Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
MARCELLO MEGA | 14.04.2007 14:23 | Analysis
Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
MARCELLO MEGA
A FORMER Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.
The retired officer - of assistant chief constable rank or higher - has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.
The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, gave the statement to lawyers representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, currently serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison.
The evidence will form a crucial part of Megrahi's attempt to have a retrial ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The claims pose a potentially devastating threat to the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system.
The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses "wrote the script" to incriminate Libya.
Last night, George Esson, who was Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway when Megrahi was indicted for mass murder, confirmed he was aware of the development.
But Esson, who retired in 1994, questioned the officer's motives. He said: "Any police officer who believed they had knowledge of any element of fabrication in any criminal case would have a duty to act on that. Failure to do so would call into question their integrity, and I can't help but question their motive for raising the matter now."
Other important questions remain unanswered, such as how the officer learned of the alleged conspiracy and whether he was directly involved in the inquiry. But sources close to Megrahi's legal team believe they may have finally discovered the evidence that could demolish the case against him.
An insider told Scotland on Sunday that the retired officer approached them after Megrahi's appeal - before a bench of five Scottish judges - was dismissed in 2002.
The insider said: "He said he believed he had crucial information. A meeting was set up and he gave a statement that supported the long-standing rumours that the key piece of evidence, a fragment of circuit board from a timing device that implicated Libya, had been planted by US agents.
"Asked why he had not come forward before, he admitted he'd been wary of breaking ranks, afraid of being vilified.
"He also said that at the time he became aware of the matter, no one really believed there would ever be a trial. When it did come about, he believed both accused would be acquitted. When Megrahi was convicted, he told himself he'd be cleared at appeal."
The source added: "When that also failed, he explained he felt he had to come forward.
"He has confirmed that parts of the case were fabricated and that evidence was planted. At first he requested anonymity, but has backed down and will be identified if and when the case returns to the appeal court."
The vital evidence that linked the bombing of Pan Am 103 to Megrahi was a tiny fragment of circuit board which investigators found in a wooded area many miles from Lockerbie months after the atrocity.
The fragment was later identified by the FBI's Thomas Thurman as being part of a sophisticated timer device used to detonate explosives, and manufactured by the Swiss firm Mebo, which supplied it only to Libya and the East German Stasi.
At one time, Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, was such a regular visitor to Mebo that he had his own office in the firm's headquarters.
The fragment of circuit board therefore enabled Libya - and Megrahi - to be placed at the heart of the investigation. However, Thurman was later unmasked as a fraud who had given false evidence in American murder trials, and it emerged that he had little in the way of scientific qualifications.
Then, in 2003, a retired CIA officer gave a statement to Megrahi's lawyers in which he alleged evidence had been planted.
The decision of a former Scottish police chief to back this claim could add enormous weight to what has previously been dismissed as a wild conspiracy theory. It has long been rumoured the fragment was planted to implicate Libya for political reasons.
The first suspects in the case were the Syrian-led Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a terror group backed by Iranian cash. But the first Gulf War altered diplomatic relations with Middle East nations, and Libya became the pariah state.
Following the trial, legal observers from around the world, including senior United Nations officials, expressed disquiet about the verdict and the conduct of the proceedings at Camp Zeist, Holland. Those doubts were first fuelled when internal documents emerged from the offices of the US Defence Intelligence Agency. Dated 1994, more than two years after the Libyans were identified to the world as the bombers, they still described the PFLP-GC as the Lockerbie bombers.
A source close to Megrahi's defence said: "Britain and the US were telling the world it was Libya, but in their private communications they acknowledged that they knew it was the PFLP-GC.
"The case is starting to unravel largely because when they wrote the script, they never expected to have to act it out. Nobody expected agreement for a trial to be reached, but it was, and in preparing a manufactured case, mistakes were made."
Dr Jim Swire, who has publicly expressed his belief in Megrahi's innocence, said it was quite right that all relevant information now be put to the SCCRC.
Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, said last night: "I am aware that there have been doubts about how some of the evidence in the case came to be presented in court.
"It is in all our interests that areas of doubt are thoroughly examined."
A spokeswoman for the Crown Office said: "As this case is currently being examined by the SCCRC, it would be inappropriate to comment."
No one from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland was available to comment.
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1855852005
MARCELLO MEGA
A FORMER Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.
The retired officer - of assistant chief constable rank or higher - has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.
The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, gave the statement to lawyers representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, currently serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison.
The evidence will form a crucial part of Megrahi's attempt to have a retrial ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The claims pose a potentially devastating threat to the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system.
The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses "wrote the script" to incriminate Libya.
Last night, George Esson, who was Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway when Megrahi was indicted for mass murder, confirmed he was aware of the development.
But Esson, who retired in 1994, questioned the officer's motives. He said: "Any police officer who believed they had knowledge of any element of fabrication in any criminal case would have a duty to act on that. Failure to do so would call into question their integrity, and I can't help but question their motive for raising the matter now."
Other important questions remain unanswered, such as how the officer learned of the alleged conspiracy and whether he was directly involved in the inquiry. But sources close to Megrahi's legal team believe they may have finally discovered the evidence that could demolish the case against him.
An insider told Scotland on Sunday that the retired officer approached them after Megrahi's appeal - before a bench of five Scottish judges - was dismissed in 2002.
The insider said: "He said he believed he had crucial information. A meeting was set up and he gave a statement that supported the long-standing rumours that the key piece of evidence, a fragment of circuit board from a timing device that implicated Libya, had been planted by US agents.
"Asked why he had not come forward before, he admitted he'd been wary of breaking ranks, afraid of being vilified.
"He also said that at the time he became aware of the matter, no one really believed there would ever be a trial. When it did come about, he believed both accused would be acquitted. When Megrahi was convicted, he told himself he'd be cleared at appeal."
The source added: "When that also failed, he explained he felt he had to come forward.
"He has confirmed that parts of the case were fabricated and that evidence was planted. At first he requested anonymity, but has backed down and will be identified if and when the case returns to the appeal court."
The vital evidence that linked the bombing of Pan Am 103 to Megrahi was a tiny fragment of circuit board which investigators found in a wooded area many miles from Lockerbie months after the atrocity.
The fragment was later identified by the FBI's Thomas Thurman as being part of a sophisticated timer device used to detonate explosives, and manufactured by the Swiss firm Mebo, which supplied it only to Libya and the East German Stasi.
At one time, Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, was such a regular visitor to Mebo that he had his own office in the firm's headquarters.
The fragment of circuit board therefore enabled Libya - and Megrahi - to be placed at the heart of the investigation. However, Thurman was later unmasked as a fraud who had given false evidence in American murder trials, and it emerged that he had little in the way of scientific qualifications.
Then, in 2003, a retired CIA officer gave a statement to Megrahi's lawyers in which he alleged evidence had been planted.
The decision of a former Scottish police chief to back this claim could add enormous weight to what has previously been dismissed as a wild conspiracy theory. It has long been rumoured the fragment was planted to implicate Libya for political reasons.
The first suspects in the case were the Syrian-led Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a terror group backed by Iranian cash. But the first Gulf War altered diplomatic relations with Middle East nations, and Libya became the pariah state.
Following the trial, legal observers from around the world, including senior United Nations officials, expressed disquiet about the verdict and the conduct of the proceedings at Camp Zeist, Holland. Those doubts were first fuelled when internal documents emerged from the offices of the US Defence Intelligence Agency. Dated 1994, more than two years after the Libyans were identified to the world as the bombers, they still described the PFLP-GC as the Lockerbie bombers.
A source close to Megrahi's defence said: "Britain and the US were telling the world it was Libya, but in their private communications they acknowledged that they knew it was the PFLP-GC.
"The case is starting to unravel largely because when they wrote the script, they never expected to have to act it out. Nobody expected agreement for a trial to be reached, but it was, and in preparing a manufactured case, mistakes were made."
Dr Jim Swire, who has publicly expressed his belief in Megrahi's innocence, said it was quite right that all relevant information now be put to the SCCRC.
Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, said last night: "I am aware that there have been doubts about how some of the evidence in the case came to be presented in court.
"It is in all our interests that areas of doubt are thoroughly examined."
A spokeswoman for the Crown Office said: "As this case is currently being examined by the SCCRC, it would be inappropriate to comment."
No one from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland was available to comment.
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MARCELLO MEGA
Comments
Hide the following 7 comments
2+2=1984
14.04.2007 16:08
Read between the lines in the following newspaper links:
Libya no longer wishes to exchange the five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for intentional HIV infection in Libya for the Libyan imprisoned for the Lockerbie bombing, the website of Polish magazine Wprost reported.
Labour MSP Ken Macintosh said the officers concerned had been "forced out of the door" and "gagged".
Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, said she had accepted all the formal recommendations made by the Scottish Parliament's justice 1 committee. But she was "not persuaded" that the Executive should have insisted on a gagging clause when it reached an out-of-court settlement with former policewoman Shirley McKie.
FBI ordered McKie case 'swept under carpet'
Since September 2003, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has been conducting a thorough and impartial review of Megrahi's conviction, and is expected to report its findings in 2007. -
The final site of the Glasgow office is uncertain, but Pacific Quay, home to the Scottish Criminal Records Office, sometimes hosts seconded MI5 agents.
MI5 targeting the wrong people in Glasgow
ONE OF THE KEY questions is exactly what tactics the intelligence services will use north of the Border. It is widely accepted that undercover officers, agents from MI5’s A branch - the so-called "Watchers Unit" - are already active in Scotland, bugging homes and telephone lines and placing tracker devices on cars. For phone tapping there is the "Tinkerbell" squad: specialist British Telecom engineers based at the BT building in south-west London. When the information required cannot be obtained from tapping phones or bugging premises, A branch can always call in the "Rat Catchers" - specialists at intercepting mail and opening letters.
Danny
seem to remember
14.04.2007 19:06
me
Das Leben der Anderen
14.04.2007 22:26
By the way, I am most Dannys here as far as I can see. Discreditable posts have been posted under my name and 'persona' by others, but in retrospect quite a few discreditable posts genuinely were me. Sorry. I have also posted under other names at other times for explainable reasons but never under different names on the same thread.
I know people hate people being cryptic, but most of the information is out there for you to DIY. And what I believe to be true - well, these things are always deniable even when they are proven. And whoever said "Each time one of these False Flags is exposed, it makes me wonder, 'who really did this?'" - (not me) well, they should wonder less and research more (on a safer PC than mine perhaps).
The fact the US Security Services planted evidence at Lockerbie, and the fact some locals witnessed this, this is old news. The only thing new about the latest story is that people are starting to come forward and one policeman is prepared to be accountable and named in court. I would advise that policeman to be extremely careful until he does. I also think he should be protected by the glare of our alternative media once he does. For many anarchists give cops a hard time, but at least some of them are more moral than some of us.
Now the Shirlie Mckie thing, the pressure - that was unexpected. Even the CIA/NSA/FBI shoot themselves in the foot sometimes, especially when they are being politically manipulated.
Now the Scotsman is a fairly right-wing newspaper, with some MI5 links, but it has done a better job so far on this story, and on related stories than the rest of the mainstream press. Maybe they are upset at the Scottish deaths. I was tempted to talk to them or the Herald. I hope somebody here scoops them again though, I believe in citizen journalism as one of the cures to our current malaise. I am also tempted to shut up for once and see if I and my family can live on without worry. I don't want to spread paranoia or damage our opposition either, and me yapping could, maybe has, probably will. I also can't separate the journalism from the emotional from the realpolitik from the geo-politics, unless I take thirty years to write about it and I doubt it will be newsworthy by then. It was suggested to me that I write a heavily fictionalised novel - such novels exist. I can't see the point of that. Depending on what happens in my life, I may write a diary with my interpretation and bury it somewhere. If you want to pay for a polygraph test and a psychological test for me, then feel free to interview me and write it up yourself, but without that expense it'd be useless. If you want to track me down then email me or my house is the only house in my town with an access hatch above the cable connection.
orca
This Story is TWO YEARS OLD
15.04.2007 10:19
Reprinting two-year old stories with nothing added but wibble about "false flags" is a waste of everyone's time.
jim
Lol
15.04.2007 11:45
The news is testifying in court should free an innocent Libyan.
And lead to the repayment of Libyan compensation by our state, and demand for personal compensation for Al Megrahi.
And potentially release every Scottish prisoner convicted due to fingerprint evidence - who may want compensated.
And incriminate both the American secret services and our own secret services and judicial system, And the sham trial in Den Haag as the sham everyone taking part it in knew it to be.
And the subsequent propaganda campain and media manipulation.
And more, expose the sort of sick orwelian country we live in by the repression of the subsequent cover-up(s).
No, not newsworthy eh "Jim". Nothing to see here, move right along. We'll just stick it on a new set of arabs.
Danny
if i did it, i'd feel safe
16.04.2007 08:13
Once more, with subtitles.
The story above consists entirely of a corporate repost from 2005. That is the part of it that's two years old, not the bombing itself.
There was follow up of the story in a few places. In the course of that, the policeman was named. Then what happened?
Something? or Nothing?
Can't tell from what has been posted here because there is no context, no attempt to follow-up, not even speculation about the events and what they mean, or pointing out alleged similarities.
Do I believe that the Libyans did Lockerbie? No.
But this waste of bandwidth certainly doesn't amount to proof of a "false flag" operation. The story, and the victims, deserve better than being used as convenient "evidence" for someones' settled conviction.
What happened to investigative journalism? To be fair, I can't be arsed even looking for the cop's name, but then I don't have a point to prove.
jim
news management
16.04.2007 11:04
And I feel the same way about you.
>That is the part of it that's two years old, not the bombing itself.
Once more, with subtitles - the news is the cop is going to testify in court, something he hasn't been willing to do until now. And now for the deaf THE COP IS GOING TO TESTIFY IN COURT. You can take you fingers out your ears now Jim, or whatever orifice they were in.
> no context, no attempt to follow-up, not even speculation about the events and what they mean, or pointing out alleged similarities.
Watch this space ! There is a lot happening in my life, besides, the dam seems to be breaking anyway, this looks inevitably to be going mainstream. Of course, I could provide a sworn statement from the bombers and video evidence they did it, and you would still say 'This is old news, obviously faked, no context' etc.
>What happened to investigative journalism?
It gets smothered in obfuscation and distraction from the establishments minions. Or it gets a bullet in the head, or dropped from a height. But if you are keen on investigative journalism, why don't you give it a go rather than having a go at us ? Oh yeah, you can't be arsed.
Danny