Lockerbie bomber Megrahi 'dead'
Source: BBC News
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing above Scotland which killed 270 people, has died at home in Libya, his brother has told news agencies.
Megrahi, 59, was convicted by a special court in the Netherlands in 2001.
He was released from prison in Scotland in 2009 on compassionate grounds. He was suffering from cancer and was said to have only months to live.
When he returned to the Libyan capital, he received a hero's welcome.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18137896
Lockerbie bomber Megrahi has died in Libya: brother.
(Reuters) - The former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people has died, his brother said on Sunday. He was 59.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/20/us-libya-megrahi-idUSBRE84J05H20120520
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slackmaster
(60,567 posts)
ChazII
(6,204 posts)
Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)The Scots Government let him go on "compassionate grounds" because his conviction would have been overturned on appeal.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)You obviously read everything on a subject rather than selectively as some others appear to do.
Yes - its likely that if the appeal had proceeded his conviction would have been overturned.
MichaelMcGuire
(1,684 posts)800 pages
Including six grounds which could have constituted a miscarriage of justice.
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)They had to act quick because if he won the appeal they couldn't have exchanged his release for the big oil deal.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)the conviction was unsafe and the UK authorities knew it.
Also the climate change-sceptical potty right-wing Torygraph is hardly an objective source.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)And to play along with your ad hominem attack on the source, feel free to pick one that suits you...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14815440
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/world/europe/16britain.html
http://www.alan.com/2010/07/16/u-s-looking-into-link-between-bp-oil-and-release-lockerbie-bomber/
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2005268,00.html
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/07/uk-ambassador-denies-lockerbie-bomber-was-released-to-help-bp-get-oil-deal-with-libya/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/07/14/bp-libya-deal-did-bp-free-the-lockerbie-bomber.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/07/probe-sought-of-bp-lockerbie-b.html
http://www.newser.com/story/95407/bp-oil-deal-with-lybia.html
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/07/15/bp-lobbied-brits-ahead-of-lockerbie-bomber-release/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/13/senator-questions-tie-bp-oil-contract-libya-lockerbie-bombers-release/
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/lockerbie-bomber-freed-to-protect-bp-oil-deals-2470050.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-6685730.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/15/AR2010071506546.html
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/BP-Now-Facing-Questions-Over-Pan-Am-Bombers-Release-98265824.html
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)Last edited Sun May 20, 2012, 03:02 PM - Edit history (1)
...anyway.
So they released him because they saw that they were losing a chance to use him as collateral for the oil deal.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)First of all, al-Megrahi had already lost one appeal. Next, al-Megrahi had dropped his appeal just in order to be eligible for a "compassionate" release. So why in hell would al-Megrahi drop an appeal which some here seem to erroneously think was rock solid, in favor of a process which had much less chance to succeed unless they knew the deck was already stacked in their favor.
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)between being released under the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 section 3 with allows for release on compassionate grounds and the Prisoner Transfer Agreement they are not the same
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/son-libyan-convicted-lockerbie-bombing-dead-16389018?page=3#.T7lG7LWnJ8E
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)Dropping the appeal does not help nor hinder the application for compassionate release it makes no difference
However the end to any appeal has to happen under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement
THESE ARE TWO PROCESSES AND ARE DIFFERENT
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)He may not have ever seen Libya again, but he would've been exonerated.
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)joshcryer
(62,269 posts)Sea-Dog
(247 posts)PTA is linked to the British govt.
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)...weeks before and it was clear, from the horses mouth, that the deal was conditioned on the release of Megrahi. He waffled on that like the scum that he is, but everyone involved pretended that wasn't the deal.
It was. Clear as fucking day.
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)the PTA was part of that deal, it was denied. And the application of Compassionate release and under Scots law given. He met the criteria for it, what someone has been convicted off plays no part in the application being granted or not. the correspondence on this topic between govts Scot, US, Megrahi legal team and UK is hosted for all to see. and makes a interesting read. i wished it was more to it than that
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)You can tell me that it was totally transparent and I have no doubt that it was.
But the BP oil deal was extremely lucrative for both governments, and the UK had more to gain. Saif's comments on the matter and the meetings with Mendelson tell me that the political pressure trended toward the release in order to assure the deal.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)The last remaining judge whose verdict was necessary to declare the conviction unsafe was off sick with flu. Following a mistrial being declared an appeal would then have been allowed. A condition of his release was that he dropped his appeal. It is considered he would not have been found guilty again in the event of such an appeal due to presense of evidence withheld in the initial trial.
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)He may have not have lived to see it, but yeah.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)So kinda hard to reach that conclusion, no?
Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)...
His decision to abandon the appeal will likely bring him even closer to being returned to Libya, either on compassionate grounds because he is dying or under a controversial prisoner exchange treaty signed between Britain and Libya earlier this year which would only allow him to return to Tripoli if he abandoned his appeal.
Speaking to The Independent today, Pamela Dix - whose brother Peter was on board Pan Am flight 103 when it exploded above the skies of Lockerbie in December 1988 - said Megrahi’s decision to abandon the appeal would mean that those relatives of victims who believe the truth about the bombing has yet to be ascertained will be even further from discovering what really happened.
“It’s a massive disappointment,” said Mrs Dix, whose organisation UK Families Flight 103 represents a number of British families that believe the full facts of the bombing have yet to be fully explained. “I’m always a little hesitant to speak for other people but I certainly know that a number of families who lost loved ones and were very keen for the appeal process to reach its full conclusion.”
(snip)
Megrahi has always staunchly maintained his innocence, a view that is shared by a number of British families of those who died in the attack he was convicted of carrying out – a view which is in stark contrast to most American families who are convinced of his guilt. Last year, however, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission gave Megrahi permission to appeal his conviction after a four year review of the evidence against him.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/almegrahi-pressured-into-abandoning-appeal-1772156.html
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Funny how you left that part out, especially since it was in the very first sentence in the article. Perhaps you were counting on nobody actually taking the time to click on your link.
I have no interest discussing an issue with someone who is that disingenuous. Kindly find someone else to play those games with, OK?
Cheers!
Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)If you don't want to exchange debate that is fine, you don't need to resort to accusations of "being disingenuous" as a departing utterance.
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)(snip)
Dr Swire, other UK relatives of the victims, and a range of legal campaigners, including Professor Black, say that the May 2000 trial of two Libyan suspects, the other of whom was not convicted, amounts to a cover up and a serious miscarriage of justice. Their concern is that the truth has not come out, and that the guilty have not been brought to justice.
All of the Crown's witnesses in the 36-week trial, which took place at a specially convened Scottish Court in the Netherlands, have subsequently been discredited.
In the latest revelation, a prosecution expert misled judges about key evidence, according to a classified police memo published by the Sunday Herald on 17 July.
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15217
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Nihil
(13,508 posts)
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Brilliant!
MADem
(135,425 posts)Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)Almost certainly, he was at most an accessory, and was made the 'fall guy' for the real culprits. It may never be known who these really were, especially as the assassinations of Gaddafi and others have ruled out trials that might have given more information.
I would guess that the real culprits are also dead, and very likely not of natural causes.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)“The endgame came down to damage limitation," said the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who took part in the original investigation, "because the evidence amassed by [Megrahi's] appeal is explosive and extremely damning to the system of justice." New witnesses would show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft - he was convicted on the word of a Maltese shopowner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and even failed to recognise him in the courtroom.
(snip)
A "key secret witness" at the original trial, who claimed to have seen Megrahi and his co-accused, al-Alim Khalifa Fahimah (who was acquitted), loading the bomb on to the plane at Frankfurt, was bribed by the US authorities holding him as a "protected witness". The defence exposed him as a CIA informer who stood to collect, on the Libyans' conviction, up to $4m as a reward.
(snip)
...most of the staff of the US embassy in Moscow who had reserved seats on Pan Am flights from Frankfurt cancelled their bookings when they were alerted by US intelligence that a terrorist attack was planned. He named Margaret Thatcher the "architect" of the cover-up after revealing that she killed the independent inquiry her transport secretary Cecil Parkinson had promised the Lockerbie families; and in a phone call to President George Bush Sr on 11 January 1990, she agreed to "low-key" the disaster after their intelligence services had reported "beyond doubt" that the Lockerbie bomb had been placed by a Palestinian group, contracted by Tehran, as a reprisal for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a US warship in Iranian territorial waters.
more
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Here are the facts of the case which aren't in dispute by either side:
1) al-Megrahi traveled to Malta on a false passport one day before the bombing
2) The suitcase which contained the bomb was surrounded by clothes bought in Malta
3) The clothes were traced to a store in Malta
4) The storekeeper in Malta where the clothes were bought recalled selling the clothing to a man resembling al Megrahi.
So just looking at those 4 pieces of circumstantial evidence (there were many more), it's pretty much a head scratcher as to why some people are completely convinced of al-Megrahi innocence.
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)is the strongest evidence that a miscarriage of justice has taken place
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Much of the evidence presented at the trial has never been made public. It's just 4 pieces of evidence which aren't in dispute by either the prosecution or al-Megrahi's defense. How you get that it's the strongest evidence of a miscarriage is anyone's guess because even al-Megrahi's defense didn't make that claim.
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)the SCCRC highlights them as part of the evidence that means a miscarriage of justice has taken place. Maltese shopkeeper was a fruitcake over looking 7 contradictory statements from the same fruitcake shopkeeper and by the US paid monies for a positive id of megrahi.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)You're speaking about the photo identification made of al-Megrahi. The shopkeeper identified a purchaser of probable Libyan decent in his very first contacts with investigators, which was long before he was shown a photo and long before the foil-hatters say the Americans paid him off.
For someone who claims to be so knowledgeable of the case, you sure do come up short on any real substance.
Just sayin'
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)most others can see you are lacking.
call me uninformed only works if it IS the case. i almost pee'd myself with the mix up and lack of understanding of PTA and CR but it is no doubt just the tip of the iceberg isn't it?
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)I went ahead and replied to your previous post to show your obvious false allegation for what it was. Normally I don't waste my time with those who make ridiculous assertions especially when they come from someone who obviously only has no other interest than in trading condescending remarks and insults, but don't worry, I won't make that mistake again with you. I guarantee it.
Have a nice life and welcome to my shit list.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)You clearly don't know what you're talking about; therefore any claim to objectivity is nonsensical.
All the Toshiba cassette bombs that had been seized were found, when tested, to run for 30 minutes after they were set. The advantage of barometric timers is that they aren’t activated until the plane is airborne – the bomb won’t go off on the ground if the plane is delayed. Some seven or eight minutes would elapse before the air pressure dropped enough as the plane gained height to activate a barometric timer set to go off 30 minutes later, i.e. 37 or 38 minutes after the flight took off. It was precisely 38 minutes after Pan Am Flight 103 took off from Heathrow on 21 December 1988 that it exploded over Lockerbie; when the remnants of the destroyed plane and its contents were put together piece by piece by the Dumfries and Galloway police, fragments of a Toshiba cassette radio were found.
Forensic scientists believed that the radio had been in a suitcase in which there were clothes whose label was traced to a shop in Malta. A search of the house of a man affiliated to the group that manufactured the Toshiba bombs produced clothes bought in Malta; it was established too that he had travelled to Malta before the bombing. And the owner of the Maltese shop from which the clothes were thought to have been purchased identified to his brother, without prompting, a newspaper photograph of that man as the person who had bought the clothes found in the suitcase with the bomb inside.
But the man who bought the clothes was not al-Megrahi, nor was he Libyan. The group making Toshiba radio cassette bombs had no connection at all with Libya. Neither the man nor the group was ever prosecuted for involvement in the Lockerbie bombing. The fact that the explosion took place exactly when one would have expected it to if a Toshiba cassette bomb had been used was ignored: the bomb had not, the prosecution contended at al-Megrahi’s trial, been triggered by a barometric switch in this way. The Lockerbie device, it claimed, was different from the devices made by the group. The difference was that it was a Toshiba cassette radio with one speaker rather than two. From a logically compelling case that seemed to point clearly in one direction the prosecution switched tack, but not at the beginning: not, in fact, until two years after the bombing, when the politics of the Middle East shifted and new allies had to be found quickly if the flow of cheap oil were to continue.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/gareth-peirce/the-framing-of-al-megrahi
Gauci also said, however, that he remembered it raining on the day Megrahi came in, yet meteorological records show this was not the case. This alone does not discount his testimony, but it must give pause for thought.
His claim to be able to identify a particular customer many months after he came into his shop is much more difficult to sustain. Again, the court expressed its reservations, saying that "Mr Gauci's initial description to DCI Bell would not in a number of respects fit the first accused"
http://www.newstatesman.com/2010/07/megrahi-malta-bomb-case-gauci
It does though, question the evidence which placed Megrahi in Malta when the clothes were purchased and concludes that evidence which cast doubt on Mr Gauci's identification of Megrahi as the purchaser had not been made available to the defence, a breach of rules designed to ensure a fair trial.
In particular, there was evidence that four days before he identified Megrahi, Mr Gauci had seen a photograph of him in a magazine article about the bombing.
Mr Gauci was also said to have been paid a reward - perhaps $2m - for his assistance with the investigation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-12191604
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)1) Your first link concerns a timer which I never mentioned. Why you decided to include it is anyone's guess. Perhaps it was the first thing that popped up on your google search.
2) The second link concerns the positive identification of al-Megrahi. Even if you can conclude that there was no positive identification of al-Megrahi, you are still left with the fact that the storekeeper identified a man of al-Megrahi's description from his initial interview. This has never been disputed by the defense.
3) Your third link concerns the exact same subject as the 2nd.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)And the shopkeeper's testimony was quite clear that it was raining when the man exited his shop; there was no rain in Malta on the only day Megrahi could have possibly made the purchase. The Scottish Criminal Convictions Review Commission report judged that the inconsistency of this testimony alone was sufficient grounds to declare an unsafe conviction and potential evidence of a miscarriage of justice.
And the timer is pretty integral to the case, being determined to be of the same type as that used in the bomb on Pan Am 103. The group using such timers were Palestinians; the initial US intelligence estimate was that a Palestinian group were contracted by Iran to carry out the bombing in retaliation for the USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian airliner. So it's kind of pertinent.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)I'm not going to replay the trial and all the evidence which has already been done here ad nauseum. If you want to, be my guest. I'm simply asking those who are so convinced of al-Megrahi innocence (not those who simply think there was something wrong with the trial), how they reconcile the circumstantial evidence that points directly to al-Megrahi and has never been in dispute by his defense.
duzy Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)what you posted: "taking an objective look at the case". Apparently you're not prepared to do that. The identification you cite has been, in fact, disputed. The circumstantial evidence is disputed, the witness testimony is disputed, all of these things were in the report of the Scottish Criminal Review Commission. Your claims that these things "have never been in dispute" is manifestly untrue.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Your basic strategy is to invent things I never claimed and then proceed to argue from that basis. This is what's known as 'strawman rhetoric'.
I don't play those games, but there are plenty weak minded individuals who will. I suggest you seek one of those people out.
For further reading...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Cheers!
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014125032#post32
I'm left to conclude that you're either amazingly stupid or have a tremendously defective memory.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)It was known at the trial that Gauci's positive identification was in doubt as well as the exact date he remembered. The defense you keep thinking is relevant failed at the trial and on appeal. It doesn't change the fact that Gauci said the clothes were sold to a man of Libyan descent who matched the general description of al Megrahi. Gauci has maintained that from his very first interview. Read up on the case and better educate yourself on the subject. You might be surprised what you learn.
If you just want to trade insults, I'll invite you to go piss up a rope. I have no interest in that. Find someone else or go play with yourself. Your choice.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)or for that matter, "reasonable doubt". The fact remains that there was sufficient question regarding the validity of evidence and veracity of testimony to lead the Scottich Criminal Convictions Review Commission to conclude that in all probability the prosecution case should have been thrown out and that it represented at best an unsafe conviction and at worst a miscarriage of justice. You seem to have no interest in these facts, which contradict your predetermined notions. And Gauci originally identified a Palestinian. Can you tell a Libyan from any other North African or Middle Eastern Arab just by looking at him? I would suggest "probably not", and it's doubtful Gauci could either. (And you've clearly not bothered to read a single thing I've quoted and linked in which these issues are dealt with in some cases at length).
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Here's the report of the review. It says nothing close to what you're claiming. Their job was to decide if the case warranted a 2nd appeal. That's it. Most, if not all, of what they decided was relevant had already been unsuccessfully challenged in the first appeal.
http://www.sccrc.org.uk/ViewFile.aspx?id=293
Now you can keep pretending any of this has anything to do with what I posted, but you're going to have to continue alone because I'm done with you. I'm only interested in substantive discussion. I have zero interest in someone who wants to trade insults, pull 'facts' out of their ass, and can't stay on topic.
Cheers!
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)The Glasgow Herald got the full report and published it with some redactions in March of this year; the SCCRC's full report had not previously been available, and says in part (the meat of it, from the concluding chapter):
21.100 The Commission has considered whether, leaving aside the evidence as to the date of purchase, there exists an alternative means by which a verdict of guilty
could reasonably have been returned, based on the evidence not rejected by the court.
Such an approach is consistent with that taken by the court in King in which it was
held that the test to be applied under section 106(3)(b) is whether no reasonable jury
could have returned a verdict of guilty on the evidence before them. However, given
the importance of the date of purchase to the identification of the applicant as the
purchaser, and the importance of that identification to his conviction, it seems to the
Commission that this is a matter more appropriately determined by the High Court in
the event that it arises at appeal. It is sufficient to say that in the Commission’s view
any finding that a reasonable court could not have inferred that the applicant was the
purchaser would render the remaining evidence against him insufficient to convict.
21.101 Based on these conclusions the Commission is of the view that the verdict in
the case is at least arguably one which no reasonable court, properly directed, could
have returned. In these circumstances the Commission considers that a miscarriage of
justice may have occurred in the applicant’s case.
(snip)
27.216 In accordance with the principles set out at the beginning of this chapter the
Commission has also considered whether, notwithstanding its conclusion that a
miscarriage of justice may have occurred, the entirety of the evidence considered by it
points irrefutably to the applicant’s guilt. The Commission’s conclusion is that it does
not.
27.217 In these circumstances the Commission believes not only that there may have
been a miscarriage of justice in the applicant’s case, but also that it is in the interests
of justice to refer the case to the High Court. The Commission accordingly does so.
http://login.heraldscotland.com/SCCRC-Statement-of-Reasons-red.pdf
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)that the Maltese shopkeeper and his brother were paid 3 million dollars to stick with their story. You also appear to have no knowledge of the evidence which was subsequently found to have been withheld from the investigating police.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)For most, there is a significant difference. YMMV.
My objective is not to replay the entire case which has already been done ad nauseum here on DU. My objective is to point out to all those who are completely convinced of al-Megrahi innocence that some pretty strong facts of the case are not in dispute. It's one thing to say you're in doubt about al-Megrahi's conviction. It's quite another to say you're convinced of his innocence.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)The Stranger
(11,297 posts)Is he not really dead?
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)I can see they've changed that now but if I now amended the subject line it would render your post meaningless so I'll leave it be.
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)a nights reading would remedy it. the lockerbie bomber is still alive cos you know it wasnt megrahi .
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Not sayin' you, but just sayin'
Cheers!
Sea-Dog
(247 posts)ButterflyBlood
(12,644 posts)Good riddance.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Which is better than anything they were in life.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)tabasco
(22,974 posts)fucker.
Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)First there were the differences and tensions between London and the competent Scottish authorities. Scotland has long attempted to establish its relative independence from the masters in London and this may well have been a case in point.
Second there are the allegations of the commercial interests in Libya's petroleum industry. As a child I lived in Tripoli and my father worked for a consortium of American and British oil interests. What impact did this have on the decision?
Third there is the question of whether or not the medical experts in Scotland truly believed Megrahi was within days or weeks of dying. Despite his alleged crimes against humanity, as a Christian I also recognize the need for compassion. If we do not demonstrate this trait as an exception to the brutality of wayward Islam, we are no better than they.
I suggest we accept Megrahi's death as a fact. It closes a tragic chapter in the lives of those affected by the downing of the PanAm jumbo jet. Hopefully with the removal of Gaddafi, the Libyan people will have a chance to establish for themselves a civil society that engages with the rest of the world in an orderly, supportive and respectful manner. Only time will tell.....
may3rd
(593 posts)three years later, the Ghadaffy health care seems to have stopped, the flow of live saving drugs have dried up
