Was Megrahi really guilty?

"Much of the evidence was later challenged. It emerged that Mr. Gauci had repeatedly failed to identify Mr. Megrahi before the trial and had selected him only after seeing his photograph in a magazine and being shown the same photo in court. The date of the clothing sale was also in doubt.

Investigators said Mr. Bollier, whom even the court called “untruthful and unreliable,” had changed his story repeatedly after taking money from Libya, and might have gone to Tripoli just before the attack to fit a timer and bomb into the cassette recorder. The implication that he was a conspirator was never pursued.

In 2007, Mr. Lumpert admitted that he had lied at the trial, stolen a timer and given it to a Lockerbie investigator. Moreover, the fragment he identified was never tested for residue of explosives, although it was the only evidence of possible Libyan involvement.

The court’s inference that the bomb had been transferred from the Frankfurt feeder flight was also cast into doubt when a Heathrow security guard revealed that Pan Am’s baggage area had been broken into 17 hours before the bombing, a circumstance never explored."  NY Times

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I have always thought that Megrahi was a convenient scapegoat.  Before the "Counter-Terrorism Task Force" at CIA (or whatever it was called then) fastened on him and his later aquitted colleague as the culprits, the CTTF had floundered for a long time, unable to "sort out" the crime.  Careers had been damaged and a new director of the center was brought in to "crack the case."  Miraculously, this man (a turk at his job) discovered the truth hidden in the midden heap of faulty evidence.

Libya denied the crime until the Saudis persuaded Qathafi that he could come in from the cold with regard to the United States by confessing to the deed and offering up culprits who could bear the burden of guilt.

Qathafi found that easy enough to do and threw in his non-existent nuclear weapons program as a sweetener.  The warehoues full of equipment that the Libyans had no idea what to with were an easy sacrifice.  The Bush Administration and its CT "experts" lapped this up as proof of their genius and knowledge of how to handle the Arabs.

Who really did it?  Probably some combination of Iran and the more extreme Palestinian groups would be my guess.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/world/africa/abdel-basset-ali-al-megrahi-lockerbie-bomber-dies-at-60.html?pagewanted=1&ref=obituaries

Comments

[johnf]

From fairly distant memory I seem to recall that until 1990 it was fairly widely accepted (at least in the British press) that the Iranians - in response to Vincennes having shot down their airliner - contracted Abu Nidal's Palestinian group in Syria to do it.

Then Saddam invaded Iraq and suddenly a Coalition of the Willing was required, including Syria, and Iranian non-interference was also needed. So the Iranian/Abu Nidal line was dropped and no one knew what to do for a long time until Ghaddafi wanted to come in from the cold and the al-Megrahi thing was set up.

It could be that in return for doing time and not talking he was offered by all concerned a time limit which ran out and - with all the blame going on the Scottish government - he was sent back to Libya. I think his family was very well looked after.

[Harry]

This strikes me an emminently reasonable. Certainly isnt proof but does at satisfy Occams Razor.

[Jose]

Are the Iranians that good? If, I am remember correctly the kitty-cats, bombed a disco in Berlin and pinned the blame on the Libyans.

[Ramojus]

I have also heard and read that in addition to the fact that this was an Iranian response to the USS Vincennes incident.

The PAN AM flight path was going to fly over a factory that manufactured armored personnel carriers for export to the Iraqi military. The hidden explosive was timed to detonate over the facility but detonated prematurely.

Can anyone vouch this story's veracity?

[turcopolier]

Jose

I am very familiar with the disco bombing in Berlin and IMO the Libyans did do that. pl

[turcopolier]

ramojus

The Iraqi military got all their APCs from the Warsaw pact and the PRC. pl

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

It is likely that PAN AM Flight 103 was destroyed by Libyans.

A similar attack took place against a French Airliner - please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTA_Flight_772

Libya accepted responsibility for both attacks and paid out billions of dollars to the families of the victims (as well as enduring billions of dollars of opportunity lost.)

Libya was not particularly close to Iran and I am not aware of any reason for Libyans to have accepted to be - in effect - fall guys for Iran.

On a personal note: my best friend was killed in the PAN AM Flight 103 bombing.

[Rick Francona]

Pat - my comments on this (pretty much as we always thought)
http://francona.blogspot.com/2012/05/lockerbie-bomber-dead-more-questions.html

[turcopolier]

RF

Good to hear from you. As you know I agree with all that except that I think MQ gave them up cold bloodedly in order to get a "deal" with the US and they accepted their fate. I don't think the Libyan government was the originator of the crime. As you know, I never did.

Marco Aurelio Farinelli says hello. pl

[The Twisted Genius]

I'm inclined to believe the Iranians and their surrogates were behind the bombing. I was in a unit that lost a member on that flight. The feeling in the unit at that time was that the Iranians were behind it. The evidence and reasoning given by PL and Rick Francona is pretty convincing. Especially Rick's final point that no one is crowing about the official story being proved right after the debriefing of Musa Kusa.

[William Fitzgerald]

Pat Lang,

I agree with the notion that the "Libyan connection" was a handy smokescreen , using a convenient generic villain. And, in my opinion the origin of the blowing up of PAA 107 lies with the captain and crew of the USS Vincennes, Pres. Reagan, and V.P. George Bush.

WPFIII