The "Lockerbie Bomber" (Pan Am 103) was framed

Great Debates
1

He’s innocent, there’s no doubt about that. The evidence, quote unquote, against him was nonsense, so much so that a special court had to be set up so he could be sent to prison without present all that rubbish to a jury.

The only physical evidence was a piece of circuitboard which was allegedly part of a timing device produced in Switzerland and originally claimed to be in use only by the Libyans, but now known to have been supplied to others as well. A now retired Scottish Police chief has claimed this evidence was planted. Bollier, whose evidence in court was used to identify this timer and it’s manufacture, said that the evidence he was originally shown was of a type never sold to Libya, so the evidence produced in court was a different timer altogether. He also claims the FBI were willing to pay him off to testify that the Libyans were behind it all. That evidence has been shown to have been tampered with to make it seem more reliable in origin.

The Guardian on all that.

The other major piece of evidence was the word of one Tony Gauci, who identified Megrahi as having bought clothes in his shop, which were later found to have been wrapped around the bomb. He couldn’t remember the date but was certain it was Megrahi who bought those singed rags from him. Later received a two million dollar pay-off, and was denounced as crazy by the then Lord Advocate. The UN observer also thought he was unreliable. He’d also been shown a picture of Megrahi before the identity parade, rather than remembering his face from buying the alleged clothes.

There was also a secret eye witness who claimed to have seen him loading the bomb onto a plane in Frankfurt, a highly unlikely turn of events, and who turned out to have been promised four million by the CIA.

In fact there was known to have been a break in at Heathrow, providing a more likely mode of ingress for explosives than the connecting luggage idea, and which is certainly more likely that Megrahi being guilty.

His conviction could have been due to incompetent and the wishful thinking provided by an opportunity to blacken the name of our then-leading nemesis, big bad Godaffi. Or he could have been set up. Certainly he was only released to stymie a potentially embarrassing appeal.

So, all the evidence was rigged and/or bought, and the courts ignored that. Fix.

2

Conspiracy theorists will also note that he was released on health grounds providing he dropped an appeal where some of this would have been made public

3

Most of it was already public. There have been serious doubts about the safety of Megrahi’s conviction from the get-go, and not just from the usual conspiracy theorists.

4

I couldn’t say with 100% certainty that he’s innocent, but I’ve read enough about the case (in particular Paul Foot’s excellent Lockerbie: The Flight from Justice sent to me by another Doper) to say that his conviction and release both stink to high heaven.

What freaks me out is how strong the feeling apparently is in the US that he is guilty. I don’t know whether this is just a need to have a perpetrator, or whether the media has portrayed the evidence around the conviction differently.

ETA: poll I did about it last year.

5

Politically, there must be the public belief that justice has been done, even if its entirely bogus.

Also, the investigating agenices must be seen to have functioned well.

It’s like the final scene in the late night movie when the purp arrives at the prison in cuffs - everyone can go to bed feelng safer.

6

Obviously in a case like this, there’s a strong emotional need to feel that justice was done, and that something has been completed by identifying, convicting and punishing the perpetrator. And in this instance this is reinforced by a sense that, since the Libyans are the “bad guys”, then the US/UK must be the good guys, and therefore the conviction their efforts have produced must have been properly obtained, and been safe.

I can’t explain the striking disparity between the attitudes of US and non-US dopers which your poll brings out. I don’t suggest that Americans are any more vulnerable to these pressures and biases than the rest of us.

Possibly the US media has not done a good job on this case? It may be that for most Americans, the first they heard of any doubts about the conviction came in the context of his release from jail? But the issue had been canvassed repeatedly in the British and Australian* media for years before that.

*Where I live.

7

He was released because he was supposed to be in the final stage of terminal cancer. His life measured in a few months. In mid 2009. Still alive. That’s final stage of terminal cancer with a very wide definition of “final” and “terminal”, possible also “cancer”.

No matter, they got the right dude now. Hopefully we’ll see Gadaffi hanging from a lamppost soon enough. And a few of his sons too.

8

Very little points to the bomb not being Libyan in origin at all though - Lebanese/Palestinian IIRC. So while it’s not a bad thing to overthrow Gadaffi, your linking his overthrow to the Lockerbie bombing is not strictly relevant.

9

Locerkbie bombing was news here in the 1980s, it’s been news in the UK ever since. It’s just not a big story here, we had a little terrorism flare up in the mid-90s in Oklahoma City that is and continues to be much bigger in the public consciousness. You might remember an incident in 2001 in New York that also has significantly overshadowed previous incidents.

Most Americans do not know much at all about the Lockerbie bombing or the bomber, and if you asked them “do you think convicted Lockerbie bomber Megrahi was guilty” most will probably say yes because the assumption is if he was convicted he was guilty.

I think the evidence is pretty strong that Libya was responsible, for me that’s always meant Gaddafi was the only one I really had any true desire to see brought to justice. Even if al-Megrahi was involved, I’ve always said he was just an instrument of a dictator, if not him, someone else. The real criminal is the man who ordered it, although obviously the man who planned it for him committed a crime as well, to me it’s sort of like the difference between guys like Heydrich and Hitler himself, obviously both were monsters but one stands out a bit more in the mind, eh?

The release is a lot shakier than I thought it was at the time, though. At the time I just thought it was your run of the mill ultra-leftist Scottish dovish liberalism which Scotland is shamefully known for these days. Instead it looks like al-Megrahi’s doctors actually never thought he was on death’s door and thus it’s much more likely the real reason he was released was a combination of a British desire to improve relations with Libya over oil concerns and a desire to avoid any embarrassment that might have come out if al-Megrahi had another trial.

10

At the time of his release there was a HUGE amount of US commentary, though, 99.9% of it was “this here’s a guilty terrorist” etc. There were senators involved and so on.

That’s the thing though: what evidence? The evidence is weak. Weak as hell. Always has been. It’s one of the most unsound convictions I’ve ever read about.

11

Yes it is true, many doubts and not from the people who make up wild ideas. Very much is not clear.

He was on TV (only in the background at event) recently, it was very evident that he is very seriously ill, with a face very thin and arms very thin. In wheelchair. If he was fat in wheelchair you could say it was faked, but one does not fake arms and face thin to the bones. Cancers, they are unpredictable.

I hope not. Qadafi must be judged properly, no Mussolini solutions. And it is the Libyan leaders desire to have proper judgement, not the mob justice.

12

This all is completely new to me. There was quite a flutter in the US media when he was released, but I recall no questioning of his involvement in the bombing. Thank you for those links.

13

Erratum:

“Very little points to the bomb being Libyan in origin at all though”

14

Rune, the ranges involved in guessing life expectancy from terminal cancer are very wide. This isn’t astonishingly wide of the mark and if they were going to release him I’d expect them to err on the side of caution rather than getting to the point of deep deterioration.

15

Hyperbole.

There’s at least some doubt about that. You may say that he should never have been found guilty, because the evidence didn’t rise to the level necessary to convict, but the utter certainty that he’s innocent? No.

16

Agreed, we can’t have certainty about him either way but we can objectively say that the case raises a lot of questions and the conviction seems to be very weak in comparison to other less political cases.

17

There is two levels of doubts in this case.

The first level of doubts is strongest, is that question of if Magrahi was in reality involved. This according to what I read is subject to strong doubts. It is also for this that I have heard from Lybians sympathy for him. Many think he was ordered by Qadafi to go be the sacrifice for the regime, and in those days he would have no choice - follow orders and go to jail or get killed.

The second level of doubts is if Lybia and not maybe someone else (Palestinian radical?) was involved. This seems less strong as doubt. But some Lybian defectors have seemed to confirm Qadafi was involved.

So it seems that we can have two doubts. Is the convicted man someone sacrificed by Qadafi for his interests? And then was Lybia involved? Were they the only ones involved, since Qadafi was always funding all kinds of crazy people, his regime might be involved even if it was maybe not a Lybian officer directly organising.

18

True, but it is also true that a statutory body set up for this exact purpose was satisfied that the conviction could not be safely maintained and referred the matter to the High Court.

19

I disagree. I can’t prove that he’s innocent, but I can’t prove the bomb wasn’t personally planted by Her Majesty the Queen, either. That could only be achieved by finding out who actually placed the bomb, and proving it beyond a reasonable doubt. What we can say is that his conviction was entirely on the basis of “evidence” which has no probative value. Professional informants working for the people who set him up, crazy people in receipt of cash bribes, and so on, while the Iranian angle offers motive means and opportunity, as well as a reason for a cover-up and framing.

So, while I can’t be utterly certain I can be extremely confident in saying that Megrahi is innocent.

20

Note that the condition that the matter not be tried by a jury was apparently a condition insisted upon by Col Gaddaffi, not by the British government:

(Donna E. Arzt, The Lockerbie “Extradition By Analogy” Agreement: “Exceptional Measure” Or Template For Transnational Criminal Justice?, AM. U. INT’LL. REV. [18:163], at p. 167.)

(Note: PDF)