We know so little about our world and its history. Sometimes events rip aside the veil and show us aspects of the governmental machinery that ours our nation. It’s not pretty to look at, but important for us to know. Today we look at one such event.
Sidenote: The wealth of information in the FM website’s comments section often challenges that in the posts themselves. The references in this post came from comments by Rune and Mclaren, bringing to light this sad by enlightening information.
Contents
- “The Framing of al-Megrahi“, Gareth Peirce, London Review of Books, 24 September 2009
- Other articles about the Lockerbie coverup
- About hidden history
- Afterword
(1) Excerpt from an disturbing article
“The Framing of al-Megrahi“, Gareth Peirce, London Review of Books, 24 September 2009 — This is the conclusion to a long, well-supported, tightly reasoned article. I recommend reading it in full. Excerpt:
To discover that al-Megrahi’s conviction was in large part based on the evidence of scientists whose value as professional witnesses had been permanently and publicly demolished 10 years before his trial is astounding.
… Even if the science that convicted al-Megrahi had not offended against every minimum standard, then the second pillar of the prosecution case, his identification by Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper, would remain spectacular in its noncompliance with any safeguard.
- He described al-Megrahi as ‘6’0’’’ (he was 5’8’’),
- ‘50 years old’ (he was 37), …
- said that he ‘had been to the shop before and after’, ‘had been there only once’; …
- that he ‘will sign statement even though I don’t speak English’;
- that al-Megrahi ‘was similar but not identical’, ‘perhaps like him but not fully like him’, and, fatally for any identification of al-Megrahi in the first place,
- that he was ‘like the man in the Sunday Times’ (in other words, like Abu Talb, whose picture Gauci had initially identified).
But Gauci’s evidence was needed and, reports suggest, handsomely rewarded. He apparently now lives in Australia, supported by millions of US dollars.
That a court of 3 experienced judges convicted on such evidence and that an appeal court upheld the conviction is profoundly shocking. Köchler, the UN observer, reported finding the guilty verdict ‘incomprehensible’ in view of the court’s admission that Gauci’s identification was ‘not absolute’.
We had come to believe that such an outcome, resting on invalid identification, was no longer possible. ‘The guilty verdict’, Köchler wrote, was
- ‘arbitrary, even irrational’
- with an ‘air of international power politics’ present ‘in the whole verdict’,
- which was ‘based on a series of highly problematic inferences’.
- He remarked on the withholding of ‘substantial information’ (‘more or less openly exercised influence on the part of actors outside the judicial framework’) and
- on the very visible interference with the work of the Scottish prosecutors by US lawyers present in the well of the court.
But most seriously, he set out his ‘suspicion that political considerations may have been overriding a strictly judicial evaluation of the case’. All of this harks back to the bad old days when a blind eye was turned to the way convictions were obtained.
Al-Megrahi’s trial constituted a unique legal construct, engineered to achieve a political rapprochement, but its content was so manipulated that in reality there was only ever an illusion of a trial. Dr Köchler recorded at its conclusion that it was ‘not fair’ and that it was not ‘conducted in an objective manner’, so that there were ‘many more questions and doubts at the end than the beginning’. Since then, these doubts have not disappeared: on the contrary, the questions are graver, the doubts have grown and so has the strength of the evidence on which they are based. Köchler’s observations continue to have compelling relevance; he found the respect of the court, the defence lawyers included, for the ‘shrouds of secrecy’ and ‘national security considerations’ to be ‘totally incomprehensible to any rational observer’. ‘Proper judicial procedure,’ he continued, ‘is simply impossible if political interests and intelligence services – from whichever side – succeed in interfering in the actual conduct of a court.’
The term miscarriage of justice carries with it the inference of accident, but also of death. There is a pressing need to investigate in detail how it has come about that there has been a form of death in this case – the death of justice – and who should be found responsible.
About the author
Gareth Peirce is a defence lawyer who has represented many men and women in their appeals against wrongful convictions made on the basis of disputed scientific evidence, misidentification and police malpractice.
(2) Other articles about the bombing
These (a – e below) references were provided by Maclaren in this comment on the FM website. My thanks to him for this valuable information.
(a) “Flight From The Truth“, Guardian, 27 June 2001:
“The Lockerbie trial was meant to end the saga of Pan Am flight 103. But it didn’t take into account the wads of US dollars, or the heroin, or the Hizbullah T-shirt found in the wreckage. As the man convicted of the bombing prepares to appeal, John Ashton and Ian Ferguson argue that there has been a top-level cover-up.”
(b) “Statement of Dr. Hans Koechler, International Observer at the Lockerbie Trial, on Recent Reports in the Scottish and British Media“, International Progress Organization, 14 October 2005:
Dr. Hans Koechler said that the dramatic shortcomings and errors in the conduct of the trial that have been brought to the attention of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) confirm his earlier assessment that the Lockerbie trial resulted in a “spectacular miscarriage of justice.” (BBC News, 14 March 2002) Dr. Koechler pointed to the following information that transpired in the media and that puts in doubt the very integrity of the judicial process in the Lockerbie case: …
All these facts – which are now before the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission – confirm the serious doubts about the Lockerbie proceedings originally raised by the UN-appointed observer, Dr. Hans Koechler. In his comprehensive reports on and evaluation of the Lockerbie trial (2001) and appeal (2002) as well as in his statement on the compensation deal made between the US, UK and Libya in 2003, Dr. Koechler had criticized the highly politicized circumstances in which the case was handled and drew the attention of the international public to the possible interference of intelligence services from more than one country.
(c) “Probe into Lockerbie timer claims“, Herald Scotland, 5 September 2007 — Excerpt:
Edwin Bollier, whose now bankrupt company Mebo manufactured the timer switch that prosecutors used to implicate Libya, plans to visit Scotland with police forensics experts, following news that an engineer was asked to fabricate evidence.
Ulrich Lumpert, formerly an electronics engineer with Mebo AG, Zurich, has signed an affidavit admitting he committed perjury before the Scottish Court in the Netherlands {that} states …
- he stole a handmade sample of an “MST-13 Timer PC-board” from Mebo in Zurich and handed it over, on June 22 1989, to an “official person investigating the Lockerbie case.” …
- that the fragment of the timer, cut into two pieces for “supposedly forensic reasons,” which was presented in court stemmed from the same piece. …
- that when he became aware that this piece was used for an “intentional politically motivated criminal undertaking” he decided, out of fear for his life, to keep silent on the matter.
- Mr Bollier has already spoken to prosecutors in Switzerland who will begin their investigation into charges of perjury next week.
The timer was used as a key part of the evidence against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing which killed 270 people. The revelation will strengthen Megrahi’s fresh appeal which was granted in June by the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission.
(d) “Scottish panel Challenges Lockerbie Conviction“, New York Times, 29 June 2007:
“A Scottish judicial review body ruled Thursday that a former Libyan intelligence official jailed for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing might have been wrongfully convicted and was entitled to appeal the verdict against him.”
(e) Statement by Dr Hans Köchler, international observer appointed by the United Nations to the Lockerbie Trial in the Netherlands (2000-2002), International Progress Organization, 29 June 2007:
“In his reports, Dr. Köchler was highly critical of the proceedings and questioned the fairness and impartiality of both the Trial and Appeal Courts. In an interview for the BBC on 14 March 2002, he described the dismissal of the appeal as a “spectacular miscarriage of justice.”
(f) Other articles and sources of information
- Website of the International Progress Organization (IPO), listing all documents about the international observer mission of Dr. Hans Koechler (President of the IPO) at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands (“Lockerbie Court”).
- “Apologies, Anger, and Apathy – My Lai and Lockerbie Reconsidered“, By Nick Turse, posted at TomDispatch, 30 August 2009
(3) About hidden history
Much of truth about current events lies in the realm of hidden history, revealed only one or more generations later. For instance, the military history of WWII we learned in school was largely false. The reputation of UK and US generals was trashed with the revelation in the 1970’s of Enigma (we read almost all their coded messages) and the treason of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (head of the Abwehr, military intelligence). During the war Canaris gave the UK most of Hitler’s war plans, which they ignored.
Other examples:
- In 1962 the American people knew all President Kennedy. Healthy, athletic, and a good family man. The truth was very different.
- So it is with Watergate. The noble deep-throat, serving America’s freedom. The intrepid journalists. All a myth. (See here for details)
The white whale of hidden history for Americans is the Kennedy assassination. Will we ever learn the truth?
(4) Afterword
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