The hypocracy, skullduggery and worrying facts of life. The Lockerbie Bombing.

[Lineker10]

The conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Megrahi for the blowing up of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on Wednesday 21 December 1988 killing 270 people is one worst and most worrying examples of international  cooperation in covering up and then framing an innocent man that history has ever seen.

For anyone intrested the most likely persons actually responsible were a group called the "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command" or PFLP-GC. A Syrian based grouped funded by Iran who's motivation for the bombing was to get revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet by the USS Vincennes killing 290 people in 1988 - intresting that knowbody seems to ever remember that one. The Scottish police actually prepared an arrest warrant for a certain Marwan Khreesat, a Jordanian bomb maker working for the PFLP-GC but were pressured into dropping it by the FBI due to Khreesat's usefullness as an intelligence source, they didnt seem too bothered about the victims on that occasion. Kheesat had actually produced 5 bombs hidden in nearly identical radios to the one that blew up Pan Am 103. He, as it turned out, was working as an informant for Jordanian intelligence. He tipped off authorities in Germany where his cell was based (Frankfurt, Germany being the place the bomb that did blow up Pan-Am 103 was thought to have been originally loaded, before transferring onto 103 at London) and they were rounded up a couple months before Lockerbie, however one bomb was never recovered and several suspected terrorists escaped before the bust. Suspicion fell on Khreesat as being a triple agent. The man suspected of leading the cell, Abu Talb was later given lifelong immunity from prosecution for giving evidence at the trail of Al Megrahi.

Theres a good article about the lack of evidence for Al Megrahi's convition at the Independent's website here -

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/hugh-miles-lockerbie-was-it-iran-syria-all-i-know-is-it-wasnt-the-man-in-prison-1206086.html

One particularly intrestting quote -

Quote:
Three months after the bombing, Dumfries and Galloway police published a report on Lockerbie that concluded: "There can be little doubt that Khreesat is the bomb-maker for the [Palestinian group] PFLP-GC, and there is a possibility he prepared the explosive device which destroyed Pan Am Flight 103. As such he should not be at liberty."


This is the most likely cause of the tradgedy, although there are conspiracy theories involving Syrian drug dealers and US intelligence but id take those with a pinch of salt, then again the CIA do have a murky history with terror and drugs - see Iran-Contra.

Either way, this guy is innocent and was, along with Libya, a convient scapegoat.

[Hammy]

Interesting.

When I glanced the thread title I intially thought it would be; "How bullshit it is he got freed thread".

Honestly its not surprising to read this but I often take this stuff with a pinch of salt because for every likely cover-up/government scam there are 100's are whacky conspiracy theories.

[Lineker10]

True - there are many, many crazy conspiracy claims out there, most to be taken with a pinch of salt. However to those invovled in real conspiracies (and in a world of Watergate, Iran-Contra, Operation Gladio, MKULTRA - people who dont belive illegal acts and conspiracies to cover them up take place in the high reaches of power are extremely naive), the 'if you think elemets of the goverment and big business do bad things and cover it up then your a crazed lunatic in a tin foil hat' is perfect cover. As for Lockerbie - its no theory, look at the evidence involved and come to your own conclusions. I mean, this guys out of prison,  back home safe in Libya, hes dying of terminal cancer, and he's still fighting to pursuade people of his innocence, that says something. Private Eye did a whole set of articles and investivagtions that basically blew the convitction out of the water - you can buy all of them in a PDF download on there site for a fiver.

I think what worries me most about this whole affair isnt that goverments collude in this kind of thing, because as ive already said, there are frequent historical examples of similar kinds of skullduggary. But the fact that the evidence proving this mans innocence is there, yet people are that non-intrested or really just lacking the ability of think first and not  always swallow what they are told without looking at it for themselves. It does worry me that such a horrible mass murder, well over 250 people died, the stone cold evidence points to a certain group and yet another man is very dubiously convicted of this crime and people are not bothered about such a huge miscaridge of justice to do anything about it. That worries me for sure.