last edits 17 September
Contrasting an excellent analysis recently published on Time's website, a crappy little article just appeared on the Christian Science Monitor's site. The author, Dan Murphy, reads to me like an old-time pro on the Lockerbie misinformation circuit, dusted off and put to work to counter the spreading "conspiracy theories." Here I will attempt to address every error I find in the piece, while trying not to pick a fight with Marquise and Chonyak's vapid, self-serving comments. I'm looking for Mr. Murphy's errors (aside from numerous grammatical ones).
Last week Abdelbasat al-Megrahi, the convicted murderer of 280 people in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland, celebrated the first anniversary of his release on "compassionate" grounds by the Scottish government at his lavish home near Tripoli.270, not 280. Celebrations were muted to nonexistent, depending on your source. Compassion shouldn't have quotes here; that is the legal basis of the rule. I thought a Christian might understand.
The fact that the former Libyan intelligence agent has now lived nine months longer than doctors predicted has rekindled conspiracy theories of Megrahi's innocence. The thinking goes that "compassion" for Megrahi was merely a pretext to release a man secretly known to be innocent without having to make embarrassing admissions of error.Well, "error" might not be the right word for what might've been exposed with no intervention; that's part of the thinking. The other part left out, that strongly suggests that interpretation, is Megrahi's 12 August decision to abandon his appeal, following on actions by MacAskill and his advisers that all but necessitated that outcome, and apparently being the deciding factor in his release.
Another Libyan agent tried along with Megrahi was acquitted. Megrahi was found guilty of planting the explosive device in a suitcase that was placed on an Air Malta flight...And the placing on the plane was allegedly done by accomplice Fhimah, with his airside pass. Fhimah was never found to have any links that would class him as an "agent" of Libya - at trial the prosecution even refrained from stating it as fact. There was also never any evidence found Fhimah was at the airport that day, and it's certain that they looked for any. This part is necessary to the alleged plot, and also pure speculation. Nearly all the evidence against Fhimah in general was from "star witness" Giaka, and dismissed after the judges decided Giaka was a liar after nothing but US "Justice" money and a new life there.
So the necessary accomplice was found absolutely not guilty, leaving one wondering who did help Megrahi get the bomb onto that flight while he was busy boarding another one. It must've happened somehow is the best the judges could muster.
Libya later said it was responsible for the bombing ... Recently, Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi said that the country accepted guilt to get out from under UN sanctions, and had not been truthful when it said it was responsible.Wrong. There's no disconnect. As Saif Gaddafi confessed, they "played with the words" to get out from under UN sanctions. They accepted, in 2003, "responsibility" for the "actions" of their citizens, without specifying - then or ever - that the bombing was one of those actions. No one in Libya has "admitted" their involvement. That's all American wishful thinking.
... there's no evidence to support any of a myriad of alternative theories about his guilt.Wrong. Is it really so hard to say "proof" instead of "evidence?" There is very much evidence - all fitting together nicely into a suppressed body of clues suggesting a PFLP-GC bomb originating in London. Iran did get its revenge for IA655 after all.
The Herald writes that the "Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is understood to have uncovered new evidence that strengthens the case against Talb" without actually explaining how this is "understood" or what additional evidence, if any, exists to tie him to the murders.
Wrong. It's not 100% convincing, but the Herald specified:
The SCCRC report refers to the recovery of official records from various organisations in Italy. These are thought to relate to Talb, who travelled between Cyprus, Rome, Malta, and Frankfurt in the run-up to the bombing.Next.
While Megrahi was proven to have traveled to Malta on a false passport (which he had originally lied about), and to ahve [sic] been there on the date that the explosive was placed on the plane, Talb was in Sweden at the time.
And the bomb was in London. Neither once-official suspect was involved.
The key piece of evidence against Megrahi was a fragment of the timer used for the bomb at Lockerbie
That's not evidence against Megrahi, but it does strongly suggest Libyan authorship. It was also obviously planted.
Another theory floating about is that the British government squashed possibly exculpatory evidence about Megrahi at the time of his trial and has been hiding it ever since.
Not theory. Fact. In 2008 David Miliband ordered sealed a document the defense wanted, under the vague Public Interest Immunity exemption. (Explained by him here)
Again, it isn't clear who believes this or how they could possibly know such the contents of a "secret" document.
Its contents are indeed unkown, as it remains supressed. So why the qoutes on "secret"? Personally I suspect the rumors of its contents are based on a credible report to begin with, from someone who's seen it, and it does deal with the timer. But I for one admit I don't know what's in it and I doubt we'll ever be allowed to see. In fact, no one has openly claimed to know what's in it. They've heard and suspect what they say, and Mr.Murphy has nothing better to counter it.
... the Libyan abandoned his appeal because of his terminal cancer.
Mr. Murphy would be hard-pressed to explain how cancer leads to a dropped appeal all on its own. There probably is a valid link between the two, but one he'd rather not explore. The innocent convict was bullied into surrendering his appeal, and cheap, given his going-out-of-life clearance sale. Looks like he might've even been bamboozled into selling out a bit early.
