Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
The Mahdy
Marcello Mega � The Scotsman August 28, 2006
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://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20ME20050829&articleId=881
Also see:
Murder By Remote Control (scroll down to Update Friday October 13)
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?id=5290
Dank 110100100
> Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
>
> 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.
And yet Libya accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing,
agreeing to pay nearly $3 billion to families of the victims.
> 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.
I doubt anyone is going to take the opinion of Scottish officials
seriously for a long time. Scotland is usually fanatical about its
sovereignty, then bows to pressure from London just so BP can get a
lucrative oil drilling contract.
Paul C
<dan...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
Scotland is usually fanatical about its
>sovereignty, then bows to pressure from London just so BP can get a
>lucrative oil drilling contract.
The only pressure regarding Megrahi came from the US. And the US was
told where to get off.
Mel Rowing
> 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.
Exactly!
What credence can be placed on the testimony of a witness (even a
powerful witness) who has sat on his hands year on year whilst a man
rotted in prison, seemingly for life, for something that he had not
done?
Is this "witness" now prepared to come forward ad give chapter and
verse, naming names on oath?
It he then prepared to risk going to prison himself for the wilful
withholding of evidence?
Is he then prepared to risk possible civil proceedings that might
break him financially as well as the loss of his police pension for
gross misconduct whilst in office?
> "Asked why he had not come forward before, he admitted he'd been wary of
> breaking ranks, afraid of being vilified.
Rather lame even if true!
He was Chief or Assistant Chief Constable! How can he break ranks? He
was kingpin of the ranks.
I suspect a book!
In fact I know there is a book:
"The closely guarded submission was obtained by Ian Ferguson, an
investigative journalist and co-author of the book Cover-up of
Convenience - The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie."
Andrew
> On Aug 22, 9:15 am, The Mahdy <elma...@commandl.mil> wrote:
>> Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
>> Marcello Mega – The Scotsman August 28, 2006
>>
>> 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.
>
> And yet Libya accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing,
> agreeing to pay nearly $3 billion to families of the victims.
Comparatively cheap, compared with the financial losses that were being
accrued through the sanctions the US had imposed.