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

[blindboyard]

@AK84

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.

That’s the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, of course. See here, for an article on their findings relating to the Maltese witness.

[blindboyard]

@Northern_Piper

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

True.

While we’re on the subject, there’s this very interesting quote from Susan Lindauer:

Megrahi deserves to die a free man. As the primary negotiator w/Libya for the trial, I want to state as forcefully as possible and without equivocation: the CIA started talks for the trial with full knowledge of Megrahi’s innocence. Unhappily, we recognized the US and Britain were so obsessed with Libya’s guilt. It was decided that politicians and family members could not accept the truth of Megrahi’s innocence, until they saw the (lack of) evidence on the table. There would have to be a trial.

However everyone expected an immediate acquittal. The CIA stood alert in the wings, ready to reconfigure the attack and arrest the real culprits. So ironically, the Lockerbie families would have achieved real justice 10 years ago, if only the Courts had behaved honorably in acknowledging Megrahi’s innocence in the first place. It was obvious to anyone who examined the case.

There’s a list of the flaws found by the SCCRC here.

[Northern_Piper]

@blindboyard

While we’re on the subject, there’s this very interesting quote from Susan Lindauer:

As the primary negotiator w/Libya for the trial, I want to state as forcefully as possible and without equivocation:

Is that the same Susan Lindauer who has been determined to be not fit to stand trial due to mental illness?

Her name doesn’t come up in the article I linked to, which indicates that the negotiations were conducted by representatives of the British and US governments with representatives of the Libyan government, with Koffi Annan, SecGen of the UN, acting as a facilitator. Which government was she working for when she was negotiating with Libya?

Is this the same Susan Lindauer who just last week wrote that Gaddafhi was re-taking the territory he had lost to the rebels, that his Interior Minister did not defect, just went to Egypt for medical treatment, and that her sources told her that “…NATO is not winning and will not win. They say the Libyan people have shown tremendous solidarity, ironically instigated by NATO.”

If so, I’m afraid I don’t put much credence in her statements about the trial.

[fumster]

@UDS

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.

You mean two countries with shitty newspapers controlled by Murdoch? Media which hacks the phones of dead little girls? Yeah, yeah, the CIA blew up a plane full of British and US citizens to demonize Libya which we all know was a swell place. The whole idea is so freaking stupid, but the real problem is that it takes attention away from stuff the CIA really does do.

[UDS]

@sh1bu1

You mean two countries with shitty newspapers controlled by Murdoch? Media which hacks the phones of dead little girls? Yeah, yeah, the CIA blew up a plane full of British and US citizens to demonize Libya which we all know was a swell place. The whole idea is so freaking stupid, but the real problem is that it takes attention away from stuff the CIA really does do.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, doubts about the safety of Megrahi’s conviction do not stem from conspiracy theories to the effect that the plane was blown up by the CIA to demonise Libya, but rather from evidence suggesting that the plane may have been blown up by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command. Others point to the possiblity, intitially the favoured theory of investigators, that Iranian-backed terrorists were behind the bombing. Others point to Islamic Jihad, which actually claimed resonsibility at the time. And of course there’s always the possiblity that Libya was behind the bombing, but Megrahi was not involved.

For the record, I did not learn of the doubts over Megrahi’s conviction from the Murdoch press, but from documentaries broadcast by those noted stooges of Rupert’s, the BBC and the ABC. This was long before the question of Megrahi’s release arose.

There’s a bit of context here, which is that the British public is aware of the risk of wrongful convictions in terrorist cases, fuelled by public outrage and official embarrasment, arising out of the Birmingham Six and Maguire Seven cases, which were nationally traumatic at the time. Thus when something similar was suggested in the Megrahi case, nobody could dismiss the suggestion as fanciful, and at least some of the media were willing to investigate and cover the story. That may perhaps explain why there’s a greater awareness of/acceptance of the possibility that Megrahi was wrongly convicted in the UK and elsewhere than there seems to be in the US.

[gonzomax]

In America it is less important to get the right guy as it is to nail someone. Like the Olympic bomber. we declared a man guilty so the Olympics could go on with the visitors feeling safe. A mans life was destroyed, but that is collateral damage of economic need.
The Lockerbie bombing case had to be taken to trial so the people would get off the governments back. The people must be quieted.

[fumster]

@UDS

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, doubts about the safety of Megrahi’s conviction do not stem from conspiracy theories to the effect that the plane was blown up by the CIA to demonise Libya, but rather from evidence suggesting that the plane may have been blown up by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command. Others point to the possiblity, intitially the favoured theory of investigators, that Iranian-backed terrorists were behind the bombing. Others point to Islamic Jihad, which actually claimed resonsibility at the time. And of course there’s always the possiblity that Libya was behind the bombing, but Megrahi was not involved.

In that case I withdraw my rant. I’m open to the idea that there was a rush to find someone guilty.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Who paid off Tony Gauci?

[blindboyard]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Who paid off Tony Gauci?

It was paid by the US Department of Justice “Rewards for Justice” programme, according to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

[Martin_Hyde]

@jjimm

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.

Senators are involved in lots of stuff ordinary Americans know nothing about. I’m not saying the American government was unaware of al-Megrahi being released, I am saying as an American the public reaction was virtually non-existent outside of 24-hour news channels that essentially have to find stuff to keep the content flowing on for 24 hours a day.

Man on the street reaction, as gauged by me and to a lesser extent by local newspapers and the like was essentially complete ignorance of the situation. The average American does not remember the Lockerbie bombing at all, to be honest.

Or even the Lebanon Embassy bombing, for that matter.

[gonzomax]

The problem is that in America ,you don’t have competing news actually fighting for information. The story that Megrahi was guilty was the only story. There was no debate, no discussion. Welcome to modern American “news”.