Wednesday, December 31, 2014

"Scotbom -Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation" by (former FBI Special Agent) Richard A.Marquise

 “Some speculated the charges against the pair were not credible and the only reason the Libyans had been blamed for the Lockerbie bombing was because it was politically expedient to do so.   Henderson and I had talked many times about what public speculation would be when once again, the eyes of the world focused upon Gaddafi and Libya.  We knew we had to get it right because even if the defendants were never surrendered for trial, some would believe the charges were trumped up just to point the finger at Gaddafi and away from others. - our focus had shifted to Libya driven entirely by the physical evidence found in the fields around Lockerbie.”


Richard Marquise "Scotbom"  

 

Introduction:


 1.    Tim Weiner’s book “Enemies – A History of the FBI”, contains Weiner's  account of how the FBI’s Richard Marquise “solved” the Lockerbie case by turning “intelligence” into “evidence” through the use of the Libyan defector Majid Giaka as a "golden informant".   Weiner intriguingly quoted Marquise that “we brought MI5 to Washington.”  BBC News of the 22/12/2014 stated the Scottish Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland was in Washington to discuss the (purported) ongoing joint investigation into the Lockerbie bombing. (Obviously bearing no grudge for the Giaka fiasco!)  In view of this Father Christmas brought me a copy  of Richard Marquise’s account of the original FBI Lockerbie investigation  “Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation”.

 2.     I found "Scotbom" a much more interesting and honest account than I expected and very readable although it has much less to do with evidence than the politics of the Lockerbie investigation.   While I understand why Mr Megrahi was framed for the Lockerbie bombing, in loco parentis Mu'ammar Gaddafi, and the real culprits exonerated, I previously had some sympathy for Mr Marquise’s predicament in being under pressure not only to get a result, but a  particular result.   However I had not been aware of the enthusiasm with which he embraced a fraudulent version of events, put up Majid Giaka as a credible witness, and like his Scottish counterparts ignored compelling evidence that would have led to a true solution of the crime.  
 
3.     "Scotbom” contained many interesting revelations particularly in relation to the chronology of the very late emergence of the “evidence” of Majid Giaka and in Marquise’s repeated statements that from the early summer of 1991 there was a deadline of mid-November 1991 imposed for indictments to be brought irrespective of the state of the investigation. 
 
4.     This and other material in the book tended to confirm my view that the object of the indictment was not a trial at all but was part of a sophisticated plan to convert unilateral US sanctions against Libya into UN sanctions.  I suspect this November (1991) deadline was determined in relation to a chronology focused on changes to the UN Security Council that were to take effect from the 1st January 1992 when the UK would become Chairman of the SC and the radical states of Cuba and Yemen, friends of Libya and opponents of the West, lost their seats on the Security Council.   
 
5.   What was most intriguing in "Scotbom" was the author's revelations of the actuality of a relationship between the investigators (FBI and the Scottish Police) and the British Secret Service (MI5).   

 

 

"Sally Vincent"

 
6.     As a prelude one early anecdote in the book concerned a Pan Am stewardess “Sally Vincent” some of whose personal effects were apparently found in the wreckage at Tundergarth.  (Why this was Marquise did not explain).   At the time of the Lockerbie disaster “Sally Vincent” was in Moscow visiting her boyfriend the son of a diplomat at the Syrian Embassy.    The FBI received assistance from the Soviet authorities in placing her under surveillance.   Marquise noted that the FBI had received co-operation from the KGB in a country which had always been regarded by the FBI as “the enemy” in its central (and original role) of overseeing national security. “Sally Vincent” was eliminated from any involvement in the bombing.  (As the investigation was fundamentally flawed in other respects the "elimination" of any suspect may in itself be suspect.)

 

 7.     While the FBI availed themselves of the assistance of the KGB in investigating “Sally Vincent” Marquise wrote (page 114) “there was no way anyone in the United States or Scotland would authorise any investigator to travel to Libya” but conceded  “The  Libyans did say they would allow Fhimah and Megrahi to be interviewed.”  Rather than recording  a statement committing the suspects to a particular version of events the  prosecution case relied on (former CIA officer)  Pierre Salinger’s filmed  interview of Megrahi to prove his denial of being in Malta on the 20-21/12/88.   (In 1999 the Scottish SIO did conduct investigations in Libya with significant results relating to Megrahi’s “coded” passport.)
  
8.    (Central to what actually transpired,  prior to the arrival of flight 103A from Frankfurt, baggage handler Peter Bedford had found that someone had placed two further suitcases, one a brown Samsonite, within luggage container AVE4041.   According to Bedford Alert Security Officer Sulaksh Kamboj told him he had placed the bags in the container.  Kamboj denied to the Police that he had said such a thing.  (This crucial incident was essentially ignored and dismissed as irrelevant by SIO John Orr and ignored by Marquise.) 
 
9.       At about 1720hrs on the 21/12/88 Kamboj actually went on board “The Maid of the Seas” while it was being prepared for take-off to give a Christmas present to a Pan Am stewardess he knew as Sally Strong.    Ms Strong however was not on the flight.  Kamboj did take the opportunity to wish the cabin crew a Merry Christmas.    (The crew of course were all dead within two hours.)    Was “Sally Vincent” Sally Stone?

 

 

 

 Marquise and the Evidence of a Heathrow Origin:


10.     While the official version of events is that the primary suitcase was introduced (by unknown means) at Luqa Airport on the morning of the 21/12/88 Mr Marquise has very little to say about Heathrow although his comments are telling in view of his claim to have conducted a "thorough, complete and impartial investigation."
 
11.     Mr Marquise’s book makes no mention at all of Bedford and Kamboj or the mysterious appearance of a brown Samsonite within container AVE4041. He merely wrote (page 209) “The Heathrow employees were responsible for the loading of Pan Am flight 103 to the United States.   They spoke of the build-up where several bags had come in earlier in the day for the flight and they had placed approximately eight to ten bags on the first layer of bags in the container, AVE4041.  These bags had come from other flights into London. The bag (sic) was then filled with luggage from the Frankfurt flight but the container did not hold them all.”

 12.    Mr Marquise is extremely vague about the number of Interline bags in total and says nothing about the ownership of the Interline bags that were in AVE4041   He claimed (page 36) that “16 online passengers checked in 16 bags”.  (They may have but two of these bags belonging to Daniel O’Connor never made it onto PA103.)

 13.      He states that “interviews with the baggage handlers who loaded AVE 4041 PA on December 21 indicated there were between five and nine bags which had been sent to London from other flights before he began loading flights from the Frankfurt flight.” (Above at para.11 it is "eight to ten bags"!)   At page 32 he notes that the Camp Zeist Judgement conceded “it was conceivable a rogue bag could have been placed into the baggage system at Heathrow” but claimed that “no evidence had been introduced to substantiate that claim”.  

 14.    In fact a great deal of evidence had been introduced to substantiate that claim which Their Lordships dismissed by speculating that the brown Samsonite seen by Bedford had been moved “out of harm’s way to some far corner of the container.”  Of course if it had been moved then logically it should have been recovered and linked to a specific Interline passenger.   It never was and the only Brown Samsonite recovered were the fragments of the primary suitcase. 

 15.   There was real, compelling indeed irrefutable evidence the "bomb" suitcase had been introduced at Heathrow and what Marquise’s described as a “thorough, complete and impartial investigation” (page 152) was nothing of the kind.

 

The CIA, “Intelligence” and Vincent Cannistraro


16.    One of Marquise’s central themes is his attempt, in which he both succeeded and failed, to turn “intelligence” into "evidence”. (His evidence convinced a US Grand Jury but was thrown out at Camp Zeist.  Perhaps it was only convincing the Grand Jury that mattered.)   “We hoped that, where the evidence and intelligence converged, we would find our solution.”  (page 87).
 
17.    Curiously Marquise repeatedly complains that the CIA’s intelligence pointed to Iran/PFLP-GC as the perpetrators (contrary to the “evidence”.)    As late as the 18th May 1991 “The CIA held to the theory that the attack was revenge for the American shoot-down of the Iran airbus over the Persian Gulf.” (page 114).

18.      (One might have imagined the CIA would have been 100% behind the creation of the “Libyan solution” in view of their thirty year campaign to bring about regime change in Libya.) 

19.    At page 60 Marquise writes of how in Nov 1990 (weeks before Operation Desert Storm)  “I met with representatives of the British Secret Service (MI5) with whom we had had so many problems during the previous two years”.

20.      Marquise is particularly scathing of Vincent Cannistraro “a retired CIA agent had told the media (in November 1990 on the eve of Operation Desert Storm)  the focus of the Lockerbie investigation was no longer on Palestinians, Syrians or Iranians but was on Libya because of evidence which had been recovered at Lockerbie”.  And where did Cannistraro get his information from?  Well according to Marquise he sat in on a couple of meetings with the FBI!

 21.  Cannistraro (a bureaucrat and propagandist occasionally described as having led the CIA's Lockerbie investigation) had previously been tasked to come up with schemes  (some crackpot) to harass the Libyan regime and perhaps understood better than Marquise the real objective of the Lockerbie investigation.   Marquise later discusses the issue of “rendition”, arresting one or more of the Libyan suspects outside Libya.  Cannistraro’s intervention had put Libya on notice it was under investigation, (which may have been his intention!), as an actual trial may have been the last thing the West wanted.
 

Marwan Khreesat

 22.       The FBI’s involvement in the case centered on two areas.   Firstly through the CIA they obtained an interview with PFLP-GC bomb-maker, mass-murderer and CIA "asset" Marwan Khreesat in November 1989 in Jordan from which the Scottish Police (who had regarded Khreesat as their No.1 suspect)  were excluded.  (Khreesat was under the protection of the Jordanian Intelligence Services allies of the CIA.)  Tom Thurman was one of the two FBI agents who interviewed him.
 
23.    With the forensic evidence, notably the MST-13 timer and the evidence the bomb was contained within a Toshiba SF-16 twin speaker  radio evidence-cassette Khreesat was "eliminated" as a suspect in the case.  Of interest Khreesat explained ("Scotbom" page 56)  “that he could not use this type of radio (the twin-speaker) because it would only hold about 100 grams of explosives after he inserted all the components he needed for an altimeter bomb.”    (Alan Feraday demonstrated it was feasible or possible to build a bomb incorporating a MEBO timer inside a twin speaker model but bomb-making expert Khreesat favoured the roomier single speaker.)

  24.   As pointed out in my article “Hear no Evil, Se no Evil, Speak no Evil”  the evidence the IED was actually contained within a twin-speaker SF-16 radio-cassette recorder was dubious in the extreme.    (At page 54 Marquise had describes this owner’s manual for the twin-speaker SF-16 model as being “printed in Arabic”, proving its origin within the Arab world without mentioning the instructions are also printed in English, Spanish and Chinese!)
 
25.     The Police's first photograph of the  “Horton Manual” (dated 12th May 1989) was omitted from the RARDE photographic report and the photgraphs depicting “The Horton Manual” as two almost intact pages of an instruction manual for a twin-speaker SF-16 radio cassette player were taken three days later and are of dubious authenticity, although they duped the SCCRC. 

26.      Secondly one of the selection of photographs at the beginning of Mr Marquise's book is the crucial photgraph 117 of the RARDE photographic report.  This  photograph not only depicts the MEBO timer fragment (PT35(b)) but also exhibit PT/2 (PT/35(d)) a tiny clump of compressed paper supposedly part of the SF-16 manual and supposedly from the same source as what is claimed to be the “Horton Manual”.    This photogaph was taken ten  days after RARDE scientist Dr. Thomas Hayes supposedly sketched the five constituent sheets of PT/2 on page 51 of his notes.    Of course if PT/2 and the “Horton Manual” were faked then there is no credible evidence   the MEBO fragment PT 35(b) was genuine and actually found within the piece of grey Slalom shirt.

Photograph 117 (which proves the crucial page 51 of Dr Hayes notes is a fabrication)

page 51 
 
 27.     In short while the interview of Marwan Khreesat and the RARDE forensic report (together with Their Lordships claim, contradicted by the death of a German technician, that  Khreesat's devices were harmless) supposedly eliminated Khreesat as the bomb-maker,  CIA “asset” Khreesat remains the most credible suspect to have been the bomb-maker which may explain why the FBI, CIA & RARDE bent over backwards to clear him.  If Khreesat was the bomb-maker this would indicate official foreknowledge of the bombing. 
 
 28.    In view of Marquise's revelation that the simultaneous US and Scotttish indictments of the 14th November 1991 were made in advance of  RARDE (and the Police) submitting their final report Marquise makes what may be the most astonishing revelation at page 107 of his book (although his narrative is somewhat unclear).   He describes how (circa 29th April 1991) he, Stuart Henderson and some Swiss officials flew from Scotland to Heathrow then took a train to RARDE at Fort Halstead Kent where they met Alan Feraday and an associate Maurice Marshall (but not Dr Hayes).  Marquise continued -  “The Swiss were convinced.  This was important: after all it was the purpose of the trip.   As we headed for downtown London and a meeting with the BSS (MI5) the day seemed bright even though it was a typical British spring  day, cool and rainy.   Feraday and Hayes, who had been involved in the forensic examinations earlier in the investigation, said they were 100 per cent certain of the accuracy of what they had examined.   This was helpful even though the written report was months from completion.”
  
29.    Is Mr Marquise referring to some earlier claim of Mr Feraday and Dr Hayes or is he saying that Hayes and Feraday actually attended this meeting at the headquarters of the British Secret Service?  
 

 MI5 Stella Rimington & Elizabeth Manningham-Buller:

 

30.     In the 1994 Dimbleby Lecture -"Security and Democracy - is there a Conflict?" - MI5 Director-General Stellla Rimington claimed  The service played a major part in the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988, to the point where the atrocity was laid firmly at the door of Libya.   As a result Libya came under further significant international pressure to cut its support for terrorists including the Provisional IRA and of course to surrender the accused for trial.”

  
31.     While supporters of Mr Megrahi have frequently alleged the non-disclosure of key evidence MI5’s “major role in the investigation” is completely outside the public domain. Save for Mrs Rimington's boast (and Mr Marquise's book!)  there is little or no evidence MI5 played any role at all.   Because it was kept largely under wraps doesn't mean it didn't happen.  If she wasn’t inventing this “major role” what part did MI5 actually play?  MI5 are not detectives or dispassionate seekers after the truth but are quite often in the business of politically motivated deceit.  Are MI5 subject to the Police & Criminal Evidence Act or indeed the normal rules of disclosure?   
 
32.       What indeed could MI5, the British Domestic Security Service bring to the party?   While the bomb exploded over UK sovereign territory the bombing was supposedly planned overseas, the bomb itself supposedly arriving at Heathrow from Frankfurt having begun its journey in Malta.

 33.     As outlined in my article “Lockerbie – Criminal Justice or War By Other Means?”  the British effort to contain and defeat the IRA suffered an enormous blow when in October 1987 French custom officers intercepted the trawler Eksund carrying 150 tons of weapons which were being transported  from Libya and destined for the Irish Republic.   It transpired that this was the fifth (and by far the largest) such shipment.  (The seizure of the Eksund was followed days later by one of the IRA's most notorious atrocities the Iniskillin massacre.)
 
34.     The first shipment of ten tons of weapons had landed in August 1985 eight months before the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi.   The later shipments contradicted Mrs Thatcher’s claim in her memoirs The Downing Street Years that the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi “led to a marked reduction in Libyan sponsored terrorism for years to come”.  The Libyan response to the bombing might have been seen as entirely predictable.  Mrs Thatcher had to claim that the ineffectual bombing (planned by the NSC's "crazy gang" ) had been an unqualified success.   Had she claimed Lockerbie was the consequence of Britain's support for the US adventure people may then have posed the obvious question.
 
35.   One consequence of enormous significance for the Lockerbie case was that MI5 took over responsibility for Malta from MI6.      MI5 had no particular interest in Malta save for its proximity and relationship with Libya and this fact may be central for understanding the creation of the "Libyan Solution" to Lockerbie.
 
36.      Marquise recounts that in June 1991 he “had lunch with the MI5 representative at the British Embassy in Washington Eliza Manningham-Buller.  We often discussed Lockerbie and I had found her to be open and forthright. (Essential qualities to get to the top of MI5!)   I voiced my concerns about the Lord Advocate and his “deadline”. She did not believe Whitehall would allow (!) the Scottish prosecutor to set an artificial deadline.  She assured the criminal investigation would be able to run its course.  While this was only one opinion, it was good to hear, at least informally, that others in the United Kingdom would not let “deadlines” get in the way of completing our work.”   Was Mrs Manningham-Buller actually being "open and forthright" or just using her charm on Marquise to achieve her objectives.  (There is an alternative to waterboarding!)
 
37.    While Mr Marquise describes Mrs Manningham-Buller as the MI5 representative at the British Embassy, according to MI5’s own website she  “led the section responsible for International Counter-terrorism at the time when its work was dominated by the Lockerbie investigation.  She was later posted to Washington as a senior liaison with the US intelligence community.   Her posting coincided with the first Gulf War.     On her return to the UK in 1992 she led a newly formed Irish Counter-Terrorism section.   This was formed in response to the Government’s decision to make the Security Service in charge of intelligence work against Irish terrorism on the British mainland.”   The Lockerbie investigation was not a hiatus for Mrs Manningham-Buller from her career in combatting the IRA.  It was central to it and the  indictments were her achievement.  
 
38.     At page 241 Marquise wrote  “Intelligence and police agencies have a common goal.    It is to help protect their country from crime and other threats.”    The first part is debatable or just wrong but did the creation of a false “Libyan solution” to the Lockerbie case further this aim better than an objective and competent investigation?   Did it not essentially serve MI5's central objective of disarming the IRA and exacting revenge on Gaddafi?   Was Mrs Rimington answering her own question “Security and Democrracy is there a conflict?”  There would certainly seem to be a conflict with the rule of law
  
39.    One of the four demands made of Libya subsequent to the imposition of UN sections was that Libya "cease all support and aid the Irish Republican Army and provide the British Government with all information in regard to that relation" .  These demands went far beyond handing over the Lockerbie suspects for trial.
 
 
 

Tony Gauci  and Megrahi's alias "Abdusamad".

40.    On February 15th 1990 Marquise had phoned SIO Henderson who told him the Scots were having a celebratory drink in his office because   ”Gauci picked Megrahi out of the lineup and identified him as the person who purchased the clothing.”  (This wasn't a line-up but a photo ID).
 
 41.      In fact as Marquise frankly explains Gauci had done no such thing quoting Gauci that it was “over two years since the clothing was purchased and I have been shown many photographs.  Of all the pictures I have been shown the one of (Megrahi) most resembled the person who had bought the clothing in my shop.  However the man would have to have been a few years older.” 
 
42.     Indeed at page 61 Marquise notes a remarkable similarity between the artist’s impression and another Libyan “Al-Nayli” one of the two Libyans arrested in Senegal allegedly in possession of explosives and MST-13 timers (A man David Leppard claims Cannistraro identified as the initial suspect in ths case.)  Yet according to Marquise “The identification was a turning point in the investigation”.  It may well have been but having wrongly “eliminated” Heathrow the Police were now moulding the evidence to fit a theory that was absolutely untrue.

43.   Marquise knew this wasn’t a real identification and could see for himself the chasm between Megrahi’s photograph and the earlier FBI artist’s sketch of the person described by Gauci.  He also had no doubt of the date of purchase was the 7th December although other evidence indicated the purchase was made on the 23rd November (when Megrahi was not on Malta) or the 7 December being the two days on which Paul Gauci (allegedly) left work to watch a football match on TV.   There was no till roll, receipt or ROC (record of charge) to accurately date the purchase and Paul Gauci was well paid for his evidence.  Was the clothing actually purchased before the bombing at all or were they part of a trail of sweeties leading the investigators by the nose to Malta?

44.   Marquise also had no doubt that the printout of Bogomira Erac demonstrated that a “rogue suitcase” had been transferred from flight KM180 to flight PA103A on the 21/12/88 although there was little or no evidence that one actually was and none that this item was a brown Samsonite suitcase.
 
 45.      Following a tip-off from the NSA that Megrahi had an alias Abdulsamad Marquise had a long struggle to prove Megrahi and Abusamad were one and the same.  He was of course convinced of Megrahi’s guilt when he found evidence that "Abusamad" visited Malta on the 20/12/88 leaving for Triipoli the following day “only thirty minutes after the suitcase left Malta on KM180.” (Which is hadn't!)  It seems apparent from the captioned CIA cable that Megrahi was under surveillance on his arrival in Malta on the 7th December 1988 and the detail of Fhimah assisting Megrahi through immigration is similar to Giaka's claim.    Was the arrival of Megrahi @Abusamad in Malta on the 20/12/88 actually a trigger for events elsewhere?  
    
 

 
 
 46.    In an article for The Times of the 20/12/14 "Lockerbie Conspiracy Theory is Dismissed" the former Editor of the Sunday Times' risible "Hitler Diaries" Magnus Linklater, reported on a purported, and indeed perhaps fictional " review" of the Lockerbie conviction by the Lord Advocate.  This article claimed that if the MST-13 timer was a fake it would have had to have been planted (presumably at Tundergarth)  within 23 days of the bombing and that Megrahi was "unknown" at that time.   Above is a cable of the 22/12/88 identifying him as an ESO officer.   The "intelligence services" obviously knew of him.  Indeed he may have been involved in the Libyan operation to arm the IRA.  As he was under surveillance at the airport it would seem likely he was under surveillance throughout his trip during which he supposedly bought the Malta clothing! Perhaps the ostentatious purchase of the clothing was really made on the 7/12/88 - but not by Megrahi.  (When and by whom the fragment of MST-13 timer was created is not known).
 
 
47.   As Marquise conceded (page 228) “the case had been built on a string of circumstances.”   Marquise himself sometimes questioned if the evidence was real.  Page 113 -  “I often questioned the evidence and had numerous discussions with Henderson on the issue.  We wondered if an intelligence agency could have planted evidence to lead us to where we had come in the investigation.   However after knowing what we had been through to have gotten this far, it did not seem possible the evidence could have been planted.  However, we concluded that if an intelligence agent or agency wanted to “frame” someone for the bombing they would have made the path to the evidence easier to navigate.”  (Not necessarily if the "deadline" for bringing indictments was actually a target date.)
 
48.    However as Marquise relates in relation to the MST-13 timer the Scottish Police made extensive world-wide enquiries over many months to establish its provenance.   (Although this may have simply obscured the real date when it was introduced into the chain of evidence.)    After the FBI’s Tom Thurman was supplied with an photograph of the exhibit he identified it within two days by showing it to the CIA yet Marquise writes  “It was inconceivable they would have allowed so much time to pass before the chip was identified”.   But as Marquise admits there was a timetable to which he was not privy.

 
  Majid Giaka

49.    The second and key area of the FBI's involvement in the Lockerbie case concerns the recruitment of the defector Majid Giaka as a key “witness” in ths case. 
 

 50.     I was surprised by how late in the day Majid Giaka emerged as a witness.  On May 18th 1991 Marquise's boss Robert Mueller told him he needed at least one “insider” witness.  In early July (1991) the CIA located their former informant Giaka in Libya.  Giaka travelled to Tunisia then Malta.  (It is not clear where his pregnant wife, a Maltese resided.)   Giaka was initially interviewed upon a US military vessel and then transported to the US by covert means where he was interviewed by the FBI between Sunday 21st July 1991 and Thursday August 1st 1991. 

 51.      Giaka, besides outlining the structure of the JSO (in which he may have exaggerated his own status) and identifying  Megrahi as a JSO officer (which he almost certainly was) made three key allegations.   Firstly he claimed that in June 1986 weeks after the US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi, a senior JSO officer had asked Giaka  “a low level member of the JSO” about the feasibility of sending (presumably smuggling) a suitcase to Great Britain on board a British plane.  At page 192 this project is amended to inquire if it was possible to get a bag on a plane bound for the UK or the USA (there being no direct route to the USA).   Giaka learned that this was possible, although supposedly he did not grasp this was a plan to smuggle a bomb, and sent a report through Megrahi to this senior official.    Giaka did not mention this project to his CIA handlers.

 
52.    Of interest Marquise had written (page 49)  “The airline guide for December 1988 recommended that if someone wanted to go to New York from there (Malta) the routing would be Air Malta (KM) Flight 180 from Valetta to Frankfurt, transfer to Pan Am flight 103A to London and then Pan Am Flight 103 to New York.”   Did this guide actually  exist?    Obviously rather than change at Frankfurt there were numerous Air Malta and British Airways direct flights to Heathrow.  (Further you could of course fly from Malta to Rome or Paris or Schipol for a connection to the US.)  No legitimate luggage was transferred from KM180 to PA103A on the 21/12/88 for the simple reason that this wasn’t the way to get to London from Malta! 

 
 53.      The method by which Giaka thought a bag could be smuggled onto a plane is a matter of some interest as how the “rogue suitcase” was smuggled onto KM180 was never established and proved to be a central shortcoming in the prosecution case.  Giaka claimed to have sent his report through Magrahi. What was Giaka's suppposed plan?  

54.    The second central allegation (page 138) was that at the LAA office at Luqa Fhimah showed Giaka two boxes of brown lumpy things which Fhimah told him was  8 kilos of TNT.  Fhimah told Giaka he had got it from Megrahi.  According to Marquise Giaka later identified a photograph of Semtex!    

55.        The third allegation was more complex.   For reasons unstated Giaka had gone to Luqa Airport sometime in October, November or December 1988 where he saw Megrahi arrive with Fhimah.  According to Giaka Fhimah took a large brown hard-sided suitcase off the luggage carousel and took it through customs.   (How Giaka was able to observe this was a question neither the FBI nor the defence teams at Zeist asked him.)   Giaka then observed the two men getting into Fhimah’s car.  As Fhimah had only bought the car on the 14th December 1988 Giaka must have observed the two men arriving on the 20th December 1988.

 
56.   At page 152 Marquise discusses a meeting he had been at at MI5 HQ attended by the CIA. (9th September 1991?)   “We discussed what Giaka furnished during his lengthy interview.  The CIA and BSS (MI5) agreed that Giaka could answer most of the intelligence questions and the evidentiary things he had provided could be corroborated by others.”   How?

 57.     Henderson (who came to Washington to observe Giaka’s interview, was initially sceptical of Giaka asking (Page 139)   “Was Giaka involved in the bombing? Was he sent to USA by Libyans to find out what we knew?”   These were pertinent questions.  Marquise wrote that “Giaka would not be prosecuted so long as we found no evidence he had been involved in the attack.”  (He had claimed to have submitted a plan to smuggle a suitcase onto a plane bound for the USA!)

58.     Marquise reveals that following his own lengthy interview the principal of MEBO Edwin Bollier was subjected to a polygraph test which he passed.  Did the FBI think Giaka’s unlikely story of being asked to submit a report on smuggling a suitcase onto a plane, seeing explosives at the LAA office or observing Fhimah and Megrahi with a large brown Samsonite suitcase ought to be tested with a polygraph test?   Of course not.  As will be seen Marquise was working to a deadline and he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

 59.   While Maquise asserts “that no one in the FBI or DoJ believed, nor had we seen any evidence he would lie or fail to tell the truth” they made no attempt to test this and were already satisfied as to what “the truth” was.  Giaka's role was simply to confirm this theory.  Having travelled to the US Giaka had already burned his bridges and had every reason to embellish his account  He hated Gaddafi and wanted to settle in the USA.   He was kept in protective custody until the trial.  Marquise does not say what happened to Giaka and his family after the trial.  Unlike Paul and Tony Gauci they were not paid a  "reward for justice".  Giaka's memoirs would have been of great interest yet not a peep has been heard from Giaka since he gave evidence at Camp Zeist.   Where is he now?  Was he perhaps subjected to "extraordinary rendition" as a suspected Libyan plant?
 
 60.   Very early in the book Marquise wrote “The information we would eventually provide to the DoJ, and later to the public, would be based on fact and not speculation.  It had to be able to stand the scrutiny of a court.”  Well it didn't.

 61.     As it transpired with the release of the CIA cables detailing Giaka’s performance as a CIA informant and his failure to mention to the CIA any of the key allegations that the FBI so willingly swallowed even the Camp Zeist tribunal (which bent over backwards to accept the remainder of the prosecutions dubious assertions) dismissed Giaka’s evidence stating (Scotbom page 234) “We are unable to accept Abdul Majid as a credible and reliable witness on any matter except his description of the JSO and the personnel involved there.”   Their Lordships felt Giaka had embellished his evidence of a simple sighting at the Airport (if he was even there!) with the ludicrous detail of seeing Fhimah take a particular suitcase off the carousel.
 
62.       At page 146 Marquise had noted the comment of a DoJ official that “without Giaka the case was weak at best.”  The quite astonishing thing is that even without Giaka’s “evidence” (and the absence of any evidence as to how the primary suitcase was introduced at Malta) their Lordships still managed to convict Megrahi, apparently on the dubious identification of Gauci (and the acceptance of the assertion, again unsupported by evidence, that Gauci had sold his "Libyan" customer a grey man's Slalom shirt), together with an acceptance, (unsupported by the evidence), that the clothing was purchased on the 7th December 1988 together with the forensic evidence of RARDE (apparently fabricated) that claimed that key exhibits were found within this shirt. 

 63.   Perhaps Their Lordships were determined to convict if they possibly could (persons purportedly acting in Megrahi’s interests having him tried without a Jury in a judicial experiment in which he was precluded from giving evidence!) so that never again would defendants in a Scottish Criminal case negotiate the form of tribunal before which they would deign to appear.  The verdict may have been on "Camp Zeist". 
 
64.     Perhaps the most disgraceful episode related by Marquise concerned a briefing given by himself and Henderson to the Deputy Maltese PM Guido DeMarco on the 10th October 1988 in Malta.   Marquise wrote without a trace of irony or self-awareness that "he didn't was to lie or be evasive"  in telling DeMarco that "the bomb had definitely originated in Malta" transforming a dubious theory into fact.  They also told De Marco the two Libyan suspects kept explosives in Malta and had brought a large hard-sided suitcase into Malta.   All this was based on Marquise's credulous acceptance of the claims of Giaka although Marquise lied to De Marco that this was based on CIA intelligence.   

 
Rendition and the “Deadline” :
 
65.    Was the object of the indictment of the two Libyan suspects (in loco parentis Mo’ammar Gaddafi and the Libyan State) to bring the two defendants to trial but to transform unilateral US sanctions against Libya into UN sanctions with the objective of regime change?.   Presumably Mr Marquise thought he was involved in a straight-forward Criminal investigation, with the object of finding out who actually planned and carried out the bombing and proving it in court.  However his book provides a great deal of evidence to support the view that sanctions were not just a means of compelling Libya to surrender the two suspects but the objective of the indictments.  It was win-win.   Indeed in announcing the Indictment on the 14th  November 1991 US Attorney General William Barr stated “this investigation is continuing and will be pursued unrelentingly until all responsible are brought to justice”.   Former FBI Director Robert Mueller and the Lord Advocate were still making the same claims 22 years later!
 
66.   From early summer 1991 Marquise was concerned at the prospect of an arbitrary deadline for the completion  of the investigation being imposed.   At first he heard it from the Scots.  His own superiors (and others) assure him that there is no deadline yet it slowly dawns on him that there is a deadline and he doesn’t understand why.   The prospect of a deadline arose long before Giaka is recruited as a “witness” and without Giaka the FBI investigation has achieved nothing. 
 
 67.    Of a meeting on April 4th 1991 he writes “It seemed officials in Scotland had developed a timeline for the end of the investigation” and “I had not been privy to discussions between the White House and DoJ and wondered if they too had developed an end line.”   “On June 20th 1991  Mueller, Stephens (DoJ official) and Peter Fraser, the Lord Advocate met to discuss the investigation.  Investigators were not invited but I learned they came up with a “charging” date of November 15th - 1991 Henderson and I continued to be troubled by the “end line” the date set by the Lord Advocate to conclude the investigation.  We believed we might not be finished by November 15 and thought an artificial dealine was one which would put undue pressure on us.  That could lead to shortcuts taken and mistakes made.”   On July 10th “Henderson asked for support in asking the prosecutors on both sides of the Atlantic not to set a deadline for the announcement of the indictment.”
 
  
68.    On August 19th 1991 the Lord Advocate met with the Prime Minister (John Major) "and they had discussed deadlines in the investigation."  In June 1996 PM Major claimed to the House of Commons that the investigation was "open" and called for persons with relevant information to "come forward."  It transpired the investigation was "open" only if you agreed with the official version of events notably the conclusion of the Fatal Accident Inquiry that the primary suitcase arrived at Heathrow unaccompanied on flight PA103A, a conclusion based on no evidence whatsoever simply the submission of the then Lord Advocate's Deputy, one Andrew Hardie QC. 
 
69.         Referring to a meeting with MI5 in London on Monday 9th September 1991 "Henderson believed the indictments would be announced on a date from November 12-19 1991.  He admitted the final police report would not be done by then nor would the RARDE report.”“The deadline which we thought to have been set by the Lord Advocate was allegedly being advocated by Mueller and, ostensibly, the US Government.”  “I also learned FBI Director Sessions had met with the Director General of the BSS in Canada just two months before.  It was another example of information not being passed down the line.”     
 
70.     There were a number of discussions about the rendition of one or both of the suspects.  At page 118 he wrote about a discussion of the possibility of a "snatch"  of either suspect should they venture outside Libya.   (In fact Megrahi's co-accused Fhimah was living in pro-Western Tunisia as an LAA employee.)  But as Marquise frankly admitted (page 156) "No one wanted to try Fhimah alone, without Megrahi." 
 
   
 
 

The Federal Grand Jury

  
 
71.         While Giaka’s dubious claims were dismissed by the panel of Judges at Camp Zeist they were central to the evidence presented to a US Federal Grand Jury.  This met between the 25th September and the 13th November 1991 handing down the Indictment the day before it was announced to the world.  
 
72.           Here the Grand Jury heard unchallenged Giaka’s account of being commissioned to write a report on smuggling a suitcase onto an aircraft, the storing of Semtex at the LAA office and of seeing Fhimah and Megrahi on the eve of the bombing with a Brown Samsonite suitcase.  There were no other eyewitnesses  although.   “The witnesses would include FBI agents who would summarize what we had uncovered, to include potential testimony by both Bollier and Gauci.”  (Presumably Gauci’s identification would have been emphatic, the date of purchase undoubtedly the 7th December and there would be no doubt that a  “rogue suitcase” was smuggled onto KM180 and transferred at Frankfurt to PA103A.)    It was Marquise who presented a lot of this evidence.   Did he present the evidence of RARDE in advance of their actual report?
 
73.        The patriotic Grand Jury members did their duty and returned an Indictment.   There was no real plan to bring the suspects to trial and the Montreal Treaty was ignored but the indictments were all that were required in order to purport that a trial was the objective and start the process of imposing UN sanctions.    Was there any other point to announcing these twin indictments on both sides on the Atlantic?     Marquise notes that the Lord Advocate Lord Peter Fraser proposed to personally lead the prosecution in Edinburgh.  How he thought to get the defendants to Edinburgh (if he thought of it at all) is not mentioned.   Demands made by the West seemed to be intended to prevent a trial.
 
74.        This seems to have been the end of Marquise's active involvement in the Lockerbie case save for occasionally reassuring Giaka that he was a wanted and valued resource.   Ironically Marquise was then appointed to be the Agent in charge of the FBI's Oklahoma City office which in April 1995 had suffered from another terrorist attack arising from and intimately related to the Amercian political scandals known (inaccurately) as  "Iran-Contra".  
 
 

Payment of Witnesses

 
75.     Marquise has little to say about the payment of witnesses or indeed who was paid save that the reward, which offered up to four million dollars (page 114) for information leading to the Lockerbie bombing.(sic)   “However one thing was abundantly clear, money was and is not a motivating factor.”   How was this “abundantly clear" and to who?  He continued that  "We believed thousands of useless pieces of information would be sent to the task force, overwhelming us.  In reality, little credible information was ever received."   Of course the task force had a particular definition of "credible". -  "After the indictment was announced FBI field offices and the police in Scotland were deluged by individuals who had information about the bombing or the two suspects who had been indicted.  None of the tips ever turned out to be of value.”     (Doesn’t that tell you something?).

 

FBI Told of Heathrow Origin: 

 
 
76.      On the 1st June 1996 the author wrote to the US Ambassador to the Court of St James pointing out the blindingly obvious that the Police had made a "colossal blunder" in eliminating Heathrow as the airport at which the primary suitcase was introduced.  
 
77.        This was not the FBI's blunder and as most of the victims were US citizens I thought it possible (but unlikely) the FBI might actuallyconduct an objective investigation.     I thought it may be useful to document they had been told that the Scottish Police had got it wrong from the start. 
 
78.       I was surprised to receive a very courteous response  from Assistant Legal attaché Robert A. Patton (an FBI officer) indicating the FBI would "respond to you directly concerning your information".    Of course I heard nothing further not because it was untrue but because it was absolutely true.    "Scotbom"  explains perfectly why they did not respond.     They had their indictment and the US Government had their sanctions.   There was no prospect of a trial so there was no upside to an objective investigation.

79.       I did incidentally claim the advertised reward and why not? (And continue to claim it).   I was merely pointing out where an objective investigation had been abandoned. 
 
 
 

Conclusion: 

 

80.     It is a long time since Mrs.Rimington boasted that "the service played a major role in the  investigation."    Nobody picked up on this and at Camp Zeist nobody senior in the actual investigation was called to give evidence.   I did suggest to the defence team that Mrs Rimington be summonsed to explain her boast.
 
81.     Richard Marquise's book has confirmed MI5 did play a major role in the investigation although the detail of what role they played is outwith the public domain and was not disclosed to the defence. 
While the British Government outsourced the Lockerbie case to the (pre-devolution) Scottish authorities it does seem curious that the head  of the FBI's investigation was in frequent contact with and attended meetings at MI5 Headquarters (accompanied by the Scottish Senior Investigating Officer Stewart Henderson.)
 
82.   The central point is that the British Security Service (MI5) is not a law-enforcement agency.  They have their own agenda and objectives. 
 
83.   The bombing of flight PA103 was almost certainly quid pro quo  retaliation for the incompetence of Captain Will Rogers in his attack on Iranair flight 655 (the "Vincennes Incident").  For quite obvious reasons it was expedient to pretend retaliation had not occurred and to blame somebody else.    Libya was an ideal choice.   The CIA had had a thirty year campaign to overthrow Gaddafi, finally succeeding in 2011.   While Lockerbie was supposedly just another count on Gaddafi's rap sheet it was in actuality part of the campaign to overthrow him.    
 
84.      The CIA's long-term objective coincided exactly with MI5's No.1 overwhelming priority - the disarming and the defeat of the Provisional Irish Republican Army - the real and vital threat to the security of the British State.    In this they had the 100% support of the British Government and successive British Prime Ministers.      While the British Government exerted enormous pressure on the PIRA it was probably the events of "9/11" that made that made the IRA's campaign obsolete.
 
85.      In a Benthamite sense the framing of Megrahi (as a substitute for Gaddafi) might be regarded as a "good thing".   It had little to do with the actual bombing of flight PA103 but part of the genius of the "Libyan solution" was that the relatives were generously compensated giving them a financial interest in the official version of events.    
 
86.      I take the view that the Western authorities were prepared to accept the destruction of a single airliner  as retaliation for the Vincennes Incident (as opposed to the destruction of several planes and the further escalation of the crisis.)  Were they aware in advance that flight PA103 of the 21/12/88 was targeted for destruction?   It seems likely that a CIA "asset" built the bomb.   I am sure most people would assume that if the authorities became aware of a plan to bomb a particular aircraft they would do all in their power to prevent such a thing - but then some other plane or planes would be attacked.  The central question is whether acceptance became collusion and even management.  



1100 31/12/14         



   

 
 
 


 


 

Saturday, December 20, 2014

"Lockerbie Conspircay Theory is Dismissed" by Magnus Linklater Times 20th December 2014



"They "(the Police)  "point out that the evidence would have to have been planted within 23 days, requiring knowledge of all the evidence to come - including Megrahi, whose existence was then unknown. "


penultimate paragraph "Lockerbie Conspiracy Theory is Dismissed" by Magnus Linklater





The former Editor of the "Hitler Diaries" Magnus Linklater and now mouthpiece for the Lord Advocate wrote an article for The Times "Lockerbie Conspiracy Theory is Dismissed"  (or rather the Crown Office are sticking to their conspiracy theory!)
 
 
As can be seen from the above CIA cable on the 22/12/88 (the day after the bombing) Megrahi's existence was known to the CIA and presumably to the British Secret Service MI5 who had taken over responsibility for Malta from MI6 in the aftermath of the the interception of the "Eksund" (which had begun its journey in Malta.)  The cable describes Megrahi as an ESO officer and notes he was met by Fhimah so apparently they were under surveillance. (How else would they know Fhimah was there?)   Did they wave goodbye to Megrahi and Fhimah as they left the airport or did they have them under surveillance until ESO officer Megrahi left Malta?   This is rather important as this is the day Megrahi supposedly purchased the Malta clothing!
 
The claim Megrahi's existence was unknown is a lie.
 
Why the evidence of the MST-13 timer would have to be planted within 23 days (presumably when the item of "cloth" or "debris" the fragment of grey Slalom shirt actually was or was purportedly recovered) escapes me.         The first evidence of the existence of this item extracted from the Slalom shirt is the famous page 51 of Dr Hayes notes dated 12th May 1989.   However as pointed out in my article "Hear No Evil, see No Evil, Speak No Evil"  Dr Hayes sketched the five constituent sheets of exhibit PT/2 on this note.   On the first photograph of PT 35(b) apparently taken on the 22nd May 1989 (but no earlier) PT/2 has yet to be dissected.   The Forensic Document Examiner commissioned by the SCCRC indicated that page 51 had been inserted out of sequence and we do not know how many versions of page 51 there had been.   What is important is that Dr Hayes claimed at Camp Zeist that he had simply made a mistake in renumbering his notes.  (and Alan Feraday claimed to have witnesses the removal of these exhibits from the fragment of shirt!)
 
The SCCRC did not notice the discrepancy between page 51 and photograph 117 and neither did the anonymous, and manifestly incompetent silk (allegedly) commissioned by the Lord Advocate to review the SCCRC's findings. 
 
PT/2 is in itself pretty incredible supposedly having come from the same manual as the exhibit known as the "Horton Manual."  How did it survive the explosion?   The original photograph of the Horton Manual was omitted from the RARDE photographic report, which of course the SCCRC (and the Lord Advocate's "silk") never noticed!
 
One can see the train of thought behind Mr Linklater's article.   Is it credible that someone could skilfully insert the MEBO fragment,  together with the clump of five tiny pieces of the radio-cassette manual into the collar of the grey slalom shirt then carelessly discarded for it to be recovered and these planted exhibits to be extracted 5 months later?  Well no it isn't but as page 51 of Dr Hayes notes are backdated there is no credible evidence they were actually recovered from the Slalom shirt rather than simply being created and falsely "discovered" to implicate the politically convenient suspects. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Monday, September 8, 2014

Richard Marquise and his "Golden Informant" Majid Giaka - An Extract from "Enemies - A History of the FBI" by Tim Weiner


    Tim Weiner's recent book "Enemies - A History of the FBI" is a fascinating story of the creation of the FBI within the US Justice Department following American entry into the Great War, not for the purpose of Criminal Investigation but to counter the threat of radicals, anarchists and communists by means of dubious constitutionality.
 
     I was fascinated by the early history and the parallels with more recent events, for example the 1920 car-bomb attack of Wall Street (well actually a horse-drawn wagon) in which 58 people (and presumably the horse(s)) perished.
 
     The author devotes six pages to an uncritical account of the Bureau's involvement in the Lockerbie case focusing on the role of the leader of the FBI taskforce (of 7 persons) Richard Marquise.   (Tom Thurman is not mentioned.)
 
      Marquise was recently quoted in the Dutch media in a story titled "The Lessons of Lockerbie" in relation to the shooting down of flight MH17 over the Ukraine.    Marquise advocated the recruitment of a "Golden Informant" to solve the case just as he had done in the Lockerbie case (and by ignoring the actual evidence and a real "Golden Informant" John Bedford.    Weiner's book gives a very interesting summary of how this "Golden Informant" Majid Giaka was recruited:- (page 372)
 
 "Marquise needed to turn intelligence into evidence.  He needed a witness who would link Megrahi to the Samsonite suitcase with the Semtex.  He needed to find someone who knew that the suitcase carried the bomb from Air Malta to Pan Am 103.  He went back to the CIA.   The Agency told him, belatedly, that it had once had a Libyan informant named Abdul Majid Giaka.   He had gone on the CIA's payroll four months before Lockerbie.  He was on it the night Pan Am 103 was bombed.   But the Agency had dropped him a few months later, deeming him a fabricator milking his interrogators for money.
 
          Marquise was dying to talk to Majid, no matter how dubious he seemed to the CIA.  In June 1991 the Agency flew him from a navy ship off the coast of Malta to give the FBI the chance to interview him in Virginia.  Justly wary of its informant, the CIA imposed one condition: don't tell anybody."  (Marquise immediately phoned Stuart Henderson.)  -
 
"Majid was debriefed for at least two weeks during September 1991.   He insisted that he knew three facts.   He identified Megrahi as an intelligence officer serving as Libya's airline security chief.   He said that Megrahi's subordinate in Malta had a cache of Semtex.   And he said he had seen Megrahi with a large brown suitcase at the airport in Malta during the weeks before the Lockerbie bombing.   Majid was without doubt an unreliable witness.  But the FBI had faith that he was telling the truth on those three points.   Marquise thought he had the foundation of a case that would stand up in court."

At page 370 Weiner had written quoting Marquise "We literally cut out the chain of command at HQ. We brought in the CIA. We brought the Scots.  We brought MI5 to Washington.
 
         Giaka's account did stand up unchallenged before a patriotic US Grand Jury leading to the November 1991 indictment.   However it crumbled before even the Mickey Mouse Camp Zeist tribunal when in the defence team's finest hour they had admitted in evidence a large number of CIA cables regarding Giaka.   What is astonishing is that Megrahi was actually convicted despite Giaka being discredited, a fact not mentioned in Mr Weiner's book.  However it was Indictment that mattered.  The conviction was just gravy.
 
        Perhaps some of the parties to the MH17 atrocity will, (or have already) recruited their own "Golden Informant".
 
          Marquise's wrote his own account of the Lockerbie investigation in his book Scotbom.  (Which I have never read.)   Giaka of course never wrote his memoirs and has never been heard of since the close of the Camp Zeist trial.
 
        I am afraid the only "Lesson of Lockerbie" for the families of those murdered on flight MH17 is how Governments fabricate evidence to suit their own political objectives regardless of the facts.   
 
       

Saturday, March 29, 2014

The Primary Suitcase and Its Contents - Rethinking Basic Assumptions

"This is a case about cases"

  Opening line of Doctor Morag Kerr's "Adequately Explained By Stupidity?"


1.          This article was essentially inspired by the recent Al Jazeera documentary "Lockerbie - What Really Happened"   Beyond the cameo appearance of Dr Kerr (whose assertion of the Heathrow origin was somewhat at odds with the documentary's vague assertions about Malta) and two interesting claims by former CIA officer Robert Baer concerning alleged payments to the PFPL-GC and Abu Talb the film was pretty dire.   I also read with interest some comments made by John Ashton on his website "Megrahi - You Are My Jury"  in relation to the Al-Jazeera documentary and what he thought the film was going to feature.    It was a bit surreal to read the co-author of "Cover-up of Convenience" making quite sensible comments criticising the Al-Jazeera documentary (on which he was a paid consultant!) for making claims unsupported by credible evidence.  The words "pot" and "kettle" occurred. 
 
2.        Essentially this inspired me to rethink some basic assumptions and to appreciate how elements of the "official" version of events, indeed the very terminology, phrases such as "primary suitcase" and "Improvised Explosive Device" (IED) have conditioned some basic assumptions.
 
3.        The primary suitcase, determined to be an antique bronze Samsonsite, consisted, at least in the official version of events, of four distinct elements.   There was the suitcase itself, no more harmful than any other suitcase.  What made it the "primary suitcase" was when the IED was placed inside it. (When and where this occurred is not known.)  The third element was an instruction manual for a Toshiba Bombeat twin speaker radio-cassette recorder in which the IED (again in the official version)was concealed.  The fourth element was a motley collection of clothing and an umbrella supposedly purchased from the St Mary's House boutique in Silema, Malta.

4.     As the size 34 Yorkie trousers were delivered to Saint Mary's House on the 18/11/88 it seems the Malta clothing could not have been purchased earlier (Al-Jazeera implied the purchaser could have been Abu Talb who left Malta on the 26/10/88).  According to Leppard page 163 Gauci also claimed to have sold the mystery "Libyan" a checked herringbone jacket which according to Gauci had been hanging on a rack for months and which he had despaired of getting rid of it.   Nonetheless in September 1989 (Leppard 164) he was able to supply CIP Harry Bell with an identical item!

5.     Astonishingly in a brief undated statement  Harry Bell describes an interview he conducted with Tony Gauci on the 21st Feb 1990 in which he pointed out to Gauci (or complained?)  that the sample jacket he had supplied to him (in fact sold!) did not match the remnants of bomb damaged jacket.   Bell showed him a sample and asked him if he had anything that resembled it more closely! Even by the standards of the sweaty filth this is astonishing.   Gauci gave him (sold him?) another jacket, description unstated which Bell delivered to the LICC.   The possibility that the bomb-damaged jacket had been originally purchased somewhere else and was not sold by Gauci does not seem to have occurred to Bell.   It would therefore appear that while Gauci had despaired of getting rid of some ghastly jacket he eventually managed to palm it off on DCI Harry Bell.   (Bell's statement omits the crucial detail of whether he tried to get a refund or trade-in for the origional jacket!)
 
6.       In the official version of events these four elements came together by inference in Malta.  Megrahi bought the clothing and placed it in the Samsonite suitcase with the radio-cassette recorder (which he may or may not have built) and the instruction manual.   The sophisticated MEBO MST-13 timer was set to explode at 1900hrs (approx.) GMT.   The suitcase was then smuggled onto flight KM180 on the 21st December 1988 by unknown means.   Was the suitcase x-rayed at Malta?   No evidence was produced and (unlike at Frankfurt or London) the x-ray machine operator(s) at Malta may not have been interviewed.
 
7.        At Frankfurt the "primary suitcase" was supposedly transferred to flight PA103A and was supposedly x-rayed.  Whether it was x-rayed at London was an issue the authorities never addressed as they assumed it had been transferred directly from flight PA103A as "online" luggage and was not required to be x-rayed again.   Although quite aware the IED had been concealed within a brown Samsonite they were utterly uncurious about the brown Samsonite that had mysteriously appeared in container AVE4041.
 
8.      A widely publicised alternate version of events the "drug conspiracy theory" claims on the flimsiest of evidence (or no real evidence at all) that the primary suitcase was smuggled onto PA103A at Frankfurt either instead of or bizarrely in addition to a suitcase containing heroin.   This version pays little heed to issues such as how the bomb was detonated or to explain (at least in credible terms) the Malta clothing.
 
9.      The Al-Jazeera film made the credible claim that the bomb was built by Marwan Khreesat and infer a meeting between Abu Talb and Dalkamoni in Cyprus.  Was the bomb (and suitcase?) handed over here in early Octyober?  Did Talb take the IED (and suitcase?) to Rome and attempt to take it Libya before flying to Malta?   In material not featured in the final cut the documentary claimed Talb, assisted by Martin Imandi (a very credible courier) and the (mythical?) Abu Elias (the Kayser Soce of Lockerbie)  brought the bomb to the UK on a merchant ship on the 20th or 21st December.

10.      The inference was that the PFLP-GC had planned, with quite astonishing foresight,  months in advance to leave clues in the debris that would lead the authorities to Malta and somehow to Libya.   Why the PFLP-GC wanted to implicate Libya, a prime and steadfast supporter of the Palestinian armed struggle,  was not adequately explained.   But what was it that the three terrorists supposedly transported from Sweden to England?  Just the Toshiba radio-cassette player containing the IED or a brown Samsonite containing said radio-cassette, clothing and the instruction manual.
 
11.      Morag Kerr's excellent book is essentially concerned with the evidence of John Bedford - who after his break returned to container AVE4041 and saw that somebody had added two suitcases, one a brown Samsonite, and argues that this must have been the primary suitcase containing the bomb.  She spends no time speculating how the suitcase got into the container or how it got to Heathrow and into the Interline baggage shed.   The question of how a Khreesat built IED was primed, by inserting a jackplug (as demonstrated in the widely publicised warnings) did not arise.  But somebody would have to open the suitcase, prime the device, then close and presumably lock the case.
 
12.    As I argued in my article "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil"   page 51 of RARDE scientists Thomas Hayes notes (in which he claims to have recovered the timer fragment and five tiny sheets of the Toshiba manual from part of a Slalom shirt on the 12th May 1989) is obviously, by comparison with "photograph 117" a fabrication.   This of course casts doubt on whether these items were ever in reality recovered at all or fabricated for the purpose of implicating Libya, exonerating CIA "asset" Khreesat and making the Malta origin vaguely credible.   It also casts doubt on whether the primary suitcase really contained a Toshiba manual and whether the present version of the "Horton Manual" is actually what these witnesses recovered.
 
13.     If the MEBO fragment was faked then the possibility or likelihood that the IED in fact contained one of Khreesat's barometric bombs increases. This was the premise on which the investigation was based until the emergence of "evidence" the suitcase had in fact come from Malta.  If the evidence of the Toshiba owners manual was also faked then the IED may have been contained within a single speaker Toshiba radio-cassette player.
 
14.    We now come to a primary assumption that has been transferred from the (false) official scenario to the idea of a Heathrow origin.  That the IED had been transported to the Airport at which it had been introduced in a brown Samsonite containing the Malta clothing.  Is there an assumption that the UK was transported to England in a brown Samsonite containing also the Malta clothing?

15.      Why was the IED contained within a radio-cassette player?   The blindingly obvious answer (deriving from the official scenario or the Police's initial conclusion that the suitcase had come from Frankfurt) was to conceal the bomb so that it would not be detected when the bag was x-rayed and possibly hand-searched.   But was this the reason? Wouldn't an x-ray operator find this bag really suspicious anyway?   It contains only this large (supposedly twin-speaker) radio cassette, three pairs of PJs, a cardigan, a jacket two pair of trousers and an umbrella. (but initially at least no Slalom shirt.)   No shoes, socks, underwear, toiletries or personal items.  Who puts a radio-cassette in hold baggage anyway?
 
16.       How did the primary suitcase get into the Interline baggage shed?   Did it come in on another plane and was placed on the incoming belt?   What of the "Manley" break-in.  was this the route taken to move the primary suitcase from landside to airside?  Was it delivered landside at Heathrow and smuggled into the Interline baggage shed by an unknown route?
 
17.     Morag Kerr's book may have offered a clue when she described the long hours worked by the staff in the Interline baggage shed and suggested they frequently napped between infrequent activity.   Probably true but how else to deal with the boredom?   Well take a radio-cassette to work!   Presumably airside staff go through some sort of security check to get to work.   You might look a bit odd going to work with a suitcase but who is going to challenge you with a radio-cassette player!     
 
18.      If the primary suitcase was introduced at Heathrow then the only relationship with Malta is the Malta clothing.   If Abu Talb is a suspect then it is chronologically possible that the IED and the Samsonite suitcase passed through Malta  but there is no actual evidence where the Samsonite came from.   While is may be suspected that the IED was in fact built in Neuss between the 1st and 26th October 1989 there is again no evidence how it came to the UK.   One can only speculate.

19.       What if the IED was armed (by inserting the jack-plug) and put in an unconnected suitcase at Heathrow?  Of course this leaves the difficulty of where you find a suitcase at Heathrow Airport.  

20.       Is it therefore possible that the contents of the suitcase were of no significance and the trail to Malta was a complete red herring?   That the purchaser (who only vaguely resembled Megrahi) and whom Gauci claimed to have seenafter he was interviewed by Harry Bell had simply had his suitcase mislaid?    Did Gauci's reward through the US "rewards for justice" scheme in some way colour his evidence?

21.       As noted at para.10 other evidence leading to Libyan involvement (the fragment of MST-13 timer) and which made the Malta origin credible was irrefutably fabricated.   There is no credible evidence the primary suitcase really contained (within the IED) an MST-13 timer or that it contained an instruction manual.   In his hearsay "statement" (on which the trial Judges relied) Khreesat claimed to Thurman and Marshmann of the FBI that he had never built an aviation bomb in a twin speaker radio-cassette.   He may have been telling the truth.  It was also an admission he had built them in the single speaker model.

22.      Was there in fact anything inside the "Bedford" Samsonite but a single speaker Toshiba radio-cassette recorder?   Was the "Malta clothing" bomb-damaged elsewhere and strewn at the crash site to lead "like a trail of sweeties" to Malta?