Michael Isikoff's Foray(s) into a Culture of Counterfeiting

March 10 2011
last edits March 11

The article's context
Michael Isikoff is Newsweek’s renowned U.S. national security journalist, and the NBC and MSNBC networks’ “national investigative correspondent.” From this lofty perch, he recently decided to write up a new article about the Lockerbie bombing, which wound up being titled 'No question' Gadhafi ordered Pan Am bombing, ex-CIA official says. The current protest-turned civil war in Libya has hopes rising that colonel Muammar Gaddafi will soon be overthrown after more than four decades in power. Riding this giddy onrush of opening possibilities, it's clearly time to revisit the issue from a different angle.

Mr. Isikoff drew on two recent statements from foreigners – a Gaddafi regime defector and an Abu Nidal terrorist - that the bombing of Flight 103 was a Libyan plot, that the convicted “Lockerbie bomber” Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was involved but only in a small way (not the central one he was convicted for), and that the reviled and (perhaps) tottering Gaddafi ordered the whole thing.

The terrorist, named Abu Bakr, has told this same convoluted story years ago, and it’s been widely panned and dismissed already. The defector, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, was until a month ago Gaddafi’s justice minister. He seems to be both distancing himself from the regime and appointing himself head of the new order, and his un-explained “revelation” plays to both ambitions. But it’s being taken as both self-serving and likely true in Washington; as Mr. Isikoff noted, “in light of” this bargaining chip, Secretary of State Clinton has said she would push for the bombing case to be re-opened after nearly 20 years.

The US Justice Department seems favorable, given recent statements, to building a renewed and widened investigation. It should here be noted that the Scottish police also threatened the same thing  following Megrahi’s release from Scotland in 2009, also with the idea of pushing the scope further upwards towards Col. Gaddafi. This hasn’t yet materialized, but their case, like the FBI's remains open – with exactly one officer staffing it, last anyone checked.

What some investigation would reveal
If NBC’s “national investigative correspondent” had done his job, and looked into the Lockerbie case prior to these developments, he’d have noticed where the last investigation has gone. Megrahi and a co-conspirator, Lamin Fhimah, were indicted in 1991, with the former convicted in 2001, as the article notes. Unnoted however is the serious challenge to that conviction from an official legal review board. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), established to root out bad cases that judges didn’t catch the first two times around, announced in 2007 that in at least six ways the conviction of al-Megrahi might have been a miscarriage of justice. They approved another appeal to be heard in court again, but it never was.

If Mr. Isikoff combed a bit wider, he’d see that a small handful of UK family of the victims, a large number of legal experts in Scotland and beyond, intelligence and airline security professionals, political and religious leaders, investigative journalists (the kind that investigate), and many others of general credibility agree with the SCCRC that the trial might’ve been – or was - grossly wrong in its conclusions. (a decent listing of about 100 can be seen here.) For example, one of Scotland’s most respected lawyers, Ian Hamilton QC, who has now joined the swelling Justice for Megrahi (JFM) campaign has said "I don't think there's a lawyer in Scotland who now believes Mr Megrahi was justly convicted.” What happened instead, he and others feel, was that the Americans “hoodwinked our courts."

Anyone who investigates a bit will find that these people cite serious questions looming precariously over the whole situation. For example, a key witness, Abdul Majid Giaka, whose tales brought together the 1991 indictments, was utterly dismissed at trial. He’d find that following from that, Megrahi’s “alleged co-conspirator” Fhimah was found specifically not guilty and sent home. An accomplice was necessary for the plot alleged, placing the bomb case onto Air Malta flight 180, and none is accepted.

He might even learn that there is no direct evidence of that unaccompanied suitcase from Malta transferring onto Flight 103. There is only an inference drawn from an unverifiable computer printout that’s flatly contradicted by other, and much better, evidence.

And the centerpiece of Megrahi’s own proven connection to the bombing, purchasing the clothes inside the bomb suitcase, cannot be factually supported. The Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci supposedly identified Megrahi (among others), but his own evidence, investigated fairly, rules out the Libyan in several specific and incontrovertible ways.

One way or another, investigators seem to have gotten it entirely wrong.

Or, you could ...
Stepping into this complex milieu, Mr. Isikoff chose the investigative tack of citing the new Libyan defector and the talkative terrorist, and by talking to the men who may well have gotten it wrong in the first place. Not surprisingly, along this guided tour, not a single question over Megrahi’s conviction or the case it affirmed is to be seen.

One of the two men he spoke with was Frank Anderson, CIA Near East affairs chief between 1991-1995, and now president of the Middle East Policy Council think tank, "your source for unbiased assessments of who’s too evil to be left in charge of Libya." The other interviewee is Richard Marquise, the man who headed up the FBI’s investigation in its crucial second half, and who still disputes the findings of the last court, at the very least over their dismissal of Giaka. The entirety of the SCOTBOM probe Marquise oversaw, in conjunction with the Scottish police, is summed up thusly by Isikoff:

… U.S. and British officials were able to wrap up an investigation that uncovered forensic and other evidence linking the planting of the bomb to Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer.

“Uncovered” might not be the right word there, but such clues did come to be in the evidence chain and some did point right to Libya and/or Megrahi.

For example, there were three whole important witnesses against Megrahi. One, Giaka, was dismissed at trial, and another, Edwin Bollier, is a known fabricator and spinner of bizarre tales mostly dismissed at trial. The third, Tony Gauci, was an idiot coached by his brother, who never really identified Megrahi but did rule him out, and who changed his story to fit Megrahi a little better, which version was somehow accepted at trial. At least two of these three seem to have been paid in excess of $2 million for their bogus testimony, according to Scotish police and other documents uncovered by the SCCRC. That’s not how one “uncovers” any kind of valid “evidence,” and as we can see, none was so obtained.

There also exist serious anomalies around every crucial piece of physical evidence, leading tactics, circular and suspect reasoning, and really just a shocking string of egregious malpractice down the line. (Consider the supposed reasoning that brought Scots detective Harry Bell to first decide on Megrahi, for another telling example).

If anyone had direct access to the full scope of this systematic abuse of truth, it would be Isikoff's other source, Richard Marquise, who just firmly loads the weight of world affairs on his sure and square shoulders. "We always hoped that had we gotten (access to Megrahi and Fhimah) they would start to roll,” he told Isikoff. That is, they might reveal who told them to carry out this bizarre and evidence-free plot. "There was always an expectation that we would get further up the chain."

Don't bounce this check, folks
Unlike Mr. Marquise, the other official interviewed, Frank Anderson, likely had no role in or direct knowledge of the investigation. For whatever reason, however, his statement was the headline, distilled from his summation:

"There are two things that you can take to the bank. The first one is, Pan Am 103 was perpetrated by agents of the Libyan government. And the second thing is, that could not have happened without Moammar Gadhafi's knowledge and consent. There is no question in my mind that Moammar Gadhafi authorized the bombing of Pan Am 103."

Telling people they can take those to the bank is counterfeiting. But it’s the same culture – secrecy and appeal to authority slathered on to lubricate the insertion of politically useful fiction into the real-world evidence slot - that has underpinned this whole case so far.

Mr. Anderson has perhaps just been duped, and isn’t aware how deceptive his affirmation is. His relevant expertise is on Libya and its troublesome regime, not the investigation and trial. And his conclusion that Gaddafi had to have ordered the attack is not even rocket surgery to guess in the affirmative. The whole motive is supposed to have been the early 1986 U.S. air raids on both Tripoli and Benghazi (ah, how times are changing), which killed the colonel’s baby daughter. It took almost three years to exact the overblown revenge so eerily similar to what the Iranians were suspected of plotting just then. But clearly, if it happened as Marquise et al. found (it didn't, not that it matters), it would probably run up to Gaddafi himself.

But people are playing dumb all of a sudden and pretending to need proof of an order from on high, when Libya was sanctioned to the tune of tens of billions lost and thousands dead, in order to punish or destabilize the whole regime, just on the presumption. This punishment only ended with Gaddafi surrendering his indicted agents for trial, losing one to prison, paying a hefty $2.7 billion settlement, foreswearing all terrorist (“revolutionary”) activities, foregoing a nuclear deterrent, sealing trade deals too sweet to refuse, and so on.

And again, by the best evidence read fairly, he may well have done this all without once ordering the bombing of Pan Am 103.

This patient re-building from the epic abuses of the past was tolerated until about now, and it’s to be all yanked away by this bizarre US-supported protest/war. Ideally for some, the proceeds of Gaddafi's work will be handed to Mr. Abdel-Jalil, who will in trade find some “proof” to hang his old boss with and close the old chapter for good. Gaddafi delenda est. He must be dust. It has been demanded.

Along the way we’ll accept in stasis the original case with Megrahi, until the guilty verdict for his boss re-convinces us that was correct all along, as if there were some reason to doubt it.

How in a supposedly free media articles like this happen, over and over, with no widely-seen counter-balance,  I cannot say. Noam Chomsky (another Justice for Megrahi signatory) has some theories, but all I know is however it’s happening, our investigative correspondents like Isikoff aren’t investigating, just corresponding with the approved investigators to write the news for them. Please turn sideways and watch your head squeezing into this ever-smaller echo chamber, folks.

And hopefully, this model of news-writing will be exported to Libya soon, along with a hell of a lot of other things.

Rats, Sinking Ship, etc,

On Abdel-Jalil's "Revelation"
February 26 2011


In the last week or so, as everyone now knows, the Gaddafi regime in Libya has started falling apart. The Facebook Arab revolutions of 2011 have spread to Tripoli, and the colonel for one is not stepping aside demurely. Many hundreds or even a few thousand are now dead in by far the harshest response yet, with fighter jets strafing peaceful protestors, we hear reported (or at least suggested).

And then, somehow, the peaceful protestors have also come into control of half the country. Gaddafi and his sons have sworn to fight to the bitter end, “martyred” in a possible “civil war” Washington is still calling “protest.” Anyone else feel like we’re missing something here?

As it so happens, all this has coincided on my end with being swamped with urgent things that haven’t given me the time to catch up or comment. But I don’t have much of value to say on the situation in Libya anyway, now or in the past. I’m not deeply informed on the facts of the regime itself, and not sure how much of the track record of murder, repression, and terrorism leveled is actually true.

It’s standard form for revisionists to clarify how wicked and brutal Gaddafi is, but I only know what I’ve looked into so far, and the evidence suggests Libya was framed for perhaps the largest act among them, the bombing of Pan Am 103. So I’m confident the evil of the regime is exaggerated by at least that hefty margin. Otherwise, I’ll defer to the consensus that what’s happening there is a taking out of the trash, framed for Lockerbie or not.

But for the record numbers of new viewers visiting the Divide in recent days, I should finally comment on one bit of this that’s germane to my areas of study. It was prophesized by an anonymous commentator at professor Black’s Lockerbie Case blog on the 22nd:

What’s the betting that, sometime in the next few weeks, the following happens:

1. In the burned out ruins of a Libyan government building, someone finds definitive documentary ‘proof’ that Libya and Megrahi were responsible for Lockerbie, and/or

2. A Libyan official reveals, ‘we did it’.

The official case is now so thin that only such concoctions can save it (although it’s also crossed my mind that a prisoner will come forward who says ‘Megrahi confessed to me' – another hallmark of paper-thin cases). [source]

Two days later we learned that it was already coming true. Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, Libya’s Justice Minister, had resigned over the regime’s response to the protest/war, and suddenly revealed a dark secret he implicitly had held for years. He told this to a reporter from a Swedish newspaper, Expressen, in an unnamed Libyan city as the regime started crumbling around him. As translated for the UK Daily Fail:

“I have proof that Gaddafi gave the order about Lockerbie.” [source]

This is nothing new to most people. The whole motive was supposed to be revenge for the death of Gaddafi’s adopted baby daughter in the U.S. air raids of 1986 that were meant to kill him. And being autocratic Libya, if any Libyan agent did anything in response, it was obviously complied with orders from on high.

The “if” part is key. The obvious and glaring problem with his “revelation” is that is claims proof of a plot that there otherwise isn’t even any credible evidence for. Further, as even the Fail noted, “He did not give details of this evidence.” I’d add that he probably never will. Mr. Abdel-Jalil’s supporting reasoning is not promising either. As the Fail reported, he said the following:

“To hide it, he [Gaddafi] did everything in his power to get al-Megrahi back from Scotland.”

Hide it? Like the world would forget about their accepted guilt for such a heinous act if the man convicted was simply moved? Most people had already presumed that it ran to the top, and just the suspicion of it had Libya sanctioned heavily for eight years.

The only thing really changed with Megrahi’s move, aside from the relative lack of punishment, was the abandonment of his second appeal of conviction. There was nothing in the appeal papers about proving Gaddafi ordered the bombing. It was in fact all about how his supposed agent for that attack clearly didn’t do it – nearly the opposite.

And as far as “everything in his power,” the Fail’s story has an interesting take. They note that the eventual avenue home was compassionate release “on the grounds that he was suffering from prostate cancer and would die soon.” Did Gaddafi engineer the cancer? Of course not. “He is still alive,” they note, suggesting the grounds are faulty and the cancer perhaps fake. In context, the inference is that Gaddafi managed the early prognosis with bribes, to get his man home in order to somehow “hide” that he had ordered the Lockerbie bombing.

And why weren’t the Libyans concerned with hiding their role in the bombing at the time of the bombing itself? According to the official story this clown supports, Megrahi chose to fill his bomb luggage with Maltese clothes he bought himself, brand-new, at a small shop that serves few Arabs. He was the only customer at the time, and quite conspicuous, coming in right at closing and forcing the shopkeeper to stay open late for his notably random and suspicious shopping spree. Naturally, he was remembered when a tag on some pants was followed from the factory right to the shop where the alleged brainfart occurred.

For the IED, Megrahi or whoever chose to use the only radio in the world just made “theirs” when a company linked to the JSO (Libyan intel agency) largely cornered the market for it. They filled this JSO radio with a Semtex bomb running on a MST-13 timer, only 20 of which ever existed, all held by the JSO, we hear. The one advantage to offset the MST-13's traceability is that it could easily be set, like any number of other timers, to hit the giant target of the Atlantic ocean and bury the clues. But they chose to set it for 7:03 pm, when Flight 103 was, and was scheduled to be, twenty minutes from even the edge of open sea.

As set up before delivery on December 21, the fabled Libyan bomb bag was set to explode over land and lead investigators right to the perps in at least three amazingly precise ways. And there was no shortage of planning time - Megrahi waited for nearly three years to get this comeuppance, until just after the Iranians had sworn in-kind revenge for an airliner of theirs we shot down. (It also just so happens one of the bomb the Iranians had commissioned for this went missing weeks before the bombing, and had a style that would detonate exactly when the Libyan bomb on Flight 103 did, if it had been used. Small world!)

In addition to perfectly mimicking the revenge Iran never got, that bastard al-Megrahi might well have consciously framed himself and thus his country with his sloppy plot. If Jalil’s account and that ridiculous case argued at Camp Zeist is true, Gaddafi could only want the bomber back to strangle him. But he had the whole 1990s to do that, and as noted with outcries everywhere, the idiot who mucked up the mission was enshrined in a crystal palace for his final (years?). Something doesn't add up here.

The Daily Fail again:

If what Mr Abdel-Jalil is true, it would undermine the long-held scepticism by some in the UK that Libya and al-Megrahi were responsible for the outrage.

That’s a big if, and no. His story sews up nicely only with the paper version, where a word – guilty – defines things. The skeptics are focused on the 3-D version of the attack that actually killed people. That leaves signs that have always pointed away from Libya, and still do (Of course as we've seeen, some clues do point to Libya, but with far too many exclamation and question marks). Just because some guy in a desperate situation says something contrary does not change the evidence behind this case one bit.

If what Mr. Abdel-Jalil says were somehow true, it would suggest this:
1) Gaddafi, personally, ordered Megrahi, personally, to bomb Flight 103, or some American plane.
2) Megrahi was on Malta the day of the bombing, which is a stupid place to bomb a plane from, and has no credible evidentiary link to the bombing. He failed to follow through, after all the orders and investments, just as someone else was planting a brown hard-shell suitcase in AVE4041 up in London at about 4:30.
4) Megrahi was framed anyway, with obviously planted evidence and bribed witnesses.

That is clearly absurd, but he says he has proof of the first part. Clearly he's distancing himself from what he sees as a sinking ship, and he’s not swimming. He’s got this floatation device to reach a Western shore and bargain for asylum. As usual, such a device is filled with hot air, and floating on this one we see only a frightened and damp rat, stuttering out just what the West wants to hear.

This inflammatory and well-timed “revelation” has been widely re-broadcast, and so will make a deep impression and strengthening the fuzzy certainty over this case that grips the public mind still. I predict we’ll never see this “proof,” and perhaps 1% of the outlets running these stories now will ever run the proper follow-up article, “ex-Libyan justice minister shown to be a suck-up and a fraud.”
---
Update: Please see Ian Bell's excellent analysis of this situation. He's done it like I would have if I'd known of the second damp rat with the same allegation, and other disturbing similarities between them suggesting they're less frightened than tapped into something big behind the scenes (the something we're missing).

Update March 1: Nor seeking asylum geographically - the distancing is from the old order only, and towards the new. Mustapha Abdel-Jalil has been made the head of the new alternate government of "free Libya," laying out an ambitious national program and vision (drafted with amazing speed unless it was started before the revolt). He's rejected (overt) foreign help, and predicted with Libyan hands alone Gaddafi would "go like Hitler." And in another interview, he clarified the "to hide it" part of his Lockerbie claim, clarifying that Megrahi blackmailed Gaddafi, threatening to reveal the very role that, again, was presumed all along. This proves to many that Megrahi blackmailed Gaddafi to bribe the prison doctors to trick Kenny MacAskill into releasing him. Rube Goldberg would be just as proud of that as he would be Megrahi's bombing plot from Malta.

And further, contrary to the gist of what was found at Camp Zeist, Megrahi didn't actually do the bombing, we learn from Jalil. The convicted "Lockerbie bomber" was only "involved in facilitating things for those who did." Despite being nonsense, this too is being taken as literal truth by many, supported by a renewed "revelation" from Abu Nidal Org. terrorist Abu Bakr that Gaddafi ordered it all, the ANO was involved, and Megrahi oly peripheral. What the hell is going on here?