UK Gov-Controversy-Trade-Lockerbie-Megrahi

News (05 09 2009) we all learn from Mr Straw that trade now did have a part to play in the Megrahi case while the PM himself remain ignorant as to truths affecting an entire Nation thus providing plausible deniability. What ever really mattered, whether it be Lockerbie bombing or the Hillsborough disaster, is truths as to victims families such that they come to terms with their sad loss. With respect to Hillsborough a 30 year rule was established protecting official documents and thus incompetence as to authority itself whom cannot be held accountable as it would undermine the establishment. Definitely a sad state of affairs now exists in that Ordinary British people cannot now easily distinguish between what is fantasy given years of Gov “spin”, leaked documents providing substance and the truth “if it be spoken” for the people to fully digest!. Both Mr Straw and Mandelson firstly denied all allegations but as the “fog” lifted Mr Straw fell on his sword in protecting the PM yet also making it very clear that the PM has no knowledge as to current affairs affecting the Nation. “Standards” seemingly only become important when threats of exposure loom as to lowered standards, very much akin to MP’s hurriedly paying back claimed expenses in being “found-out” to save their reputations.

The big question now is what do ordinary people demand of their Government as oppose to a Gov demanding of its people to support them?. Rotten trees either fall or are cut-down while protectionalism as to the rot only delays a major collapse as costs rise to offset diminishing standards in preserving “face value” exteriors.

Mr Megrahi now desires a Public enquiry to prove his innocence and if proven where would that leave a British Government and its Justice System other than in a state of collapse through injustice and facing litigation itself. Should this path open then it would be hoped that the innocent in British Prisons through miscarriages of Justice be “switched” with the legal professionals whom put them there thus serving to raise British Standards and Public confidence in that Justice be seen to be done finally!.

 

Issues:-

(1) Megrahi - miscarriage of justice? – desires Public enquiry for the Real Truth towards the Victims Families. Crown Office – delays & delays towards Justice!

(2) Lord Mandelson - denies suggestions made by…………………………..

(3) Tony Blair visited <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Libya in May 2007 - UK energy giant BP signed a $900m (£540m) exploration deal.

(4) Brown - Scottish authorities sanctioned the release.

(5) Straw – No deal done with Libya. Leaked letters (UK Gov). Straw now admits trade played a part to which Mr Brown was not involved saying: "I certainly didn't talk to the PM. There is no paper trail to suggest he was involved at all."

 

Old News

00 00 2002 Megrahi - lost his appeal.

14 02 2008 Straw - No Lockerbie deal done with Libya。Mr Straw said: "No deal has been done with Libya for the transfer of Al Megrahi." He added that decisions on Scottish prisoner transfers is a matter for Scottish ministers and not the UK Government.

06 11 2008 Megrahi given a fresh chance to clear his name. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred his case back to appeal judges for a second time suggesting that he might have suffered a miscarriage of justice.

21 08 2009Fury at 'hero's welcome' for bomber。Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, was met in his homeland by a jubilant crowd.

22 08 2009 Mandelson。Lord Mandelson denies suggestions made by Colonel Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, that Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi's release was linked to a trade deal between Libya and the UK.

22 08 2009 Gaddafi thanks Brown for release. In an interview with a Libyan station, Col Gadaffi's son Saif al-Islam called Megrahi's release a "victory", and reportedly claimed that the issue had been raised repeatedly by Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair. Blair visited Libya in May 2007, during which UK energy giant BP signed a $900m (£540m) exploration deal. Meanwhile, Megrahi has told the Times newspaper he intends to present new evidence proving his innocence.

25 08 2009 Gordon Brown breaks Lockerbie silence. Despite attacking Libya's response he refused to criticise the Scottish authorities who sanctioned al-Megrahi's released.

29 08 2009 Freed Megrahi backs public inquiry. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi said it was "unfair" to the victims' families not to have an inquiry into the bombing. Megrahi, 57, speaking from a hospital bed in his home in Tripoli, Libya, told The Herald newspaper: "I support the issue of a public inquiry if it can be agreed. "In my view, it is unfair to the victim's families that this has not been heard. It would help them to know the truth. The truth never dies. If the UK guaranteed it, I would be very supportive." Megrahi added: "I would want to help Dr Swire and the others with the documents I hold. My feeling is that the UK Government will avoid a public inquiry because it would be a headache for them and the Americans, and it would show how much the Americans have been involved and it would also cost them a lot of money which they may not want to spend because of the recession." He is determined to clear his name and was scathing of the Scottish legal system. Megrahi told the paper: "I was supposed to receive a fair trial and I was supposed to be subject to fair procedure. But from day one there were delays and delays from the Crown Office."

30 08 2009 Straw letters fuel new Megrahi row. Leaked letters from the Justice Secretary appeared to show that he backed away from efforts to stipulate that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was exempt from the agreement, citing "wider negotiations" with the Libyans. The Sunday Times reported that Mr Straw's apparent change of stance came at a crucial time in negotiations about an oil exploration contract for BP in Libya. Six weeks after his change of heart, the deal was ratified. A Ministry of Justice spokesman denied there had been a U-turn, but said trade considerations had been a factor in negotiating the prisoner exchange deal.

31 08 2009 Jack Straw- Lockerbie bomber. JUSTICE Secretary Jack Straw admitted yesterday that the Lockerbie bomber's fate was on the table during trade talks with Libya. Mr Straw wrote to Kenny MacAskill, his opposite number in Scotland and the man who made the decision to free Megrahi this month. He wrote that he favoured an option to exclude the bomber by ruling that only prisoners convicted after a certain date would be considered for return.

03 09 2009 A Senior US Senator is calling for a Congressional hearing into whether the UK released Megrahi by the prospect of a lucrative oil contract while UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday insisted no deals were done and the release was a matter for the Scottish government.

05 09 2009 Straw-Oil now had role in Megrahi case. Mr Straw said the issue of trade played "a very big part" in his decision. Asked whether trade was a factor in his decision, Mr Straw told the Daily Telegraph: "Yes... a very big part of that. I'm unapologetic about that. Mr Straw said Mr Brown was not involved in the decision to press ahead with the PTA, saying: "I certainly didn't talk to the PM. There is no paper trail to suggest he was involved at all."

 

THE PEOPLE / LEGAL CASE / events

 

l         Lord Hardie, as Lord Advocate 1997-2000, was due to lead the prosecution team in the Lockerbie trial. He resigned just before the Lockerbie trial began. Colin Boyd was Lord Hardie’s successor as Lord Advocate. He became Lord Boyd of Duncansby.

l         Norman McFadyen, then regional procurator-fiscal for Edinburgh, headed the Crown Office trial team at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. He got promoted to Crown Agent, head of department for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

l         Alan Turnbull, QC, was one of the two senior counsel leading the Crown team in the Lockerbie trial. In 2006, he became Scotland’s youngest judge at the age of 47.

l         Alastair Campbell - Advocate-depute - senior prosecution counsel in the Lockerbie trial . In 2003, he was appointed a judge and became Lord Bracadale.

l         Bill Taylor, QC, was defence counsel for Megrahi at Camp Zeist. He has been heavily criticised for failing to defend Megrahi successfully. Professor Hans Koechler, the United Nations’ observer at the Lockerbie trial and appeal, has accused Mr Taylor and Mr Duff of betraying Megrahi by failing to represent him properly.

l         Eddie MacKechnie was solicitor to Fhimah who was acquitted.

l         Tony Gauci was a key Lockerbie witness. According to The Herald, on 20 February 2009, previously undisclosed documents show that Scottish police recommended to US authorities that both the main witness in the Lockerbie trial (Gauci) and his brother should be paid up to $3m. The Strathclyde police reportedly arranged for Gauci to go fishing, hillwalking and birdwatching in the Scottish Highlands. The Mail on Sunday newspaper said Gauci had been recorded on tape talking about five or six visits he had made to Scotland since 1988

l         J Thomas Thurman was the FBI man who identified a fragment of a circuit board from a timing device which, he said, was from the Lockerbie bomb. Thurman was later removed from his FBI jobafter a USDepartment of Justice investigation concluded his FBI forensics lab had a record of fabricating evidence.

l         Edwin Bollier is head of the Swiss-based Mebo group which was supposed to have sold the timing device reportedly used in the Lockerbie bomb. Bollier claims that one of his employees supplied the Scottish police with a stolen timing device, which was then presented in the trial as having been found amidst the plane’s wreckage.

l          

l         In 1988, the FBI’s Robert Mueller supervised the Lockerbie Bombing investigation. “He successfully kept the CIA’s connection to the bombing from becoming public. “The CIA and FBI took control of the crash scene for the first day (keeping Scottish police at bay), searching through and removing numerous pieces of evidence and luggage from the wreckage to obscure the connections of the bombing to the CIA special team that was on board the aircraft. “One CIA defector has said that the team had been returning to the states against orders to blow the whistle on CIA drug and terrorist connections in the Middle East.” – FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION ·

l         A babygro said to have been wrapped around the bomb and shown to the court blown to pieces was recovered intact, according to a statement from the woman who found it.

 

l         “There are a number of vested interests who have been deeply opposed to this appeal continuing as they know it would go a considerable way towards exposing the truth behind Lockerbie.“

l         “In the next days, weeks and months new information will be placed in the public domain that will make it clear that Mr Megrahi had nothing to do with the bombing of Pan Am 103.”

l         According to The Herald, 19 February 2009, the Crown is fighting to keep 48 pieces of Lockerbie trial evidence secret

 

The forensic scientist who claimed to be the first to find the famous bomb fragment was, a year after finding it, revealed by a Parliamentary investigation by Sir John May to be a co-conspirator with two colleagues in the with-holding of evidence in the trial of the alleged IRA Maguire Seven.

 

l         The United Nations observer at the Lockerbie trial, Dr Hans Kochler, reported that two state prosecutors from the US Department of Justice were in court, and, although not listed in any of the official documents about the Court’s officers, they were constantly briefing Scottish prosecutors. ( UN Claims Lockerbie Trial Was Rigged)

 

On 19 February 2006, The Mail on Sunday reported that new forensic tests have been carried out by the lawyers representing Al Megrahi, the Libyan jailed in connection with the Lockerbie bombing. Defence experts simulated the Lockerbie explosion. The results showed that the device which detonated the bomb could not have survived the explosion. According to The Mail on Sunday: “Sources close to Megrahi’s lawyers said the new tests pointed to the evidence having been planted at the scene of the crash…“The source added that Megrahi’s legal team claimed they had obtained ‘clear proof’ that investigators had ‘planted and manipulated’ evidence…“He said… if there is any justice in Scotland… certain Scottish police officers will be jailed for their part in the proceedings…