Al Megrahi / BP / Lockerbie PanAm 103

[naw]

Firstly, the BP question:

Did BP apply pressure to British politicans and specialists to secure Megrahi's release and drilling rights in Libya?
Assuming BP did lobby for Megrahi's release, is/was it wrong for them to do so? Surely the blame lies at the politicians (Tony Blair & Jack Straw) who actually enabled his release. Certainly Blair has done well out of Middle East oil recently.

Secondly, Is the legitimacy of Megrahi's conviction under any doubt:

The evidence against Megrahi came from a Maltese store-keeper (Tony Gauci) testified that he had sold baby clothes to Megrahi that was identified to be in the suitcase holding the bomb. The store-keepers evidence is questionable since he was paid off by the American Intelligence Services. Megrahi's Libyan co-defendant was found to be in Sweden at the time and released, but where was Megrahi? Certainly not on the plane and why was his suitcase on the plane when he wasn't booked to fly on it? If Megrahi planted the bomb, why would he include items that would link back to him? The suitcase containing the bomb was proposed to have been loaded in Malta unaccompanied before the plane arrived in Frankfurt for it's leg to Heathrow, then on to JFK, but this doesn't make sense either since the bomb is thought to have used a barometric timer (initiated as air pressure dropped and set to go off 30 mins later) so why did it not go off having left Malta or Frankfurt?

Lockerbie locals and police have raised numerous concerns about unidentified US intelligence who rapidly appeared on the scene and interfered with the evidence (one of the Lockerbie victims was a CIA officer returning to the US to report his concerns about drug couriering).

Furthermore, the CIAs Libyan informer (Abdul Majid Giaka) who initially pointed the finger at Megrahi, was under pressure to come up with something good (if he was to continue getting his $1000 a month). Giaka claimed to work at the highest levels of the Libyan Intelligence Service (JSO?) and later claimed to be related to Libyan royalty but was subsequently discovered to work in a garage as a mechanic :roll:

The Scottish court (held in the Netherlands) accepted the word of the mechanic (that Megrahi worked for Libyan Intelligence) even though no evidence was given and they had already discredited him!

The actual evidence that ties megrahi to the bomb timer came from an unnamed foreign country (USA?) who had refused (CIA?) to hand that evidence over to the Scottish Court. As far as I can work out, it is thought to be fragments of a suitcase containing baby clothes and a radio cassette player used to house the bomb (similar to one found by German Police from a militant Palestinian group, the PFLP) - the baby clothes were traced to the Maltese store-keeper.

16 days before the bombing a man with an Arabic accent called the US Embassy in Finland saying that a Finnish woman would unknowingly carry a bomb onto a PanAm plane travelling from Frankfurt to the US within 2 weeks (but no Finns were on the flight). There were 3 babys and 2 toddlers on Pan Am 103 (all American nationals), PanAm103 was flying from LHR to JFK.

It's worth remembering also that all this happened just 5 months after the US battleship Vincennes shot down Iran AirFlight 655 over the Persian Gulf with 290 passengers aboard. Obviously a terrible error, but Reagan awarded the commander of the Vincennes military honours. Iran, promised revenge and the US believed that a retaliatory attack would be made on US citizens from Europe by the PFLP, sponsored by Iran. The PFLP are known to have performed at least 2 previous bombings using exactly the same method as in PanAm 103.

Megrahi's second appeal was dropped suddenly (and shortly before his release and repatriation to Libya). The prison doctor's prognosis of Megrahi's condition was not backed up by cancer specialists (who refused to confirm the prison doctors opinion) and Megrahi's subsequent release on compassionate grounds happened suddenly in the middle of his second Appeal.

To me, this smacks of the CIA needing to pin a conviction on someone and being willing to pay cash for information with little regard for its reliability. Up until 911, Lockerbie was probably the worst terrorist act on American citizens (of the 270 dead, 190 were US citizens, 43 British).

I don't see this as a *conspiracy* just intelligence agency incompetence and a desire to be seen to be doing something and find someone to blame (shades of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Iraq?)

In any case, weather Megrahi is guilty or innocent, BP lobbying politicians to release him in order to get an oil deal (while unpleasant) is not wrong, but politicians who overrule legal proceedings is fundamentally wrong and I think Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Jack Straw have some serious questions to answer...

[LuCiFeR[SD]]

I suggest you read http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyou ... us_to.html

because here is not the place for political debate.

[netmaestro]

It's an interesting topic to be sure. Imho it should be OK here:

Off Topic Rules

No flame wars
No religious posts
No sexual or offensive posts

Thanks and have fun !

Religion, sex and going postal are out of bounds but politics should be all right.

[netmaestro]

It does seem that every time there's a major injustice committed in the world lately, big oil isn't far away. The invasion of Iraq and this mess are but two examples. Bush knew damn well there were no WMD's in Iraq, that was just the best excuse he could think of to get support for the invasion. My two cents, anyway I'm sure some would disagree. (nobody I know though hehe)

[naw]

Thanks for the link Lucifer, interesting reading generally speaking.
I don't agree with your comment that this is not the place for this sort of debate, I think my post was certainly off-topic (in terms of PureBasic).

I think there's a lot more to this story; If Al-Megrahi was not involved in the bombing of PanAm103, then an innocent man was sacrificed and those who were guilty truly got away with it. Political interference has not made the situation better in any way, politics and law really must be kept separate otherwise politicians think themselves above the law with devastating consequences.

[netmaestro]

The whole world runs on oil and as supplies begin to dwindle governments start to panic. When it becomes scarce it'll be valued above all else. Freedom, human life, human rights, property rights, it'll all be trampled in the rush to gain and control oil.

[blueznl]

Well, the same applied to Michael Jackson concert tickets, so what's new...