The "Elimination" of the Bedford Suitcase(s)

(almost complete article in progress)

Note: Having a look now at David Leppard's book, I've decided to split the old post into two new ones, joined here. The first comments below reflect the previous version. This post will discuss both tracks, an official report and a dramatic blowing-up of things by political scientists, in general terms, how they relate in altering the course of the investigation. The switch was from an obvious and useful lead that neither the Americans nor Brits wanted to follow. And it was to a confusing muck in which a new plot could eventually be "discovered" and followed.

Also, here I'll address the decidedly non-scietific aspect in how this valid forensics work was twisted to insist something it simply couldn't do - "the bomb bag had to have come from Frankfurt and before that... we'll think of something. Just give us some time, okay?"

Shuffling Aside Bedford's Baggage
Not a whisker of the Libyan guilt storyline could have emerged if not for a key decision made early on about where the bomb came in from before being loaded onto PA 103. The official presumption was that the bomb had arrived in London on Pan Am 103A, a feeder flight / flirst-leg originating in Frankfurt, West Germany. Acceptance of this premise allowed a bag from Malta, and all that was attached to that, and eventually a guilty verdict for al Megrahi,

It was clear which luggage container had held the bomb; that was named AVE4041PA, and had been loaded first with various luggage at Heathrow, then filled with bags from PA 103A. As it was finally loaded, most luggage in 4041 was from Frankfurt, so by sheer numbers the bomb would more likely be in the majority batch. Perhaps riding on that wave of thought, on March 28 1989 Senior Investigating Officer (top Scot) John Orr told investigators gathered at the Lockerbie Incident Control Center (LICC):
“Evidence from witnesses is to the effect that the first seven pieces of luggage in the container belonged to Interline passengers and the remainder was Frankfurt luggage. […] To date 14 pieces of explosive-damaged baggage have been recovered and enquiries to date suggest that on the balance of probabilities the explosive device is likely to be amongst the Frankfurt baggage items. Of all the currently identified explosion-damaged luggage all but one item originated from Frankfurt.” [1, bold was LICC italics in original]
In this Frankfurt/London distinction for those damaged, one must wonder how he categorized the “primary suitcase,” the only brown, hardshell Samsonite among them. It matched the description and approximate location (see below) of the two maroony-brown hardshell Samsonites John Bedford reported as being in the container. These were loaded well before the German feeder arrived, and as blogger "Baz" points out, the "effect" that this was all interline baggage was not from "evidence from witnesses" but from the name of the shed (interline) where the suspect bags were inserted. They therefore constituted unwanted baggage that would have to be factually shuffled aside before the eventual story could unfold as it did.

The Sciencey Stuff - Two Tracks
Two tracks we can assess in some detail are covered that way in separate posts. First I recommend
part 1
the investigation, images, and explanations of Mr. Thomas Claiden. He assembled appendix F for the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch report on the Lockerbie non-accident. Based on decent forensics reasoning, he concluded the suitcase with the bomb was almost certainly not directly on the main floor panel, but otherwise at almost floor level, outboard aft quarter, or just above the left-hand Bedford suitcase, and slid a little left into the sloped-floor overhang area. This was only published in 1990, but it's more visual, which helps one form their own opinion from the damage. I don't disagree with anything of the essence here, it just doesn't say anything.

Track two is the Indian Head Forensics Tests of 1989. The tests showed that the reading inherent in the AAIB report was correct - the bomb was one layer up and not on the main floor. So the results were the same, if more dramatic and less public in their documentation.

Ultimately, the conclusion that Frankfurt was indicated relies on a stated assumption that the Bedford cases could not possibly have been stacked one on the other. If someone had stacked them, perhaps to make room for their feet as they prepared to load from 103A, the top one would be in the exact spot of the detonation. I suspect that's what happened.

Zeist Judges' Speculation
The judges at the 2000 trial explained the significance, by universal custom taking Bedford's cases as singular, in their final opinion.
It was argued on behalf of the accused that the suitcase described by Mr Bedford could well have been the primary suitcase, particularly as the evidence did not disclose that any fragments of a hard-shell Samsonite-type suitcase had been recovered, apart from those of the primary suitcase itself. [para 25]
Bedford then took container 4041 with 6-7 cases, to the "build-up area" and went home. It was taken to meet Pan Am 103A, and the case against Megrhahi was based on the "primary suitcase" being loaded from that luggage, and that based on the fact that it wasn't on the floor. For such an important aspect of the case, the exact details of where such a bag would end up later are hard to predict well, and impossible to predict with certainty. The judges are clearly aware of this:
"It was submitted that there was evidence that an American Tourister suitcase, which had travelled from Frankfurt, fragments of which had been recovered, had been very intimately involved in the explosion and could have been placed under the suitcase spoken to by Mr Bedford."
That might seem like a good clue why this bag wasn’t on the floor, but with a usual spherical propagation, the blast could cause the same damage if this suitcase was above it, below it, or beside it, depending on how they were arranged. That non sequitur leads to mental gymnastics to the effect that if a Frankfurt bag got under the ones Bedford saw, then anything is possible and two Samsonites are thus smeared out of relevance to make way for their brown Samsonite (I'm fairly sure it's the one reported by Giaka).
"That would have required rearrangement of the items in the container, but such rearrangement could easily have occurred when the baggage from Frankfurt was being put into the container on the tarmac at Heathrow. It is true that such a rearrangement could have occurred, but if there was such a rearrangement, the suitcase described by Mr Bedford might have been placed at some more remote corner of the container."
They might have been pushed over there, and never seen since, who knows. But we're quite certain they were not simply stacked up and pushed a few inches to the nearest 'corner.' The only thing solid they seemed to have was “the effect of forensic evidence was that the suitcase could not have been directly in contact with the floor of the container.” Emphasis mine, wishful reasoning theirs. See the above section for what that was all about.

Nowhere along the line were intact suitcases matching Mr. Bedford's story ever been produced intact and explained away. It's as if they both just disappeared. Or blew into tiny bits.

9 comments:

Caustic Logic said...

Alright, Mr. Haseldine, that wouldn't be fair to post this right after the ban without allowing you to mention... Whose Tourister suitcase was that "under" the primary bag?

No links please. ;)

Caustic Logic said...

Hmmm... I thought I'd heard this was Bernt Carlsson's suitcase, but maybe that was just speculation or what have you. In fact though it's supposed to have come off of PA103A so that's a clue against that. Carlsson didn't come in that flight, and I don't have any clues at hand his bag went into AVE4041. If it did though, it's of evidentiary relevance, being among the bags Bedford loaded, probably.

baz said...

I am very happy that you are looking in depth at this central evidential issue and I hope my own modest attempts to highlight this issue are of some help.

When I started looking into "Lockerbie", back when the world was a ball of gas, both the "official" version of events and the alternate "drug conspiracy theory" agreed that the primary suitcase arrived at Heathrow from Frankfurt.

It was from reading David Leppard's "On the Trail of Terror" (supposedly a record of the Lockerbie investigation but actually a record of how it went "wrong") that I realised there was something fundamentally amiss with the way Heathrow and the "Kamboj" bags had been eliminated.

I didn't grasp this straight away. In fact in took a couple of years for the penny to drop with the realisation that the "drug conspiracy theory" was also a hoax.

You quote CSP Orr's recorded remarks of the 28.5.89 highlighting the words "on the balance of possibilities". This seems to have simply a ratio between the number of Interline bags and Online bags. I presume Orr's position was that 100% of the bags in AVE4041 PA were either Interline or Online bags. The possibility of a third category of suitcase, a bag introduced into the Interline Baggae Shed by an unauthorised route, does not seem to have occurred. As AVE4041 PA contained no bags checked in at Heathrow Orr's task was to determine at which overseas Airport (Frankfurt, Larnaca, Brussels or Vienna) the primary suitcase was introduced.

In my view the words that should be in bold type are "evidence from witnesses is to the effect that the first seven pieces of luggage were Interline bags" with "to the effect" underlined!

Evidence from Bedford was that the first 5-6 bags were Interline bags. His evidence was that Kamboj told him he (Kamboj) had placed the two "extra" bags there. Kamboj denied this when he was interviewed by the Police saying this was not his job (a claim he modified at Camp Zeist stating he occassionally helped out the baggage handlers a claim not corroborated.)

Of course between Kamboj (allegedly) talking to Bedford and being interviewed by Police the plane had exploded!

The only way evidence from witnesses was "to the effect" the two "Kamboj" bags were Interline bags was that they could not possibly have been Online bags.

While the Indian Head tests concluded that the "primary suitcase" was not in contact with the floor of AVE4041 PA (and I suspect the question of whether the bag was flat or upright may be relevant)my objection to the dismissal of the "Kamboj bags" was based on guesswork as to the position of the bags within AVE4041PA. (Therefore a detailed analysis of the Indian Head tests may miss the point!)

The trial Judges speculated that the brown Samsonite seen buy Bedford had been moved "out of harm's way" because the defence objected that no such bag was amongst the bomb damaged luggage (unless it was the "primary suitcase".) If it was "out of harm's way" then it should have been recovered intact.

As Leppard noted the central conclusion of the Indian Head tests was this "Kamboj was in the clear". Nobody really knew who placed those bags there or why but it was supposedly of no relevance whatsoever because the primary suitcase had come from Frankfurt.

My central point is this :- You cannot "eliminate" these bags in theory only in fact. If as Orr claims the two "Kamboj bags" were Interline bags then whose bags were they?

Caustic Logic said...

"My central point is this :- You cannot "eliminate" these bags in theory only in fact. If as Orr claims the two "Kamboj bags" were Interline bags then whose bags were they?"

And why couldn't they be produced from their "remote corner?" That might have helped eliminate them from suspicion, but they were unable to even come up with the, Or even two fakes. Would that have been so hard, considering the other planting they were doing?

Of course the elimination of these bags was based first and foremost on wishful thinking.

You'll be happy to know I've finally ordered Leppard's interesting book for myself. Should be here in a few days. :)

baz said...

Thank God for that! Leppard's book was widely derided because of the clunking switch from the "PFLP-GC" to "Libya" but he was merely following the course of the investigation. The central point is that Leppard himself saw nothing wrong with the "elimination" of Heathrow sided 100% with the Scottish Police (and RARDE) while criticising "the Germans" in harsh and even xenophobic terms ("their bland Teutonic logic"!) Good reading!

Rolfe said...

To be fair, Paul Foot points up the utter lunacy of the way the judges handwaved away the Bedford bags in his Private Eye report - dated 2001, I think. That was where I first read it, with my jaw on the floor.

I thought at the time there must be more to it than that, that there was some other explanation Foot hadn't included that would explain the apparent judicial insanity. But hey, when I read the court transcript, there wasn't.

Looking back, I think that's why I never gave much credence to all the Frankfurt bag-switch theorising. Who needs that when you've got the crux of the explanation right there, in Bedford's evidence proven and standing up in court. Put that together with the 38-minute detonation, and why are we even thinking about other explanations?

Don't bother, I know....

Caustic Logic said...

Rolfe! Hello!

Looking back, I think that's why I never gave much credence to all the Frankfurt bag-switch theorising. Who needs that when you've got the crux of the explanation right there, in Bedford's evidence proven and standing up in court. Put that together with the 38-minute detonation, and why are we even thinking about other explanations?

Indeed, and looking at the forensics, and bomb placement necessary, there's no reason to consider any airport. You simply cannot trust fate to get your bag on the lower levels of the outboard end of the container. Someone in the know needs to place it, and that can only happen for Flight 103 at Heathrow.

So, they find a way of "eliminating" the story of Bedford and thus the airport, claiming to "prove" German origin or further out. No matter how implausible that may seem, part of the floor was protected! Which Proves! ???

baz said...

Paul Foot's "Flight from Justice" particularly the summary of the evidence and the Judgement was really good. In pointing out that Heathrow was the only Airport at which there is actual evidence of the introduction of a brown Samsonite "Flight from Justice" is at odds with virtually everything published in Private Eye before or since on the subject. (Save for the article "Lockerbie: Heathrow Connection" published during the trial.)

In fact I pointed out to Paul Foot five years before the trial that the primary suitcase was introduced at Heathrow. Perhaps it was only with the trial that the penny dropped or he was loathe to acknowledge a debt to David Leppard's "On the Trail of Terror". ("Flight from Justice" is critical of Leppard's Sunday Times articles - perhaps rightly so.)

There was one central point I wished to make in respect of John Orr's statement to investigators at the Lockerbie Incident Ccontrol Centre of the 28.3.89 that "evidence from witnesses was to the effect that the first seven pieces of luggage in AVE4041 belonged to Interline passengers."

Without studying the statements themselves the "investigators" would not know that this claim was untrue. Amongst those present was Richard Marquise who has nothing to say on the decision to "eliminate" Heathrow and had no objection to being deceived. I also note from Leppard that Orr delegated to Harry Bell and Stewart Henderson the task of refuting the "German" claims that a "Khreesat" bomb must have been introduced at Heathrow.

Caustic Logic said...

Baz said:
In fact I pointed out to Paul Foot five years before the trial that the primary suitcase was introduced at Heathrow. Perhaps it was only with the trial that the penny dropped or he was loathe to acknowledge a debt to David Leppard's "On the Trail of Terror". ("Flight from Justice" is critical of Leppard's Sunday Times articles - perhaps rightly so.)
There's got to be an interesting story behind your decision to pursue London introduction as far back as 1996. It does pop out, though, from Leppard's book, which I too feel indebted to. It's a mixed effect to me - on the surface he's clearly parroting the official line, fawning praise, relentless Kraut-skewering. Didn't he call this "wasn't on the floor" conclusion one of the most brilliant forensic discoveries ever?

Beneath the surface, am I sensing an interwoven savvy about the twists and turns it was all taking? I can almost sense it revealing itself with backwards talk like that, prominent errors, and so on. Really, why explain Bedford's story at all instead of just glossing over it? Who needs to know what color either bag was?