Lockerbie and the claims of Magnus Linklater

[On 6 January 2016 an article by Magnus Linklater headlined We can be confident that the Scottish prosecutors got the right man appeared in the Scottish Review. On 23 January John Ashton responded to that article on his Megrahi: You are my Jury website. In The Cafe section of today’s issue of the Scottish Review John Ashton and Dr Morag Kerr reply as follows to the Linklater article:]

Magnus Linklater’s article on the Lockerbie case 'We can be confident that the Scottish prosecutors got the right man’ (6 January) makes a number of inaccurate claims, including the suggestion that, when writing the biography of the alleged bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, I deliberately suppressed evidence that was unfavourable to Mr Megrahi.

This was that on the morning of the bombing, and on a couple of occasions prior, he shared a flight with Libyan Abouagela Masud, who was alleged by a Libyan witness to be the bomb-maker responsible for the La Belle night club bombing in Berlin in 1986. This particular flight was from Malta, which the prosecution alleged was the launchpad for the bomb.

The book examined the evidence used to convict Mr Megrahi. Like the Scottish Police and prosecutors, I was unaware of Mr Masud’s alleged connection to La Belle until told of it by filmmaker Ken Dornstein well over three years after completing that book. Mr Linklater could easily have checked this with me before defaming me, but chose not to. How, I wonder, could I have suppressed something of which I had no knowledge? My book did not dodge the fact that Mr Megrahi was connected to some unsavoury characters within the Gaddafi regime, including the alleged mastermind of La Belle and Said Rashid, yet Mr Linklater fails to mention this, preferring instead to accuse me of burying inconvenient truths.

As anyone who has followed the Megrahi case knows, it is the Crown that suppressed important evidence – lots of it – all of which was helpful to Mr Megrahi. On this scandal Mr Linklater has consistently remained mute.

He also suggests that my claim that Megrahi suffered a miscarriage of justice is based on speculation, rather than hard evidence. Had he read my book properly, he would see that all of its key claims are founded on hard evidence, the bulk of which was from the Crown’s own files. The same goes for Dr Morag Kerr’s book Adequately Explained by Stupidity?, which he breezily dismisses, without naming it, as having 'no concrete evidence’ to back it up.

He implies that I believe Mr Megrahi was the victim of a giant conspiracy in which judges and lawyers knowingly participated in a miscarriage of justice. As I have repeatedly made clear, including to Mr Linklater, I hold no such belief. If there was a conspiracy to frame Mr Megrahi – a big if, but by no means impossible – I don’t believe it would have involved the knowing participation of the Scottish criminal justice system.

Mr Linklater tells us: 'I like the famous Sherlock Holmes quote: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth"', yet applies it selectively. Hard evidence that has emerged since Mr Megrahi was convicted demonstrates the impossibility of the main planks of the prosecution case: that Mr Megrahi bought the clothes for the bomb suitcase from a Maltese shop a fortnight before the attack; that the fragment of bomb timer found at Lockerbie matched timers supplied to Libya by Swiss firm Mebo; and that the bomb began its journey In Malta. In contrast, the only evidence to support the conviction in 15 years is that concerning Abouagela Masud.

Two years ago I wrote an open letter to Mr Linklater, which posed a number of questions. He promised to reply, but never did. Maybe he would like to in the Scottish Review – he has had plenty of time to think of answers.

John Ashton

I’m getting more than slightly tired of Magnus Linklater’s repeated attacks on me and my Lockerbie book (Adequately Explained by Stupidity?, Matador 2013). He uses his entrée as a journalist to disparage and dismiss my work over multiple platforms, without at any point addressing the substance of what I have written. His latest sally is perhaps the weakest to date: '...suggestions that Heathrow Airport was where the bomb was loaded again have no concrete evidence to back them; an entire book has been written on the Heathrow connection, but nothing has emerged to give it the kind of validity which would stand up in court'. (In a supreme discourtesy he doesn’t even cite my book by name to allow readers to access it and judge for themselves.)

My book is stuffed to the eyeballs with concrete evidence that the bomb was introduced at Heathrow. I have repeatedly begged proponents of Megrahi’s guilt to explain to me in what way I am mistaken or what inferences I have missed that might admit of any plausible scenario whatsoever whereby the bomb suitcase might have flown in on the feeder flight. Nobody has answered me. I have specifically begged Mr Linklater in person to address this point, but he has ignored me in favour of yet another sally in the press denouncing 'conspiracy theorists'.

He repeatedly states that no evidence has emerged that would stand up in court. I am quite certain that the analysis I present would stand up in court, as would other evidence being highlighted by other interested parties. The problem is that it has not come before any court. Attempts to bring it to court have been mounted and indeed are ongoing, but so far these have been thwarted by procedural obstacles.

It is not enough simply to hand-wave away a detailed, evidence-based and non-conspiratorial dissection of the Lockerbie evidence with vague platitudes about 'nothing has emerged to give it ... validity'. What does he expect to emerge, from where and from whom, before he will do me the courtesy of actually addressing the substance of my thesis? One might imagine that it would be of some interest to a journalist who repeatedly invokes the name of the respected Sunday Times Insight series, but apparently not.

If, as I contend, detailed and logical analysis of the evidence gathered at Lockerbie (with no allegations of fabrication, substitution, evidence-planting, corruption, conspiracy or deliberate malpractice) demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that the bomb was introduced at Heathrow, not Malta, this flips the entire 'was Megrahi guilty?' conundrum on its head. Rather than placing him at the scene of the crime, it provides him with a rock-solid alibi.

Ken Dornstein’s work, which impresses Mr Linklater so profoundly, relies absolutely and fundamentally on the unexamined assumption that the Lockerbie bomb was introduced at Malta. If it wasn’t, then he might as well produce eye-witness evidence that Elvis was checking in for a flight at Luqa airport that morning for all the relevance it would have. It doesn’t matter if Megrahi knew, or travelled with, or was related to any number of rank bad guys implicated in unrelated atrocities – if the scene of the crime that day was a thousand miles away, he didn’t do it. Worse still, the entire multi-million-pound Lockerbie investigation was up a gum tree from its earliest weeks, and due to its failure to investigate the real scene of the crime we simply have no idea who carried out the atrocity.

I challenge Mr Linklater to put up or shut up. To explain in detail where he thinks the mistakes or omissions are in my analysis that invalidate my conclusion that the bomb suitcase was already in the container an hour before the flight from Frankfurt landed, or to refrain from disparaging my work and myself in print.

Morag Kerr

London link to Pan Am bomb

[This is the headline over a report by Greg Christison in the Scottish edition of today’s Sunday Express (page 14). It does not feature on the newspaper’s website. The article reads as follows:]

More doubt over verdict on Megrahi

A sensational new book claims to provide “conclusive” proof that the Lockerbie bomb was actually planted in London.

Being published to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the tragedy in December, it points to evidence suggesting the explosives were loaded on to Pan Am Flight 103 at Heathrow.

It challenges judges at the trial of Libyan spy Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who was found guilty in 2001 of hiding the bomb in luggage at Malta airport.

Author Morag Kerr claims that lawyers failed to piece together key facts during the 36-week court case, leading to a miscarriage of justice.

Her new analysis centres around the positioning of the suitcase and statements by Heathrow baggage handlers. 

It further strengthens the call from campaign group Justice for Megrahi (JFM) for the Scottish Government to sanction an independent public inquiry into the 1988 attack.

Dr Kerr, a vet and JFM member, said: “I am placing a magnifying glass on the luggage transfer, which is the key point as it determines where the luggage started its journey and whether Megrahi was guilty.”

The trial judges found that Megrahi planted the bomb in Malta before it travelled unaccompanied to Frankfurt anf then London before moving on to Pan Am Flight 103.

They discounted a theory that the device was in fact concealed in a mysterious brown Samsonite suitcase -- spotted by Heathrow baggage handler John Bedford an hour before the German feeder flight arrived.  Mr Bedford said the bag, which matched the description of the suitcase found to have been planted by Megrahi, was in the container near where the explosion occurred.

But the judges decided another Heathrow worker, Amarjit Sidhu, must have moved the case while transferring Frankfurt bags to the Pan Am flight.

But despite making three statements insisting he did not move the so-callked Bedford bag, Mr Sidhu was never calld to give evidence.

Dr Kerr, from West Linton, Peeblesshire, also says judges were not shown passenger and luggage records, which prove there was no Brown Samsonite suitcase among the legitimate luggage loaded by Bedford.  “When the evidence is put together, and these additional bits are added, it proves conclusively that the bomb was planted at Heathrow,” she said.

The book, Adequately Explained By Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies, was described as “nothing less than a work of brilliance” by JFM spokesman Robert Forrester.

Adequately Explained by Stupidity?: Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies

[This is the title of a book by Dr Morag Kerr which is scheduled for publication in December 2013.  It can be ordered through the website of the publisher Troubador Publishing Ltd, where the book is described as follows:]

Tunnel vision or organised cover-up? How the Lockerbie investigation got the wrong man. 

Twenty-five years after Maid of the Seas crashed on the town of Lockerbie, this groundbreaking book introduces [an entirely] new perspective on the controversial investigation and subsequent conviction. Concentrating almost entirely on the transfer baggage evidence, it exposes shocking deficiencies in both the police inquiry and the forensic investigation, which led the hunt in entirely the wrong direction. 

Cleverly constructed to lead the reader through the complexities of the case, the book provides insights which will be new to even the most seasoned Lockerbie pundit, while remaining accessible to those with little or no previous familiarity with the subject. The reader will see all the main aspects of the official account of the Lockerbie disaster comprehensively destroyed. 

This is the first book about Lockerbie to deal rigorously with the detail of the transfer baggage evidence. Morag G Kerr has been given access to reports, statements and photographs not previously available to the general public, and has analysed the information with forensic rigour. This analysis proves conclusively that the bomb that brought down the plane was introduced at Heathrow airport and not at Malta as claimed.  

*Published on the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster, which happened on 21st December 1988. 
*Morag has been Secretary Depute of 'Justice for Megrahi' since 2010, and is the author of the widely-acclaimed pamphlet Lockerbie: Fact and Fiction. 
*On 23rd December 1988, Morag was driving on the A74. This was the stimulus for her research into the subject.

Reviews
'A remarkable piece of work, comprehensive in its analysis of the evidence and what was missed or hidden and why.' -- James Robertson The Professor of Truth 

‘The final chapter draws all the threads together and fully exposes the stupidity which may (or may not) be a sufficient explanation for the debacle.' -- Professor Robert Black

About the Author
Morag G Kerr was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1953. She qualified as a veterinary surgeon in 1976 (Glasgow University) and continued post-graduate study in biochemistry. Morag was awarded a PhD in 1985, and specialised in clinical pathology and laboratory medicine. She is the Secretary Depute of "Justice for Megrahi".

Steering the Lockerbie investigation away from Heathrow

[What follows is a lightly-edited amalgamation of two comments posted today by Dr Morag Kerr (Rolfe) on the thread Police investigations in Lockerbie case "moved very quickly away from Heathrow".]

It is my belief that John Orr deliberately steered the investigation away from Heathrow from the very earliest days of the inquiry. That Times article [Disaster bomb was ‘placed on board Jumbo at Frankfurt’ The Times, 31 December 1988] which must have been written on 30 December didn't come out of nowhere. It has a startling amount of detail on the methodologies of the PFLP-GC as well as the headline that the bomb came from Frankfurt and not Heathrow.

It takes a very special sort of stupid to receive Bedford's 9th January statement describing a brown Samsonite hardshell in the container in the interline shed at Heathrow, and reports (the same month) from the forensic scientists that the bomb had been in a brown Samsonite hardshell, and do NOTHING to connect the two. I mean, Bedford described two suitcases which appeared while he was on his break, and then concentrated on "one of them", which he described in detail. The one on the left was in the correct position to have been the bomb, the one on the right wasn't. Nobody even asked him which of the two cases he was referring to as a brown Samsonite hardshell. (Only at the FAI [Fatal Accident Inquiry], in October 1990, did he answer that he was talking about the one on the left.)

On 2 February 1989 Ray Manly's statement was received at Lockerbie. It was entered into HOLMES and filed away as being of no interest whatsoever to the inquiry. In other words, Heathrow had already been discounted as early as that.

The "nonsense on stilts" at the March meeting about most of the damaged luggage being from Frankfurt so probably the bomb suitcase was too, has more than a whiff of deliberate obfuscation about it. Are we really supposed to believe that a senior detective heading an inquiry of this magnitude is that stupid? But who would dare contradict him?

It wasn't just Orr, though. Parallel with his ignoring of the Heathrow baggage evidence, we see the forensics officers unite as one to declare that the explosion had not been in the suitcase on the floor of the container. This wasn't just the RARDE experts (principally Feraday, but also Cullis and Hayes), but also the AAIB inspectors, principally Claiden and Protheroe. The first report containing this opinion was written by Peter Claiden and is dated April 1989.

Now, the explosion WAS in the suitcase on the floor of the container. That's incontrovertible, once you realise where PK/139 was positioned within the container. (Nobody even mentions PK/139 in any of the reports. It's just sitting there in a composite photo, mutely screaming "look at me", and nobody paid the slightest attention to it.) And PK/139 is just the single most blindingly obvious piece of evidence - multiple strands of evidence reinforce each other to show that there was no suitcase below the bomb suitcase.

So how come we have about six investigators from two different institutes, who were officially working separately on the case, lining up to ignore the bleedin' obvious, and declare a mystic knowledge that the recovered floor of the container would have looked different if the bomb had been in the bottom suitcase?

Not once in any of their reports is there any acknowledgement that the case on the bottom was from Heathrow, while the case on the second layer was from Frankfurt. All that vehemence to exclude the bottom case, and they don't even seem to know that by doing this they are absolving Heathrow. And yet, why bother making the distinction in the first place unless you know that the two cases have different provenances?

So, at the same time Orr was ignoring Bedford, Feraday and assorted hangers-on were insisting that the case in the position of the one Bedford saw wasn't the bomb. Quite independently, of course. And equally in defiance of the evidence in front of them. 

I think Orr probably used this forensic opinion later to justify ignoring the Bedford case, but that's retrospective, as he was ignoring it well before the opinion was reported.

So, if Orr was acting on instructions from on high, it seems quite plausible that someone in the forensics team (probably Feraday) was also receiving instructions to interpret the evidence in a way that would deflect from Heathrow. (I suspect Claiden's April 1989 report might have had a wee nudge from Feraday, although at the FAI he was at some pains to declare that the two teams who were examining the wreckage together - and probably eating lunch together and so on - didn't communicate at all.)

So, was one agency directing both Orr and Feraday in this? Seems likely. All to prevent BAA and Heathrow from being culpable in the loss of 270 lives, and to hell with whether the actual bombers were caught or not. So who?

Who privatised BAA in 1986? Who wrote stuff in her memoirs which pretty clearly indicated she knew full well that Gaddafi had not been behind the Lockerbie bombing? [RB: Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, 1993, page 449.]

Well, I'm speculating as to motive. However, I have an extremely strong sense of both arms of the investigation (police and forensics) being separately pressurised to deliver opinions that absolved the Bedford case. And it seems only logical that the same person or body was pressurising both groups.

I very much doubt if there was any US influence in this area at all. I think the Americans were frying entirely different fish. It smells home-grown to me. So, I go figure.

I think the Americans wanted to blame Libya and Gaddafi, but if it had been proved to have been the PFLP-GC they'd have had to accept that. At first the evidence pointing to the PFLP-GC appeared overwhelming, and they seem to have conceded the point. However, nobody could find any connection between the PFLP-GC and KM180 at Malta.

If you're looking for the right culprit in the wrong place, you're doomed to fail. The police failed, but never considered that was because they were looking in the wrong place. They ran into the sand. Which was a convenient moment for the US authorities to step in and resurrect the idea that maybe they should all have been looking for Libyans not Palestinians, and maybe if they investigated this Libyan guy they'd find something.

Lockerbie justice prevented by political interference

[This is the headline over a letter from Dr Jim Swire published in today’s edition of The Sunday Times. It reads as follows:]

Your article “MacAskill cites flaws in case against Megrahi” (News, last week) suggests behind-the-scenes moves by America to befriend Libya in search of good trade relations at the time of the alleged Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s release by Kenny MacAskill.

Those who watched the trial of Megrahi at Zeist unfold in 2000/1 became aware of extraordinary intrusions into court practice on behalf of the US. These included an abortive attempt to deny the court access to the contents of CIA cables which showed that its much-hyped “star witness” Jiaka was in fact known to the CIA to be a liar and a fantasist. The court rejected his evidence as unreliable except for still accepting that Megrahi “must have” carried a sinister suitcase into Luqa airport on the day of the tragedy.

The plot and the motives and methods of execution for revenge seem straightforward enough. Iran used the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command as mercenaries to exact revenge against the USA. What we need is to understand why the stories about Gaddafi’s Libya being involved were invented and supported for so long, and by whom.

Out of respect for the innocent victims of Lockerbie, on the plane and on the ground, justice must never be allowed to be polluted by international politics in such a way ever again.

[RB: Here is the text of Dr Swire’s letter as submitted to The Sunday Times:]

Your article today suggests behind the scenes moves by the US, to befriend Libya in search of good trade relations at the time of the alleged Lockerbie bomber Megrahi's release by Kenny MacAskill.

Those who watched the trial of Megrahi at Zeist unfold back in 2000/1 became aware of extraordinary intrusions into court practice on behalf of the US. These included an abortive attempt, supported to a remarkable extent by Scotland's then Lord Advocate, Lord Colin Boyd, to deny the Court access to the contents of CIA cables which showed that their much hyped 'star witness' aka Jiaka was in fact known to the CIA to be a liar and a fantasist.

The court rejected his evidence as unreliable except for still accepting  that Megrahi 'must have' carried a sinister suitcase into Luqa airport on the day of the tragedy.

Their Lordships had to admit that there wasn't any evidence that Megrahi used his presence there to put a suitcase of any kind onto Air Malta Flight KM180, (presumably on the hope by him that it would be carried round via Frankfurt to Heathrow and PA103).

For such a far fetched plan to work, a long running timer and a lot of luck with transfers at Frankfurt and Heathrow in the pre-Christmas rush would be required.

Post-trial evidence has emerged that a key piece of forensic evidence accepted by the court as part of just such a timer was in fact a fake and could not possibly have come from the Libyan stockpile. It was a clever fake and must have been produced by an organization having the skills of advanced circuit board manufacture at its disposal.

Likewise, not one credible piece of evidence in all these years has emerged confirming any of the other alleged examples of activities indicating Libyan involvement in the plot.

Our own William of Occam, inventor of Occam's razor: (interpreted as the belief that the simplest  explanation which agrees with all the known facts of a case is the most likely to be correct) can perhaps contribute here.

Details well set out in the book Adequately Explained By Stupidity? by Morag Kerr show that evidence from Heathrow, led in court but rejected, indicate that the suitcase containing the bomb was loaded onto Pan Am 103 under Heathrow baggage handler Mr Bedford and his assistant Mr Kamboj; having entered his baggage container well before the connecting flight for 'Megrahi's bomb' had even landed at Heathrow from Frankfurt. [RB: Dr Swire is mistaken on this point. The evidence discussed by Dr Kerr was not led in court and rejected: it was not led at all, though some of it was known to the Crown and not disclosed to the defence.]

At the same time the Syrian terror group the PFLP-GC had developed and tested anti-aircraft bombs whose electronics dictated that if they could simply be got aboard a target aircraft at the airport of take off, they would automatically explode around 40 minutes post take off by sensing the climb to cruise altitude.

The Lockerbie flight flew for 39 minutes from Heathrow until over Lockerbie.

Why would the PFLP-GC allow one of their devices to be used at Heathrow, and how would they get it to Heathrow anyway? The PFLP-GC had close ties to Teheran for funding and were near bankruptcy in 1988. After Lockerbie they were solvent, while at Lockerbie it seems likely that Teheran got its widely expected revenge for the shooting down of one of their Airbuses by a US missile cruiser the USS Vincennes in the Gulf, with the loss of 290 Iranian civilian lives, five months before Lockerbie.

It also so happens that an Iran Air transport aircraft landed at Heathrow on the 21st of December 1988, long before the flight from Frankfurt had arrived.

The plot and the motives and methods of execution for revenge seem straight forward enough. Iran used the PFLP-GC as mercenaries to exact revenge against the USA. What we need is to understand why the stories about Gaddafi's Libya being involved were invented and supported for so long, and by whom.

Out of respect for the innocent victims of Lockerbie, on the plane and on the ground, Justice must never be allowed to be polluted by international politics in such away ever again.

Was the wrong man convicted for the Lockerbie bombing?

This is the headline over a long review (three pages, nine columns) by Jennifer May in Ireland's Big Issue of Dr Morag Kerr's Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies. Unlike most of the journalistic outpourings following the recent Aljazeera documentary, this review appreciates just how completely and comprehensively Dr Kerr has destroyed the foundation of the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi, namely that the bomb suitcase was ingested at Luqa Airport in Malta. Through a rigorous analysis of the luggage loaded on container AVE4041, Morag Kerr conclusively demonstrates that the Samsonite suitcase containing the bomb was already in that container before the feeder flight from Frankfurt (which supposedly contained an unaccompanied suitcase from Malta) arrived at Heathrow. It was not Luqa's security that was subverted, but Heathrow's. And whoever subverted it, it was not Abdelbaset Megrahi. 

The review can be read here.

Analysis of the evidence and what was missed or hidden and why

Dr Morag Kerr’s book Adequately Explained by Stupidity?

Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies will be available to buy on, or very shortly after, 10 December. Why not order it today from your bookshop or through the publisher’s website?

‘A remarkable piece of work, comprehensive in its analysis of the evidence and what was missed or hidden and why,’ says James Robertson.

‘I have had the immense privilege of proofing aspects of this book. It is, without question, nothing less than a work of genius. Amongst many other features studied, it conclusively demonstrates, via a highly detailed and scholarly analysis of the evidence relating to the luggage carried in the hold of Pan Am 103, how horrifically bungled the Lockerbie investigation was. Its implications are truly shocking. It is high time that executive powers in Scotland were brought to bear on the Police, Crown Office and forensic officials responsible for this outrageous scandal,’ says Justice for Megrahi’s secretary, Robert Forrester.

‘I have had the privilege of reading the typescript of this book. The evidence painstakingly uncovered and meticulously analysed by Dr Kerr leaves absolutely no room for doubt that the bomb suitcase was already on the Pan Am luggage container AVE 4041 before the feeder flight from Frankfurt arrived at Heathrow. The prosecution scenario (surprisingly swallowed by the trial court) of the bomb being in an unaccompanied bag sent from Malta via Frankfurt to Heathrow is utterly destroyed. Whoever was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103, Morag Kerr has conclusively demonstrated that it was not Abdelbaset al-Megrahi,’ say I.

The London origin theory

[This morning, by chance, I rediscovered an article dating from July 2010 headed The London Origin Theory by Caustic Logic on his website The Lockerbie Divide. The leading exposition of this theory is now, of course, to be found in Dr Morag Kerr’s superb book Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies. However, Caustic Logic’s piece deserves attention, too. So here it is:]

“I want to know when the bomb was placed on the plane and by whom. We have to look more closely into the "London theory" – that the bomb was placed on the plane at Heathrow and not in Malta.” - Hans Köchler, independent UN observer at Zeist trial, 21 Aug 2009 (Source)

"If I was determined to bring down an airplane, I would have put [the bomb] on in London." - Robert Baer, 'former' CIA agent and weapons expert, who doesn't buy the Libyans-did-it story line.

The London Origin theory has emerged as the most logical explanation for what happened to Pan Am 103 on December 21 1988. The official story, all the most widely-seen revisionist arguments, and even Megrahi's defense team's curious "special defense of incrimination" drew on elements of the drug swap theory, with the bomb coming in from Germany or further afield. Megrahi's counsel William Taylor QC did however give reasons to suspect a  London origin (...) to the trial judges and summarized at trial's end in 2001:  “My submission is that all of the above render the choice of Heathrow a much more likely one [than Malta]. And when that possibility is considered, one finds that there is a compelling body of evidence that points to Heathrow as being the point of ingestion.” [day 82 p9862]

But in the earliest days of the investigation, January and February 1989, British investigators labored to clear Heathrow Airport of any lapses and ensure that the bomb's origin would have to be found elsewhere. Years of confusion ensued... (see "Counter-Arguments" below for more on the dismissal of the London theory).

Direct Evidence For the Theory

Among the first clues came from finding where the plane failed, and what luggage container the blast originated in. Container AVE4041 in forward left cargo hold, position 14L, was decided within a few days. The container's blasted out remains were found and reassembled enough to show the blast was down at the bottom of the container, in the aft outboard corner. It had been in the spot closest to the hull, only 25" from the thin and aged skin of Maid of the seas.

Unfortunately, the exact placement, origin, or even number of suitcases in that box was hard to pin down. Records and witnesses helped decide 4041 was loaded with a few bags (6-8 or so) of (apparently) interline luggage, then filled up with a few dozen cases from the feeder/first leg flight 103A out of Frankfurt. But within this generally imprecise body of memories, one stands out as of amazing possible significance.

The Bedford Suitcase(s)

This was always the hard part to get around in order to reject the initially obvious Heathrow introduction theory. A Pan Am worker mentioned to police right after the attack said he saw two brown hardshell samsonite suitcases, placed on the floor of container 4041. The position of these was side-by-side from the far left of the floor, at the (loading) front of the container. If the bags had been later stacked one on the other and the top bag slid a few inches left, it would be in the perfect spot to match the explosion center - aft outboard corner, second suitcase from the bottom - where just such case detonated.

An amazing lead, investigators almost seem to have tried to not follow this one.  Since the cases Bedford saw were on the floor when he saw them, and the blast seemed to have happened one layer up from that, they decided these cases were a coincidence. They must have been moved across the container, and replaced in that lower corner with an identical case from Germany, on top of some other damaged Frankfurt-originating luggage. The leaps of faith here are simply alarming.

The Bedford story is covered in great detail at this site, with the works so far compiled at the link above.

Break-in Reported

A security guard at heathrow Airport reported a break-in at terminal 3 around 12:30 am on  December 21. Ray Manly's report, of a padlock on the floor "cut like butter" was covered up for over a decade. Even at trial in 2000, the defense was not allowed to know of this. Manly came forward in 2001 with the story, soon verified by the long-suppressed police reports. (...)

Mentioned in: Appeal Court Dismissal of the Heathrow Theory

Circumstantial Evidence For the Theory

The 38-Minute Coincidence

Aside from its crew and perhaps some cargo that (probably) doesn't matter here, the 747 Clipper Maid of the Seas landed empty at London's Heathrow airport mid-day December 21, 1988. There the plane took on a load of 243 passengers and their luggage, and took off at 6:25pm for New York as Pan Am Flight 103. Clearly, the bomb went on the plane at London, but the question that comes quickly behind it is where did it come from before that? A van in the parking lot, or another plane?

Such clues were vital to tracking down the perpetrators, and should be embraced when they're found. The time of explosion itself is a valuable clue - 38 minutes after leaving the ground - is a known hallmark of the altimeter bombs made just weeks earlier by terrorist bomb-maker and "double agent" Marwan Khreesat. He had produced four altimeter-triggered, radio-disguised bombs, set to detonate less than an hour after takeoff. Each of the others was a bit different, but the one that was captured and tested thoroughly would have blown up about 45-50 minutes after takeoff.  

The timing compatibility with a Khreesat bomb loaded at London notwithstanding, it's been officially decided and legally established that was a Libyan-ordered and set MST-13 timer that told the bomb to go off over Lockerbie. Officially, legally, by the evidence led at trial, it's an asbolute coincidence the timing so resembles the method first suspected.

Operational Security

When confronted with the official story of a Malta-Germany-London, the most obvious averse reaction of those who know air travel operations is to ridicule the notion that an airline bomb would make any sense being trusted to so many switches. Any functional security screen or time delay along the way coulld screw up the whole operation with a timer-based device as alleged. A trip from Frankfurt only is often suggested to replace this, but it too has one too many stops for a Khreesat bomb, and still a high chanced of the bomb being delayed or intercepted. If one could pierce security at any of the three airports, and it obviously happened at one of them, Heathrow would give one the best chance for success and the only way for a Khreesat bomb to have done what happened.   

Former head of security for British Airways, Denis Phipps, The Maltese Double Cross:

“If a device had been infiltrated into the system at Malta, it would have been necessary for that device to have been carried in an aircraft in the sector from Malta to Frankfurt, to have gone through a handling process, been carried on an aircraft through the sector from Frankfurt to Heathrow, and then timed to detonate during the final sector, Heathrow to New York, presumably whilst the aircraft was over the ocean to avoid discovery of forensic evidence …  one has to say, um, are - terrorists  - idiots? Don’t terrorists plan to have a reasonable degree of success?"  

Explosive Efficacy

If one places a device at the airport the target leaves from, rather than remotely through multiple flights, a new possibility is opened up - depending on the nature and depth of his penetration, a determined terrorist could place the bag himself and chose where in the container it went. As it happened, the bomb in PA103 was placed in the best spot (for the terrorists), and one of the few that could have even worked - the lower outboard quadrant, more or less on the sloping floor nearest the hull. Figure F13 (below) of the AAIB's report shows the deduced center of explosion that officially was achieved by accident. Considering even there, all that was blows from the hull was a chunk the size of a dinner plate. That's all it took, but it wouldn't happen at all if the bomb had wound up in the upper inboard corner, or even in the middle.

It is true, as some have pointed out, that there'd be no guarantee any cases placed in that deadly corner would stay there. But terrorists simply can't wait for guarantees. Certainly having it in the right spot, for sure, at one point, is better than relying on pure chance. Perhaps with this in mind, famous former CIA agent Robert Baer, who may have direct experience in this for all we know, has said:

"I used to teach explosives. The last thing you want to do is put a bomb on in a place like Malta and have two stops along the way ... you couldn't count on this thing hitting its target. ... Malta would not have been my first choice. It would have been London. If I was determined to bring down an airplane, I would have put it on in London." Flight into Darkness video, part two, 5:25

Counter Arguments Addressed

Forensics and the Frankfurt Link to the Rescue

UK and Germany had both been unsettled by the possibility their security forces had allowed the horror of Lockerbie to pass through. Some of their early wrangling is addressed in the post "What did the Germans Know?" British investigators decided the blast - 10 inches above the container floor - was above any possible non-Frankfurt luggage and therefore had to be some other brown, hardshell Samsonite from the one(s) Bedford described, that must have been from the feeder 103A. It was unsound reasoning and wishful thinking until the Erac printout emerged months later, showing an item apparently coming from Malta, to PA103, via Frankfurt.

The Malta Link to the Rescue

The Erac printout, emerging months after the attack from an employee's locker after all official copies somehow disappeared, sealed the deal for Malta origin. But the tiny island nation had already been mentioned in the evidence, as the place of manufacture for some of it. As it so happened, the Erac (Frankfurt) printout in August 1989 spurred a closer look, and the clothes were traced to a store on Malta where Tony Gauci was found...

Malta-based Libyan defector Abdul Majid Giaka was already on file with the culprits - Megrahi and Fhimah - that some hoped Tony saw one of. By late February 1991, they had a sort of identification of Megrahi from the shopkeeper.  A few months later, Giaka was finally removed to safety and first mentioned the suitcase - possibly the same model Bedford reported - seen on Malta the day before it reappeared on that dubious printout leaving there. The story is clearly false, but formed one basis of the U.S. indictment against Megrahi and Fhimah in November 1991.

And finally, Air Malta has airtight records that the 55 bags on flight 180 were all claimed by its 39 passengers. They've shown this in court, like in their libel suit against Granada television. How the bomb was sneaked around Air Malta's system was never explained or substantiated even back when Fhimah was accepted as an accomplice. Investigators tried to find evidence of Maltese collusion or corruption or incompetence, but came up only with 'well, they must have done it somehow.' After the dismissal of Giaka's Malta stories, the Zeist judges  found that accomplice not guilty, further complicating the feat for Megrahi. They admit it's hard to see just how he did it, but he must have. Guilty.