Toshiba RT-SF 16 Radios and Libyan Guilt

Undated
last edit March 1 2011

It was forensically determined that the model of radio carrying the bomb that brought down PA103 was a Toshiba RT-SF16 BomBeat radio cassette player, a small black-cased unit with twin-speakers. The radio was identified, in an often bizarre process as it's recorded, by fragments of circuit board and melted case plastics found blasted into surrounding clothes and luggage. And it was confirmed by fragments from the paper user's manual, one a full sheet pronouncing the model plain as day, torn up badly by the thousands-degree Semtex supernova a few inches away (below, left).

That last find, called PK/689, is just too much. Decky Horton thought it had been completely intact when she turned it in, and said so under oath at Camp Zeist. It's been explained the damage to the sheet might have been from forensics testing, and the bomb, apparently, did just about nothing to it.

The science was said to find the manual was not folded at the time of blast, meaning it was outside its narrow box, perhaps way out amongst the clothes. That becomes a bit more plausible. But then why were other bits of the same manual blasted into the blue babygro thought to be wrapped directly around the bomb radio box? Of all the fishy clues that suggest planting, this fishy plant would surely grow the most fish if planted.

These clues appeared to me before the context. I was asking why it had to be the RT-SF16 that wound up in the rubble, to necessitate something so obviously foul? The answer I found is put forth by, for example, the esteemed Richard Marquise, onetime overseer of the FBI's investigation. In a "letter to" Lucy Adams, Marquise pointed out how the model of radio itself indicates Libyan guilt:

"It was a senior Libyan official who had ordered the majority of all the Toshiba radios similar to that which carried the bomb. This official also talked in 1986 about putting a bag on a British or American flight from Malta. Ask why?"

As for the talk of bombing planes, Mr. Marquise will be aware that was a dubious claim of desperate defector A.M. Giaka. The official referred to is Said Rashid, head of JSO operations section, who "asked" Giaka himself - a driver for the JSO - to write a report about bombing planes. It's clearly a rubbish claim, among those first offered on the FBI's boat in mid-1991 in order to win witness protection for him and his wife and impending baby. It was dismissed by the Zeist judges, along with Giaka in general, and virtually everything else he said.

As for Rashid's company's purchase of the radios in question, another unbiased expert, Lord Advocate (prosecution) for the Scottish Crown at trial, Lord Colin Boyd, said in remarks on 28 August 2001:

"As if in confirmation of Libya's involvement during the preparation for the trial evidence was obtained from Toshiba which showed that during October 1988 20,000 black Toshiba RT-SF 16 radio cassettes, the type used in the Pan Am bomb, were shipped to Libya. Of the total world-wide sales of that model 76% were sold to General Electric Company of Libya whose chairman was Said Rashid.

Accordingly, its clear that the move of interest by investigators away from the PFLPGC and towards Libya was as a result of the evidence which was discovered and not as a result of any political interference in the investigation."

October 1988, just two month before the bombing, they made sure to conspicuously corner the market on the exact radio they'd turn into a bomb. Not wise, unless you're framing yourself. Some confirmation of the Libyan BomBeat connection did come from the trial:

"Two employees of Toshiba confirmed in their evidence that their company had supplied 20,000 Toshiba RT SF 16 Bombeat radio cassette recorders to Libya in October 1988. It is alleged that the bomb was contained within such a cassette recorder." LTBU daily report, 26 July 2000

Well that certainly depends on how pure the evidence itself was to begin with. But if we accept this claim, there would seem to be a rough correlation - all things being equal - that if you find a SF-16, it's about 76% likely to be JSO-owned, at least until it was stolen from them. That still leaves a 24% rate of non-JSO probability, and of course all things are not equal.

So the allegation per Lord Boyd is that the Libyans first branded this one radio model - and its amazingly durable manuals - as JSO material. And then they made one of those, of all the models on Earth they could have chosen, into a bomb for such a major operation. And they'd do this using a highly-identifiable and exclusive timer set so it would blow up over land and leave the clues to find. Including the conspicuously purchased Maltese clothing tied right to Megrahi. Packed in the case the Giaka "saw" Megrahi holding the day before the bombing. Sent through three airports unaccompanied but without a single trace at the one airport of them that had excellent security and delivered all their evidence.

It's an insane plot, and standard fare for this investigation. Another stupid move by the villains or, depending on your point of view, another sign of frame-up, with no opportunity to lost to emphasize the direction. Libyan-exclusive everything. I don't think that's normally how terrorists work when they're writing their own script.

Abdusamad on Malta

"The Biggest Lie" They Could Find
8 November 2010
last edits 14 Nov

It's no longer a secret that "Lockerbie bomber" Abdelbaset Ali al Megrahi was on the island nation of Malta on 20 and 21 December, 1988. But his passing through Luqa airport there on the morning of the bombing of Pan Am 103 was a secret at the time, since he was traveling under a false identity created by the Libyan government - Ahmed Khlaifa Abdusamad. (see passport below).

We can thus presume that Megrahi was on a secret mission of some sort, on behalf of Tripoli, and likely something illegal. No one can be certain just what his mission was, and there's been to this day no satisfactory explanation from the Libyan side.

It's not sure just who first learned that Abdusamad and Megrahi were the same person, nor when this happened. But if it was found out early enough, and by the CIA, it could well have been the deciding factor to drag the Libyan into the spotlight of suspicion, his hated nation training behind.

In their 2001 Opinion of the Court accompanying Megrahi's conviction, the Zeist judges explain the false identity's origin and early use:

On 15 June 1987 the first accused was issued with a passport with an expiry date of 14 June 1991 by the Libyan passport authority at the request of the ESO who supplied the details to be included. The name on the passport was Ahmed Khalifa Abdusamad. Such a passport was known as a coded passport.  There was no evidence as to why this passport was issued to him. It was used by the first accused on a visit to Nigeria in August 1987, returning to Tripoli via Zurich and Malta, travelling at least between Zurich and Tripoli on the same flights as Nassr Ashur who was also travelling on a coded passport. It was also used during 1987 for visits to Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Cyprus.  [paragraph 87]

The earlier indictments of Megrahi and Fhimah, issued November 1991, gave different uses of the identity. On 22 August, 1987, "Abdusamad" flew from Zurich to Malta, stayed at the Holiday Inn there, and returned to Tripoli the next day. This trip was made "along with the said Nassr Ashur, who was then using a passport in the false name and using the false identity of Nassr Ahmed Salem." [points (e) (m)]

And then after a long break, he went out as Abdusamad only once in 1988 - on 20 December, when he flew with Fhimah from Tripoli to Malta, and again the next morning for the return trip, this time with Mohammed Abouagela Masud. [point (p)] The Zesit judges agreed that "the only use of this passport in 1988 was for an overnight visit to Malta on 20/21 December, and it was never used again." [para 87]

A supposedly key piece of evidence for Megrahi's guilt occurred only some days after the 14 November public announcement of the indictments. In a November 1991 interview with Pierre Salinger (I can't pin down the date), Megrahi denied being Abdusamad or being on Malta the day of the bombing. This was presented, for one, in the recent STV documentary Lockerbie Bomber: Sent Home To Die [23:18]

"You accuse me falsely. ... On 20 December and 21, at that time I wasn't there. Believe me, I was here in Tripoli with my family."

The editors had FBI lead investigator Richard Marquise follow the clip by saying "I realize that being a liar doesn't make you a terrorist murderer. But I think, again, it adds credibility to all the other factors that we led up to at that point." And Marquise is quick to offer up this lie, as one of his two or three points, nearly every chance he gets. This repeat play is itself a sign that he knows "all the other factors" need all the help they can get. At least once, he's called this "the biggest lie" the Libyan had told.

Megrahi denied being a member of the Libyan Intelligence Service; he did not know Abdusamad; and he did not know MEBO. All were proven at trial to be lies. However, his biggest lie was his claim that on December 20-21 he had not been in Malta: "I was here in Tripoli with my family believe me." Why should anyone believe any of his claims today after his lies in 1991? [source]

This early repudiation has been a verbal rope used by Marquise and many others, time and again over the years, to tie Megrahi to the bombing. In retrospect, he should probably have come clean as much as possible, but bare days after the shocking announcement, and revelation of his secret presence, that didn't happen. It seems cover-up won, at least for a moment. Perhaps it was reflexive on Megrahi's part, not grasping the reality of the charges against him, or a firm order from callous superiors despite Megrahi's own pleas. Either way, it was an unfortunate move on the part of the accused to say these words to a watching world, and one of the few things he actually did that contributed to his conviction.

The Zeist judges, considering in 2000 and 2001, referred to the 1991 interview in lieu of live testimony, which both accused declined to offer (they felt it was wiser to let the lawyers do the talking henceforth). Referring to the crucial visit, the judges mused:

It is possible to infer that this visit under a false name ... was a visit connected with the planting of the [explosive] device. Had there been any innocent explanation for this visit, obviously this inference could not be drawn. The only explanation that appeared in the evidence was contained in his interview with Mr Salinger, when he denied visiting Malta at that time and denied using the name Abdusamad or having had a passport in that name. Again, we do not accept his denial. [paragraph 88]

He was of course no longer denying his presence at the time, his representatives having surrendered to the Crown the passport with his photo and stamped 20 December, Malta. But Megrahi's, his counsel's, and his government's continued silence over this mission, presumably not bombing-related, allowed this inference that it was bombing-related to be possible (or does simple imagination do that? See comments below).

Besides pretending to genius status for rejecting a moot denial made to someone else a decade ago, the judges managed to bolster it with the other weak points to collectively sort-of-justify saying "guilty." An act of imagination, and otherwise it was down to the evidence that he actually was planning a bombing at the time.

And it's this class of clues, as Mr. Marquise likely knows, that needs some help. He called on the same imaginative reading of "Abdusamad" as support for the evidentiary case. But in reality there's much to suggest the oppposite - the hard evidence may have been planted and bribed into being in order to support the fabricated case against that suspicious-looking Megrahi and his false passport.

"Take Taggs From Air Malta"

The Case Against Fhimah, part one
May 30 2010
edits June 5

Everyone who accepts Abdelbaset Ali al Megrahi's guilt for the PA103 bombing agrees he couldn't have acted alone. Speculation runs primarily upward to Col. Gaddafi, but also sidewise to his imagined ground level accomplices. Only one was ever clearly fingered, originally as a JSO (Libyan intelligence) operative: Lamin Khalifah Fhimah. It was decided he was working with Libyan Arab Airlines at Malta’s Luqa airport only as cover for his JSO plotting with Megrahi on Malta.

The 1991 indictments against both accused are based on Fhimah penetrating the airport system, up to and including getting the bomb case onto Air Malt flight KM180. As of the 2000 trial, the final Opinion of the Court says, “the Crown no longer suggest that the second accused was a member of the Libyan Intelligence Service,” though his LAA "cover" employment was still acknowledged. Aside from this curious reversal, the Crown maintained a string of “inferences” regarding Fhimah’s December 1988 activity. The Zeist judges considered these claims and rightly dismissed them as “speculation rather than inference.”

These supporting points will be dealt with separately, with this article focused on what the judges called “the principal piece of evidence against [Fhimah],” being the clues read from “two entries in his 1988 diary.” One of these pages is shown below.

It was in April 1991 that Scottish police retrieved Fhimah’s work diary “from the offices of Medtours, a company which had been set up by the second accused and Mr Vassallo.” with the best quote miners around, the investigation managed to glean these two entries, described in the final opinion's paragraph 84:

At the back of the diary there were two pages of numbered notes. The fourteenth item on one page is translated as “Take/collect tags from the airport (Abdulbaset/Abdussalam)”. The word ‘tags’ was written in English, the remainder in Arabic.

On the diary page for 15 December there was an entry, preceded by an asterisk, “Take taggs from Air Malta”, and at the end of that entry in a different coloured ink “OK”. Again the word ‘taggs’ (sic) was in English.

These were taken as a careless plotter jotting down clues of his plot in a diary he kept. He even wrote “tags” in English lettering to make sure the Brits he was targeting could come back and read it easily. The judges explain further:

The Crown maintained that the inference to be drawn from these entries was that the second accused had obtained Air Malta interline tags for the first accused, and that as an airline employee he must have known that the only purpose for which they would be required was to enable an unaccompanied bag to be placed on an aircraft.

The three Scottish judges rightly dismissed the bolded assertion: "it would be going too far to infer that he was necessarily aware that they were to be used for the purpose of blowing up anaircraft." Finally, they summarized their opinion on this evidence and inferences in paragraph 85:

There is no doubt that the second accused did make the entries in the diary to which we have referred. In the context of the explosive device being placed on KM180 at Luqa in a suitcase which must have had attached to it an interline tag to enable it to pass eventually on to PA103, these entries can easily be seen to have a sinister connotation, particularly in the complete absence of any form of explanation.
[…]
Had it been necessary to resolve this matter, we would have found it a difficult problem.

However due to a lack of any single clear outside clue, they could not read much into it. Giaka had stories, but the judges didn’t believe them, and otherwise it was nothing but Crown speculation:

While therefore there may well be a sinister inference to be drawn from the diary entries, we have come to the conclusion that there is insufficient other acceptable evidence to support or confirm such an inference, […] In these circumstances the second accused falls to be acquitted.

If the judges had sufficient clues before forcing them back to consider these entries, it sounds like they could well have accepted his guilt; they cite the entries as fairly suspicious given the “absence of any form of explanation.” But that’s a silly thing to expect – these are quick notes by Fhimah to Fhimah, to access his own brain. Of course he’s not going to explain the background of each note.

But some clues could be gathered by snooping around a bit, as famed reporter Ed Bradley did for a 60 Minutes segment in 1999 [transcript]. After explaining the supposed importance of the diary entries, and covering the lack of evidence for any suspicious suitcase coming from Malta, Bradley returned to those odd entries.

People here who knew Fhimah say he wanted to get his airline’s [Libyan Arab Airlines] baggage tags printed in Malta for less than it cost to print them in Libya. That way he could make a commission on the deal. They say he wanted the Air Malta tags as a sample to show the printer. And there are other notations in this diary that support that story. On December 10th Fhimah wrote “go to the printer.” Another note in the back of the diary says “contact the printer.”

It’s not jotted down right next to his alleged slip-up, but the non-terrorist explanation is to be found. The unusual lettering might suggest he was going to an English-speaking printer on Malta (Maltese and English are the official languages there). This distinct possibility lessens the clarity and importance of the central alleged clue. The other supporting guesses were weaker yet as evidence, and clearly it was no mere technicality that Fhimah was acquitted. There really was “no case to answer” as he plead. A little known fact is that Scots law allows judges three rulings: guilty, not guilty, and not proven (meaning likely guilty but not clear enough to say so). The judges chose the clearer statement “not guilty.”

And if Megrahi’s necessary airside accomplice were truly innocent of the charges, that leaves us with nothing but speculation as to who did assist the bomber. Because Megrahi couldn’t have acted alone, if he acted at all.

Star Witness Giaka

(incomplete - last edit 9 Nov 2010)

Basics and Prosecution Case
It seems the first faint outlines of the Megrahi/Fhimah plot "proven" at Camp Zeist was first sketched out by Libyan defector turned CIA/FBI informant/fabricator. Named Abdul Majid Giaka, he had first made contact with the CIA a few months before Lockerbie, and soon proved useful in pinning the blame on Libya. Giaka entered DoJ witness protection in mid-1991, and his evidence given to a grand jury a few months later sealed the deal for an indictment in mid-November, leading to UN sanctions, more sanctions, and later the Camp Zeist trial and Libya's "admission of responsibility."

There are plenty other sources out there on Giaka, but one of my own can be read here:
A Three-Year Test Drive, Parked 8 Years, and then a High-Speed Crash, pt 1 A detailed article I wrote in January, chronicling his emergence from a CIA informant to FBI witness.

I still haven't done part 2, which would cover his credibility being thrashed at trial in 2000. His own late-appearing fantastical stories and the CIA's embarrasing revealed admissions that they didn't trust him either both contributed to this. Nearly all his testimony was discarded, aside from his identifying Megrahi as an agent of Libya's JSO intelligence agency. The reason given for dismissing the "star witness" are essentially as follows:

"It is also in our view clear that whatever may have been his original reason for defection, his continued association with the American authorities was largely motivated by financial considerations. […] Information provided by a paid informer is always open to the criticism that it may be invented in order to justify payment, and in our view this is a case where such criticism is more than usually justified." [para 42]

And yet they seem to accept he was doing the inventing all on his own, or that no one else on the prosecution side had the same thought and just naively assumed his info was genuine. The judges seem to take in good faith that the Crown and its associates were not farming Giaka for framing Megrahi, and that no "Contempt of Court" had occurred in this probable con operation. The Judges' decision then considered the following evidence of most importance.

- They didn't even know about his $2 million payment from the Department of Justice, covered, along with payments to the Gaucis, in the post Rewards for Injustice, and covered better yet by "Rolfe" in the post Rewards and Bribery.

- The CIA's central role in framing al Megrahi centers on their use of Giaka, an issue explored in the essay "As the layers are peeled away..." The context there is former CIA personnell urging a "narrow" inquiry into Megrahi's release - nothing earlier than that should be looked at at all.

- A further unusual post collects the responses of many to Richard Marquise's lame insistence, in 2010, that Giaka was telling the truth.

Frequently Un-Asked Questions

First posted 1/16/10
by Caustic Logic
lat edit 3/13/10

Recently, I started an on-line discussion to take questions from skeptics, in an attempted dialog that worked alright, considering. I started with a provocative statement that they should stop and consider if al Megrahi were really innocent. I kept arguing back instead of just taking note of the responses they gave. But I did take note, and can summarize the responses in categories. Below is a list based on that, but expanded to include more detail-oriented questions or points they should have posed.:

1) I don’t care, I don’t wan to think about it, click.
This is the ultimate stumper – aside from someone who doesn’t even hear your call or answer the phone, nothing’s more impossible to argue with. I have no rebuttal link for this one. It's your best bet if you're afraid of knowledge, and it's not too late to stop reading now.
Subsets of group 1 include those who do and don’t have strong opinions on the case despite their conscious denial of knowledge. I suppose that can't be helped.

2) Why should I care?
Dialog is now possible. This one should be easy enough to answer. 270 people were killed, and the real killers escaped unnamed as the Libyans have been harrassed for decades to distract us. Talk about "giving comfort to terrorists around the world" (to paraphrase Robert Mueller) Most of the world already knows or suspects this; it's mostly Americans who are grossly behind the curve on the issue.

3) Officials already did prove their case with evidence and a defense, and… whatever, and I see no reason to doubt their work.
There are tree sub-versions of this:

• we have no right to question an official verdict (rare)
• we have no reason to question the findings here (more common, often code for the above)
• I don’t care enough to even consider reason or rights at all. (by far the most common implicit response)

The middle variant is an inherently reasonable approach to take, presuming only that one doesn’t know the specifics and knows that such proceding are supposed to be fair. However, manipulation is possible and when one finds or is presented with equally reasonable cause to suspect it, even faintly, such defense of ignorance no longer holds.

4) Do something with this other than tell me.
The "take it to the cops, kid" approach. Get off the internet and launch an investigation, prove your case in court, have a news story written in the New York Times, etc. This purports to be the most constructive offering, but also reflects an ironic anti-question stance. "I'll consider your questioning of the answers I was given by 'the authorities' as soon you've proven your one solid answer and convinced the same 'authorities' to tell me these new answers. Until it's official, it's just words." It's almost as if reality itself has no power to lend its weight to words. Either that, or we're hopelessly unable to discern that reality and must blindly rely on official decisions. Seems a depressing and almost Orwellian mindset but it seems to underpin most of the protest I've seen.

5) Circumstantial clues re: Megrahi’s activities and financing.
As the only evidence-based retort, this emerged as it had just made the news again at the moment I was asking for input. Megrahi had a mysterious business office in Zurich, and millions of dollars in a Swiss bank account. Oh, and since we know he’s a terrorist, that’s probably terrorizing money. So that proves he’s a terrorist, and his business was just a front for terrorizing. Again, a closer look reveals a different picture and shows how people's imaginations can run away with them.

6) Evidence isn't Proof
(once accepting some valid problems with the evidence and the case against Megrahi) A few problems with the evidence and the case doesn’t automatically prove (insert opponent’s assertion and/or a strawman here). Repeat process for each of the 188 points raised.

Other Questions that Might have been asked:
7) There are so many competing confusing theories but just one clear “official story.”
For whatever reason, there's been a lot of distracting noise and bad theorizing about this issue, like during the entire 1990s. CIA, drugs, ... Don't let it get you down. Simply check out the London Origin theory. It's clearer than you can imagine.

8) Okay, if Megrahi didn't do it, then who did, smart guy?
We think the "how" is addressed by the above linked London theory. There's no evidence of Libyan involvement there, nor of anyone really, in the sense of direct evidence that's been admitted. But the timing of the explosion, 38 minutes after takeoff, matched perfectly the average time delay of the airliner-altimeter bombs made just weeks earlier by Jordanian intelligence officer and "one of our guys" Marwan Khreesat.

Of course the PFLP-GC cell he was working with in West Germany (undercover, perhaps twice so) was busted in October 1988, but some members and at least one live altimeter bomb slipped away. If one of those was loaded at London, it was probably by a splinter off that PFLP-GC cell, managing to get one or perhaps two of Khreesat's devices onto PA 103, in the corner of AVE4041.

9) They had to be Libyan, because of the MEBO timer sold only to Libya.
Indeed, a chunk of a circuit board was found matching the MST-13 timer made by rather slippery Swiss company Mebo. Mebo says they made only 20 of these, on order for Libyan external intelligence (terrorism-linked) JSO. Several have been seized in two raids in 1986 and 1988 in Africa (Togo and Senegal). And then one was found at Lockerbie, say a few RARDE scientists.

Classified at PT/35(b) on its discovery in May 1989, it was only identified as a Libya-linked MST-13 a year later with held from J "Tom" Thurman and the CIA. This altered the investigation's course from a Khreesat-style altimeter bomb and allowed for multiple ascents (Malta-Frakfurt-London). And of course it pointed to Tripoli as the sponsors of the terror.

Some accept the timer bit as evidence, but look for other sources of the MST-13 to other groups: Mebo sales to others, fabrications made by the CIA or simply a knock-off company, a Western-seized copy cut up and planted in the debris? Mebo claims it handed some MST-13 handmade prototypes to East German Stasi, who in turn had backed the PFLP-GC. But this was not from a (brown) prototype but a (green-ish) machine-made board like those seized in Africa. Such speculation on alternate meanings for the MST-13 hasn't led anywhere yet.

This blogger concludes too many good reasons to discount PT/35(b) as valid evidence, and too few to accept it.
Main Post on the timer fragment PT/35(b)

10) The bomb came from Malta, which is where Megrahi was on that very day.
The bomb that brought down Flight 103 is alleged to have been introduced in Malta, sent on Air Malta flight 180 (KM180) to Frankfurt, and sent by its tags onto Flight 103. Indeed, KM180 took off from Malta at a time when Megrahi was at the airport there.

But the evidence showing this is neither decisive nor verifiable and contradicted by Air Malta's records for KM180 show no unaccompanied bags that could have been sent on to Flight 103. The evidence for such a bag came from the Frankfurt Airport end, and their computer luggage records seem to have disappeared right after the crash. A copy of the relevant part, what went onto Flight 103, surfaced by luck it seems, over a month after the bombing, but only got to Scottish police six months later, altering the investigation towards Malta in September 1989.

See: Evidence Reconsidered: The Bag from Malta

11) Tony Gauci identified the guy in a photo lineup, and a real lineup in court.
Maltese shopkeeper Anthony "Tony" Gauci was latched onto by Scottish police for having sold numerous clothing items found scorched at Lokerbie. Over many many interviews, he recalled selling enough of that assortment to a certain Libyan (he thought) on what seems November 23 1988, a day Megrahi was not on Malta. With some deep-tissue massage, this later became leading evidence of Megrahi's direct involvement in the bombing.

Gauci saw Megrahi's photo in the news just days prior to pointing to another one for police in 1990. Megrahi's face was on European news daily before Gauci again pointed in person in 1999. He was pointing to what he's described as the person most "resembling" and "like" the purchaser among the lineup shown. Aside from being 15 years younger, six inches shorter, and nowhere near the island on November 23, Megrahi could almost be the guy.

The sum total of Gauci's evidence, and the problems with it, is (or will be) covered in detail in another post.

12) Libya admitted responsibility and paid out billions of dollars!
Why would they pay up $2.7 billion and confess "responsibility," unless they knew they were guilty? Just to get out of sanctions? That's ... oh, pretty reasonable. But why won't they clearly admit guilt? Or did they? Not clear enough!
See: Libya's "Admissions of Guilt"

13) Just what is wrong with the evidence or case against Megrahi?
Pretty Much everything. Guided Tour of the Case Against Megrahi 
They've got one guy doing almost everything involved and getting caught at all of it. Then they whine about not getting the "big bosses" who had nothing left to do except "plot" the thing, and set the special timer to blow up right over Scotland, to find the miraculously resilient timer bits, etc...

14) I should know already, but… what IS the evidence against Megrahi?
Here, Wikipedia. I'll have my own post here sometime on that.

15) They couldn’t get away with a conspiracy! It would have been exposed!

Whatever happened here, it was gotten away with in spades. Please got look at what happened and then come tell me that again, buddy. Boy these people... wait, I wrote that "question."