the dictator no good, but it might do wonders, even now, for the reputation of Scottish justice. I put the chances of that at zero.
[Also published yesterday was a Libya piece on Peter Hitchens's blog on the Mail on Sunday website. It reads in part:]
But how ridiculous it all is. Supposedly we are now terribly moral about the wicked Libyan regime, denying diplomatic immunity to its leaders, freezing its assets, refusing to print its banknotes. Tough, eh? This Libyan wickedness does not seem to have troubled the existing British government (or its predecessor) at all until about two weeks ago, or why was a British firm printing those banknotes and why were there so many British personnel in Libya in the first place?
By the way, please don't go on at me about the supposed 'Lockerbie Bomber'. There is absolutely no evidence that the Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi had anything to do with the Lockerbie bombing, almost certainly carried out by terrorists under Syrian control, at the behest of Iran.
The truth is that Colonel Gadaffi's government is being punished not because it is wicked (so is Syria's, for instance, as I keep needing to mention) but because it is weak and tottering. How embarrassing all this will be if the Gadaffi family manage somehow to regain control of the country. Terribly sorry, your colonelship, sir. Hope you understand we were only going through the motions? Can we have our printing contract back? No hard feelings, eh?
Mustafa Abdel-Jalil is quick on his feet, if nothing else. From senior functionary in a despised and brutish regime to freedom-loving “head of the provisional government” in under a fortnight is smart work indeed.
It is reassuring, too, that Gaddafi’s former justice minister has been “chosen”, in the Scotsman’s words, “to head new regime”. Alternatively – the Sky News version – Abdel-Jalil has been “elected... president of Libya’s newly-formed National Council”.
As it turns out, the born-again democrat appears to have done all the electing and choosing himself, backed by the overwhelming support of persons named Abdel-Jalil. (...)
He calculates, no doubt, that his access to the world’s media will bolster his status in a post-Gaddafi Libya. Name recognition, they call it. But to pull off that trick, Abdel-Jalil must first tell the western press what the western press wants to hear, and bet – a safe enough bet – that reporters will not think beyond the headlines. Over the weekend, he made excellent use of his brief spell as Mr President.
So here’s Murdoch’s Sunday Times, a paper to which the phrase “once great” attaches itself like a faded obituary. “Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing” was done and dusted by the weekend. A new line was required. Any ideas?
The Lockerbie bomber blackmailed Colonel Gaddafi into securing his release from a Scottish prison by threatening to expose the dictator’s role in Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity, a former senior Libyan official [guess who] has claimed.
Now, let’s keep this simple. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was handed over to Scottish police on April 5, 1999, and released on compassionate grounds on August 20, 2009. Clearly, this was the most patient blackmailer the world has seen. If we believe a word, the man nursed his threat to exact “revenge” for over a decade, until terminal cancer intervened. As you do.
According to Abdel-Jalil and the Sunday Times, nevertheless, “Megrahi’s ploy led to a £50,000-a-month slush fund being set up to spend on legal fees and lobbying to bring him back to Tripoli”. Since the entire Libyan exchequer was Gaddafi’s personal slush fund, the sum seems niggardly. If vastly more was not spent on the case, I’d be astonished. And why wouldn’t it be spent? Wasn't Megrahi threatening to “spill the beans”?
But here Abdel-Jalil pulls out another of his plums. Again, he provides nothing resembling the whiff of proof. Al-Megrahi “was not the man who carried out the planning and execution of the bombing, but he was ‘nevertheless involved in facilitating things for those who did’”.
So where does that leave us? Megrahi – what with “planning and execution” omitted – didn’t do it. Another sensation. Or is that revelation perhaps designed to solve several tiny issues raised by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) and others over a miscarriage of justice and sundry associated issues?
Never fear: Gaddafi certainly did do it. That’s “on the record”, placed there by the erstwhile “head of the provisional government”, no less. So what then of “planning and execution”; what of “those who did”? Yet again, Abdel-Jalil doesn’t say. Why not?
Smoke and mirrors is a cliché, God knows. You only wish they would polish the mirrors occasionally, and puff up some properly thick smoke. But why bother? It works. First: make sure that “everyone knows” Gaddafi did it. Secondly, as though inferentially, throw in a few details based on a “fact” established by hearsay and mere assertion. This is how you build a lie.
What happened – what is established by the evidence as having happened – matters less than perception and belief. Gaddafi, with his multifarious actual crimes, is now the handiest scapegoat imaginable. Perhaps he should complain to Tony Blair.
Or perhaps he should get himself to the Hague, and to a proper court. It would do the dictator no good, but it might do wonders, even now, for the reputation of Scottish justice. I put the chances of that at zero.
[Also published yesterday was a Libya piece on Peter Hitchens's blog on the Mail on Sunday website. It reads in part:]
But how ridiculous it all is. Supposedly we are now terribly moral about the wicked Libyan regime, denying diplomatic immunity to its leaders, freezing its assets, refusing to print its banknotes. Tough, eh? This Libyan wickedness does not seem to have troubled the existing British government (or its predecessor) at all until about two weeks ago, or why was a British firm printing those banknotes and why were there so many British personnel in Libya in the first place?
By the way, please don't go on at me about the supposed 'Lockerbie Bomber'. There is absolutely no evidence that the Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi had anything to do with the Lockerbie bombing, almost certainly carried out by terrorists under Syrian control, at the behest of Iran.
The truth is that Colonel Gadaffi's government is being punished not because it is wicked (so is Syria's, for instance, as I keep needing to mention) but because it is weak and tottering. How embarrassing all this will be if the Gadaffi family manage somehow to regain control of the country. Terribly sorry, your colonelship, sir. Hope you understand we were only going through the motions? Can we have our printing contract back? No hard feelings, eh?
Many Megrahi issues 'unresolved'
[This is the headline over a news agency report from The Press Association published earlier today. It reads as follows:]
There are still "too many unresolved issues" surrounding the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi for his role in the Lockerbie bombing, MSPs have agreed.
Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee agreed to continue a petition calling for an inquiry into the conviction lodged by pressure group Justice For Megrahi (JFM), with a suggestion that it should be referred to the Justice Committee.
SNP MSP Christine Grahame said: "The Megrahi/Lockerbie issue remains unresolved and highly unsatisfactory to many people."
Ms Grahame questioned the resolve to secure justice for the 270 people killed in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, highlighting a freedom of information request which revealed just one police officer is presently assigned to investigate what is still officially an open case.
She said: "The words 'the criminal investigation remains open' with one police officer would seem to me more like, to put it bluntly, file management than a serious and funded investigation to find those responsible.
"If you remember Mr Megrahi's conviction relates to him being involved in the placing of a device within a suitcase. It is known that, even if he is guilty as convicted, there must have been others."
She added: "Given also the flux with regards to Libya, and indeed the position of Megrahi himself within Libya regarding his physical state, I would hope to persuade the committee to continue this to see what happens after the election and see what an incoming administration might do, and also to see what happens way beyond these shores with regard to Mr Megrahi and Gaddafi (the Libyan leader).
"There are so many conspiracy theories around now that I think it's time that we had a clean, clear look at the role of Scottish justice in this.
"The issue is not whether Libya, or any other country, was guilty. The issue is was Mr Al Megrahi rightly convicted, and we have not heard the answer to that yet."
The Scottish Government has already refused the petition's call for an inquiry into the conviction.
[Well done, Christine Grahame and JFM.]
There are still "too many unresolved issues" surrounding the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi for his role in the Lockerbie bombing, MSPs have agreed.
Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee agreed to continue a petition calling for an inquiry into the conviction lodged by pressure group Justice For Megrahi (JFM), with a suggestion that it should be referred to the Justice Committee.
SNP MSP Christine Grahame said: "The Megrahi/Lockerbie issue remains unresolved and highly unsatisfactory to many people."
Ms Grahame questioned the resolve to secure justice for the 270 people killed in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, highlighting a freedom of information request which revealed just one police officer is presently assigned to investigate what is still officially an open case.
She said: "The words 'the criminal investigation remains open' with one police officer would seem to me more like, to put it bluntly, file management than a serious and funded investigation to find those responsible.
"If you remember Mr Megrahi's conviction relates to him being involved in the placing of a device within a suitcase. It is known that, even if he is guilty as convicted, there must have been others."
She added: "Given also the flux with regards to Libya, and indeed the position of Megrahi himself within Libya regarding his physical state, I would hope to persuade the committee to continue this to see what happens after the election and see what an incoming administration might do, and also to see what happens way beyond these shores with regard to Mr Megrahi and Gaddafi (the Libyan leader).
"There are so many conspiracy theories around now that I think it's time that we had a clean, clear look at the role of Scottish justice in this.
"The issue is not whether Libya, or any other country, was guilty. The issue is was Mr Al Megrahi rightly convicted, and we have not heard the answer to that yet."
The Scottish Government has already refused the petition's call for an inquiry into the conviction.
[Well done, Christine Grahame and JFM.]
Monday, 28 February 2011
Service interruption
I am experiencing horrendous internet connection problems. It took more than ten minutes for my blog to load. Trawling the internet and blogosphere is impracticable at present. It is unlikely that I shall be in a position to make further posts for the next few days.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Megrahi blackmailed Gaddafi!
[I am grateful to a reader of this blog for sending me the text of an article in today's edition of The Sunday Times. The following are excerpts:]
The Lockerbie bomber blackmailed Colonel Gadaffi into securing his release from a Scottish prison by threatening to expose the dictator's role in Britain's worst terrorist atrocity, a former senior Libyan official has claimed.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi vowed to exact' "revenge" unless he was returned home, said Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, Libya's former justice minister. In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times, Abdel-Jalil says Megrahi's ploy led to a €50,000-a-month slush fund being set up to spend on legal fees and lobbying to bring him back to Tripoli.
His comments are highly embarrassing for Labour, after declassified documents revealed that Gordon Brown's govemment secretly worked to deliver the bomber's freedom in exchange for trade deals. They are also likely to further strain relations between Britain and the United States, which had opposed Megrahi's release. (...)
Abdel-Jalil, who quit his job last week over the regime's brutal crackdown and is now setting up an interim government in Benghazi, said Megrahi was involved in the attack ordered by Gadaffi as one of the Leader’s former spies.
He was not the man who carried out the planning and execution of the bombing, but he was "nevertheless involved in facilitating things for those who did".
Abdel-Jalil said he knew from two Libyan senior justice officials assigned to liaise with Megrahi in Scotland that he had threatened to "spill the beans" on several occasions. Megrahi had warned Gadaffi: "lf you do not rescue me, I will reveal everything. If you don't ensure my return home, I will reveal everything."
The threat paid off, ensuring the Libyan leader became heavily involved. "Abdelbaset received very special treatment as a Libyan prisoner abroad that was never shown to anyone else," said Abdel-Jalil.
"Gadaffi and his officials were dedicated to ensuring that Megrahi should return to Libya even if it cost them every penny they had. It was costing Libya £50,000 a month being paid to him, his legal team and family members for visitations and living expenses.” He claimed that up to £1.3 billion was spent on the case. (...)
Jim Swire, a retired British doctor whose 24-year-ald, daughter Flora was killed, said: “I’ve never known who ordered the bombing.
"I would love to see Gadaffi and his henchmen brought out of Libya alive and put in front of an international court in Holland to answer the questions we have about why and how this was carried out.
“Some may say if it can be proved Gadaffi ordered the Lockerbie bombings, does it matter how he did it? Well, it certainly matters to us, the relatives of the victims. We want to know the truth about how it was carried out and who was behind it."
Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP for Lancaster and Wyre, said the comments proved the conspiracy theorists who maintained Megrahi's innocence were wrong and intelligence services under Labour.
"Why were British intelligence and Scottish ministers not aware at the time of the threat being made by Megrahi, or had he already indicated to the authorities that he was prepared to talk?" Wallace said.
"If he was a foreign spy, why weren't we bugging those conversations? ... From start to finish Megrahi made fools of the Scottish government and the Labour government, with the Lockerbie victims and taxpayers paying the price."
[A somewhat shorter report in today's New York Daily News can be read here.
What has any of this got to do with whether Abdelbaset Megrahi was wrongly convicted on the evidence led at Camp Zeist? Is this no longer an issue of any concern? Is the question of the probity and integrity of the Scottish criminal justice system of no importance once a few Libyans who once, with no apparent qualms, supported Colonel Gaddafi decide that telling the US and the UK what they want to hear may be in their own best long-term interests?]
The Lockerbie bomber blackmailed Colonel Gadaffi into securing his release from a Scottish prison by threatening to expose the dictator's role in Britain's worst terrorist atrocity, a former senior Libyan official has claimed.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi vowed to exact' "revenge" unless he was returned home, said Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, Libya's former justice minister. In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times, Abdel-Jalil says Megrahi's ploy led to a €50,000-a-month slush fund being set up to spend on legal fees and lobbying to bring him back to Tripoli.
His comments are highly embarrassing for Labour, after declassified documents revealed that Gordon Brown's govemment secretly worked to deliver the bomber's freedom in exchange for trade deals. They are also likely to further strain relations between Britain and the United States, which had opposed Megrahi's release. (...)
Abdel-Jalil, who quit his job last week over the regime's brutal crackdown and is now setting up an interim government in Benghazi, said Megrahi was involved in the attack ordered by Gadaffi as one of the Leader’s former spies.
He was not the man who carried out the planning and execution of the bombing, but he was "nevertheless involved in facilitating things for those who did".
Abdel-Jalil said he knew from two Libyan senior justice officials assigned to liaise with Megrahi in Scotland that he had threatened to "spill the beans" on several occasions. Megrahi had warned Gadaffi: "lf you do not rescue me, I will reveal everything. If you don't ensure my return home, I will reveal everything."
The threat paid off, ensuring the Libyan leader became heavily involved. "Abdelbaset received very special treatment as a Libyan prisoner abroad that was never shown to anyone else," said Abdel-Jalil.
"Gadaffi and his officials were dedicated to ensuring that Megrahi should return to Libya even if it cost them every penny they had. It was costing Libya £50,000 a month being paid to him, his legal team and family members for visitations and living expenses.” He claimed that up to £1.3 billion was spent on the case. (...)
Jim Swire, a retired British doctor whose 24-year-ald, daughter Flora was killed, said: “I’ve never known who ordered the bombing.
"I would love to see Gadaffi and his henchmen brought out of Libya alive and put in front of an international court in Holland to answer the questions we have about why and how this was carried out.
“Some may say if it can be proved Gadaffi ordered the Lockerbie bombings, does it matter how he did it? Well, it certainly matters to us, the relatives of the victims. We want to know the truth about how it was carried out and who was behind it."
Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP for Lancaster and Wyre, said the comments proved the conspiracy theorists who maintained Megrahi's innocence were wrong and intelligence services under Labour.
"Why were British intelligence and Scottish ministers not aware at the time of the threat being made by Megrahi, or had he already indicated to the authorities that he was prepared to talk?" Wallace said.
"If he was a foreign spy, why weren't we bugging those conversations? ... From start to finish Megrahi made fools of the Scottish government and the Labour government, with the Lockerbie victims and taxpayers paying the price."
[A somewhat shorter report in today's New York Daily News can be read here.
What has any of this got to do with whether Abdelbaset Megrahi was wrongly convicted on the evidence led at Camp Zeist? Is this no longer an issue of any concern? Is the question of the probity and integrity of the Scottish criminal justice system of no importance once a few Libyans who once, with no apparent qualms, supported Colonel Gaddafi decide that telling the US and the UK what they want to hear may be in their own best long-term interests?]
Abu Nidal chief jumps on the bandwagon
[The following are excerpts from a reportby Ben Borland in today's edition of the Sunday Express:]
The full details of how Colonel Gaddafi colluded with the Lockerbie bomber to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 can today be revealed by the Sunday Express.
Explosive new revelations emerging from crisis-torn Libya last night included:
- Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s threat to confess and expose Gaddafi unless Tripoli found a way to get him home to his family.
- The Libyan dictator ordering the execution of other agents involved to cover up the Lockerbie trail.
- Specific details of how the bomb was made in Lebanon and smuggled through the Congo.
- Gaddafi personally sanctioning Palestinian mercenary Abu Nidal to assist the terror attack.
The new allegations have come from former terror general Atef Abu Bakr, who has broken his silence as Gaddafi’s brutal 40-year reign enters its final days.
His confession could finally end the doubts surrounding Megrahi’s conviction and even see further charges brought in Scotland against a host of co-conspirators. So far, Megrahi is the only man ever convicted over the December 1988 bombing, which killed all 259 passengers and crew on board the New York-bound Boeing 747 and 11 people in Lockerbie.
Bakr also predicted the collapse of the regime would “open the door” to Gaddafi’s involvement in a number of other bombings and assassinations.
Now a frail, balding man in his 60s, he was once second-in-command to Abu Nidal, a Palestinian terrorist who was the world’s most wanted man in the Eighties. His feared militia was linked to more than 100 murders, aircraft hijackings and bombings, as well as the kidnap of journalist John McCarthy and machine gun attacks on passengers at Rome and Vienna airports.
The group, called the Abu Nidal Organisation (ANO), had a base in Tripoli until 1999, shortly before Megrahi was handed over to the British authorities.
Nidal was shot dead in Iraq in 2003 and Bakr said he had decided to speak out because be believes Gaddafi is now powerless to punish him.
He revealed the attack on an American passenger jet was ordered in retaliation for the 1986 US bombing of Benghazi and Tripoli, in which Gaddafi’s daughter was killed.
The bomb itself was built by the ANO’s “scientific committee” in a village “in the southern part of Mount Lebanon”.
Bakr said: “I can assure you categorically that the two processes [making the bomb and destroying the plane] were the outcome of a partnership between the Abu Nidal group and the security of the Libyan Jamahiriya.
“The committee, which was run by a Palestinian, prepared explosive radios of around three or four inches in thickness and put a rule of Semtex of less than four hundred grams in the vacuum in the speakers and under the metal plate.
“Then they put the explosive in the form of a gift and sent them to Tripoli, with timers. As always in such cases, the gift carrier did not know the nature of the gift.”
Bakr, who did not explain his own role in the operation, said the deadly “gifts” were smuggled into Libya via Brazzaville, the Congolese capital, and the couriers were later murdered by Gaddafi and Nidal.
He said: “Two of the group were met by members of Libyan intelligence and under the cover of the son of leader Patrice Lumumba. The killing of the two people who belong to the group took place later, the first in Beirut and the second in Libya.”
Lumumba, a Congolese prime minister who was murdered in a coup in 1961, had four sons – Francois, now leader of his father’s party, as well as Patrice Jr, Roland and Guy-Patrice.
The bomb was then taken from Tripoli to Malta, which fits with the case built by Scottish police and proved by the Crown during Megrahi’s trial.
Bakr said: “The Lockerbie explosive came from Tripoli to Malta and was then shipped from Malta. I want to emphasise the shipment came from Malta. There were members of the group visiting Malta, sometimes using Libyan passports and cards for the Libyan Aviation Office in Malta to be able to access and to facilitate shipping.”
He added: “The Abu Nidal group has subsequently liquidated a number of elements who have played a role in this process, including an official in the intelligence community.
“For their part, the Libyans had to liquidate a number of elements, including a former official in the intelligence.”
Bakr said the head of Libyan intelligence Abdullah al-Senussi was also involved in the plot. And he claimed that Megrahi, who worked for Senussi and may have played only a minor part, promised on the night before his extradition to keep silent about Gaddafi’s involvement.
However, he later went back on his word and recently “threatened to expose the whole process unless the Libyan authorities made efforts to secure his release, which is what has happened.”
Bakr, who led a rebel faction that split from the ANO in the 1990s, also recalled how Nidal ordered his men not to reveal their role in the bombing.
He said: “Abu Nidal laughed at the meeting and said, ‘No responsibility can be claimed. I will tell you this process was for us and our Muslim brothers in Libya. But discretion must be complete.’”
Bakr himself issued a statement to reporters in Beiruit in December 1988, denying any ANO involvement and expressing his condolences to the victims. His new confession was made yesterday to Al Hayat, one of the most respected newspapers in the Arab world. (...)
[On Caustic Logic's blog The Lockerbie Divide there is a recent post headed Rats, sinking ship, etc which is well worth reading, along with the Ian Bell article featured on this blog yesterday.]
The full details of how Colonel Gaddafi colluded with the Lockerbie bomber to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 can today be revealed by the Sunday Express.
Explosive new revelations emerging from crisis-torn Libya last night included:
- Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s threat to confess and expose Gaddafi unless Tripoli found a way to get him home to his family.
- The Libyan dictator ordering the execution of other agents involved to cover up the Lockerbie trail.
- Specific details of how the bomb was made in Lebanon and smuggled through the Congo.
- Gaddafi personally sanctioning Palestinian mercenary Abu Nidal to assist the terror attack.
The new allegations have come from former terror general Atef Abu Bakr, who has broken his silence as Gaddafi’s brutal 40-year reign enters its final days.
His confession could finally end the doubts surrounding Megrahi’s conviction and even see further charges brought in Scotland against a host of co-conspirators. So far, Megrahi is the only man ever convicted over the December 1988 bombing, which killed all 259 passengers and crew on board the New York-bound Boeing 747 and 11 people in Lockerbie.
Bakr also predicted the collapse of the regime would “open the door” to Gaddafi’s involvement in a number of other bombings and assassinations.
Now a frail, balding man in his 60s, he was once second-in-command to Abu Nidal, a Palestinian terrorist who was the world’s most wanted man in the Eighties. His feared militia was linked to more than 100 murders, aircraft hijackings and bombings, as well as the kidnap of journalist John McCarthy and machine gun attacks on passengers at Rome and Vienna airports.
The group, called the Abu Nidal Organisation (ANO), had a base in Tripoli until 1999, shortly before Megrahi was handed over to the British authorities.
Nidal was shot dead in Iraq in 2003 and Bakr said he had decided to speak out because be believes Gaddafi is now powerless to punish him.
He revealed the attack on an American passenger jet was ordered in retaliation for the 1986 US bombing of Benghazi and Tripoli, in which Gaddafi’s daughter was killed.
The bomb itself was built by the ANO’s “scientific committee” in a village “in the southern part of Mount Lebanon”.
Bakr said: “I can assure you categorically that the two processes [making the bomb and destroying the plane] were the outcome of a partnership between the Abu Nidal group and the security of the Libyan Jamahiriya.
“The committee, which was run by a Palestinian, prepared explosive radios of around three or four inches in thickness and put a rule of Semtex of less than four hundred grams in the vacuum in the speakers and under the metal plate.
“Then they put the explosive in the form of a gift and sent them to Tripoli, with timers. As always in such cases, the gift carrier did not know the nature of the gift.”
Bakr, who did not explain his own role in the operation, said the deadly “gifts” were smuggled into Libya via Brazzaville, the Congolese capital, and the couriers were later murdered by Gaddafi and Nidal.
He said: “Two of the group were met by members of Libyan intelligence and under the cover of the son of leader Patrice Lumumba. The killing of the two people who belong to the group took place later, the first in Beirut and the second in Libya.”
Lumumba, a Congolese prime minister who was murdered in a coup in 1961, had four sons – Francois, now leader of his father’s party, as well as Patrice Jr, Roland and Guy-Patrice.
The bomb was then taken from Tripoli to Malta, which fits with the case built by Scottish police and proved by the Crown during Megrahi’s trial.
Bakr said: “The Lockerbie explosive came from Tripoli to Malta and was then shipped from Malta. I want to emphasise the shipment came from Malta. There were members of the group visiting Malta, sometimes using Libyan passports and cards for the Libyan Aviation Office in Malta to be able to access and to facilitate shipping.”
He added: “The Abu Nidal group has subsequently liquidated a number of elements who have played a role in this process, including an official in the intelligence community.
“For their part, the Libyans had to liquidate a number of elements, including a former official in the intelligence.”
Bakr said the head of Libyan intelligence Abdullah al-Senussi was also involved in the plot. And he claimed that Megrahi, who worked for Senussi and may have played only a minor part, promised on the night before his extradition to keep silent about Gaddafi’s involvement.
However, he later went back on his word and recently “threatened to expose the whole process unless the Libyan authorities made efforts to secure his release, which is what has happened.”
Bakr, who led a rebel faction that split from the ANO in the 1990s, also recalled how Nidal ordered his men not to reveal their role in the bombing.
He said: “Abu Nidal laughed at the meeting and said, ‘No responsibility can be claimed. I will tell you this process was for us and our Muslim brothers in Libya. But discretion must be complete.’”
Bakr himself issued a statement to reporters in Beiruit in December 1988, denying any ANO involvement and expressing his condolences to the victims. His new confession was made yesterday to Al Hayat, one of the most respected newspapers in the Arab world. (...)
[On Caustic Logic's blog The Lockerbie Divide there is a recent post headed Rats, sinking ship, etc which is well worth reading, along with the Ian Bell article featured on this blog yesterday.]
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Swire: Gadaffi Lockerbie claims "unreliable"
[This is the headline over an exclusive report published today on the website of the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads in part:]
The claims of the former justice minister in Libya's collapsing regime that Colonel Muammar Gadaffi personally ordered the Lockerbie atrocity have been described as "at the very least, unreliable" by Dr Jim Swire of UK Families Flight 103, who has met Gadaffi several times.
The claims were made to a Swedish tabloid newspaper, and have been given heavy coverage in UK tabloids and around the world.
No evidence has been offered to support the claims.
"If I were running away from my violent boss of many years in the hope of sanctuary with whatever might replace him, I too might be motivated to try to ingratiate myself with my chosen new protectors by offering them news blackening the name of my former boss," Swire told The Firm.
"The circumstances surrounding the story render it at the very least unreliable, in my view."
Swire also said that prior to the claims of responsibility emerging, he had predicted that such revelations would surface amidst the turmoil in Libya as the regime collapsed.
[Dr Swire's full statement to The Firm reads as follows:]
You will already be aware of the circulating story about the Gaddafi minister claiming that he can 'prove' that Gaddafi personally ordered the Lockerbie event. It originated from a Swedish tabloid where it emerged as a tale translated into Swedish from the Arabic. It also said that while the defecting minister claimed to be able to prove this, he was not able to reach the supportive evidence 'at present'.
If I were running away from my violent boss of many years in the hope of sanctuary with whatever might replace him, I too might be motivated to try to ingratiate myself with my chosen new protectors by offering them news blackening the name of my former boss.
It is interesting that from my phone and emails, inquiries about this story have been from the Mirror, the Sun and the Express. Wisely none of the haughtier papers have deigned to become involved in it, at least not by involving me, neither have the BBC, nor Channel 4, though Sky did try.
The circumstances surrounding the story render it at the very least unreliable, in my view.
The position of people like myself and some other UK relatives has always been that whereas the evidence for Megrahi's guilt did not add up, and should never have led to a conviction, we do not know whether the Gaddafi regime was involved in Lockerbie or not. I have said on occasion to interviewers that I thought that at the very least it would be likely that Gaddafi would have known that Lockerbie was being planned.
Of course we would love to know for certain who really did plan it, but the use of a Syrian made specialised IED (as described to the Zeist court), at the behest of Iran, still smarting from the Vincennes 'incident' still seems the more likely explanation. It may turn out that Gaddafi really was responsible, in which case the nonsense about Megrahi risks being sidelined in history, the end being held to have justified the means. But the trial verdict will remain crippling to the Scottish justice system unless they take their own steps to review their precious verdict.
I had already sent out an email 48 hours ago, in which I warned that if the Gaddafi regime did collapse, I would anticipate that America would see to it that 'irrefutable evidence' of Gaddafi as the perpetrator would emerge from the wreckage. I am already receiving gloating 'we told you so' emails from the States. I should have twigged that absconders from Gaddafi's regime would also have a very strong personal motive - terror for their lives at the hands of 'the people' - for doing so too. I think this story may be too naive even for the CIA.
Time may show.
Me, I'm for waiting to see if any verifiable evidence for Gaddafi's guilt does eventually emerge once the dust has settled, meanwhile Scotland still has to wrestle with how her criminal justice system ever came to reach that verdict against Megrahi.
I am increasingly concerned for the future of Megrahi. I believe he may be on life support, and the organisation of the hospital facilites in Tripoli may well no longer be up to maintaining that. If he dies now, the US may claim that Gaddafi had him killed rather than the cancer doing so. The senators will not want anything emerging that might justify MacAskill's decision on compassionate release.
I did a long interview for a Dutch TV news channel yesterday, which their team told me would air on Sunday for about 15 minutes. Typically I forgot to get them to define which channel it would go out on. It was mainly about Gaddafi as a man, since I have had discussions with him on four occasions.
I described him as a paranoid schizoid individual. Of course being a tyrant ruling by force, his paranoia was largely justified (see below!). Schizoid because of his wild variability in mood and attitude, and his many hatreds. I suppose an alternative diagnosis of cyclothymia could also be possible.
We went into the details of my first meeting with him, which had been preceded by interrogation by a Libyan intelligence officer drunk on Scotch. We talked of how that intelligence guy had tried to get me drunk on Scotch too (of which he had a cupboard full of bottles behind him) and how he was so drunk that I was able to pour away his multiple refillings of my glass into old Fanta tins that were lying about on the floor of his office. I recalled how he had then produced an automatic from his shoulder holster, and started to polish it lovingly with his fingers. He must have thought I had a quite remarkable immunity to alchohol, if he was thinking at all. I could not see a sign for the fire exit! The drive back from his office to my hotel was the scariest bit, but other traffic was so scared of his car that it all got out of the way. All that part's a story that would go down well at an Oldie lunch one day. It hasn't been told before.
Then we covered the first meeting with Gaddafi himself, and how the female bodyguards (spaced round the walls of the 'tent') all clicked the safety catches off on their AK47s as I approached 'the leader' and pinned a badge on his lapel as we rose at the end of the interview. The badge said "Lockerbie, the TRUTH must be known".
I must have been crazy to do all that, and probably remain slightly so.
All these and many other strange encounters with the Gaddafi regime are much more fully told in a book titled Lockerbie - Unfinished Business co-written with Peter Biddulph, it has now been 'legalled', has found a publisher, and should hit the stalls soon. How's that for product placement? It would be a pity if the strange twists and turns written from the point of view of a simple seeker after truth should be lost.
The claims of the former justice minister in Libya's collapsing regime that Colonel Muammar Gadaffi personally ordered the Lockerbie atrocity have been described as "at the very least, unreliable" by Dr Jim Swire of UK Families Flight 103, who has met Gadaffi several times.
The claims were made to a Swedish tabloid newspaper, and have been given heavy coverage in UK tabloids and around the world.
No evidence has been offered to support the claims.
"If I were running away from my violent boss of many years in the hope of sanctuary with whatever might replace him, I too might be motivated to try to ingratiate myself with my chosen new protectors by offering them news blackening the name of my former boss," Swire told The Firm.
"The circumstances surrounding the story render it at the very least unreliable, in my view."
Swire also said that prior to the claims of responsibility emerging, he had predicted that such revelations would surface amidst the turmoil in Libya as the regime collapsed.
[Dr Swire's full statement to The Firm reads as follows:]
You will already be aware of the circulating story about the Gaddafi minister claiming that he can 'prove' that Gaddafi personally ordered the Lockerbie event. It originated from a Swedish tabloid where it emerged as a tale translated into Swedish from the Arabic. It also said that while the defecting minister claimed to be able to prove this, he was not able to reach the supportive evidence 'at present'.
If I were running away from my violent boss of many years in the hope of sanctuary with whatever might replace him, I too might be motivated to try to ingratiate myself with my chosen new protectors by offering them news blackening the name of my former boss.
It is interesting that from my phone and emails, inquiries about this story have been from the Mirror, the Sun and the Express. Wisely none of the haughtier papers have deigned to become involved in it, at least not by involving me, neither have the BBC, nor Channel 4, though Sky did try.
The circumstances surrounding the story render it at the very least unreliable, in my view.
The position of people like myself and some other UK relatives has always been that whereas the evidence for Megrahi's guilt did not add up, and should never have led to a conviction, we do not know whether the Gaddafi regime was involved in Lockerbie or not. I have said on occasion to interviewers that I thought that at the very least it would be likely that Gaddafi would have known that Lockerbie was being planned.
Of course we would love to know for certain who really did plan it, but the use of a Syrian made specialised IED (as described to the Zeist court), at the behest of Iran, still smarting from the Vincennes 'incident' still seems the more likely explanation. It may turn out that Gaddafi really was responsible, in which case the nonsense about Megrahi risks being sidelined in history, the end being held to have justified the means. But the trial verdict will remain crippling to the Scottish justice system unless they take their own steps to review their precious verdict.
I had already sent out an email 48 hours ago, in which I warned that if the Gaddafi regime did collapse, I would anticipate that America would see to it that 'irrefutable evidence' of Gaddafi as the perpetrator would emerge from the wreckage. I am already receiving gloating 'we told you so' emails from the States. I should have twigged that absconders from Gaddafi's regime would also have a very strong personal motive - terror for their lives at the hands of 'the people' - for doing so too. I think this story may be too naive even for the CIA.
Time may show.
Me, I'm for waiting to see if any verifiable evidence for Gaddafi's guilt does eventually emerge once the dust has settled, meanwhile Scotland still has to wrestle with how her criminal justice system ever came to reach that verdict against Megrahi.
I am increasingly concerned for the future of Megrahi. I believe he may be on life support, and the organisation of the hospital facilites in Tripoli may well no longer be up to maintaining that. If he dies now, the US may claim that Gaddafi had him killed rather than the cancer doing so. The senators will not want anything emerging that might justify MacAskill's decision on compassionate release.
I did a long interview for a Dutch TV news channel yesterday, which their team told me would air on Sunday for about 15 minutes. Typically I forgot to get them to define which channel it would go out on. It was mainly about Gaddafi as a man, since I have had discussions with him on four occasions.
I described him as a paranoid schizoid individual. Of course being a tyrant ruling by force, his paranoia was largely justified (see below!). Schizoid because of his wild variability in mood and attitude, and his many hatreds. I suppose an alternative diagnosis of cyclothymia could also be possible.
We went into the details of my first meeting with him, which had been preceded by interrogation by a Libyan intelligence officer drunk on Scotch. We talked of how that intelligence guy had tried to get me drunk on Scotch too (of which he had a cupboard full of bottles behind him) and how he was so drunk that I was able to pour away his multiple refillings of my glass into old Fanta tins that were lying about on the floor of his office. I recalled how he had then produced an automatic from his shoulder holster, and started to polish it lovingly with his fingers. He must have thought I had a quite remarkable immunity to alchohol, if he was thinking at all. I could not see a sign for the fire exit! The drive back from his office to my hotel was the scariest bit, but other traffic was so scared of his car that it all got out of the way. All that part's a story that would go down well at an Oldie lunch one day. It hasn't been told before.
Then we covered the first meeting with Gaddafi himself, and how the female bodyguards (spaced round the walls of the 'tent') all clicked the safety catches off on their AK47s as I approached 'the leader' and pinned a badge on his lapel as we rose at the end of the interview. The badge said "Lockerbie, the TRUTH must be known".
I must have been crazy to do all that, and probably remain slightly so.
All these and many other strange encounters with the Gaddafi regime are much more fully told in a book titled Lockerbie - Unfinished Business co-written with Peter Biddulph, it has now been 'legalled', has found a publisher, and should hit the stalls soon. How's that for product placement? It would be a pity if the strange twists and turns written from the point of view of a simple seeker after truth should be lost.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)