Movements at The Moving Planet Blog - Lockerbie & Kafka's Labyrinth by Michael Carmichael

Lockerbie & Kafka's Labyrinth by Michael Carmichael

August 21, 2009

In December 1988, I was living in the United Kingdom when the searing news of the Lockerbie bombing exploded into the global consciousness.

With 270 victims, Lockerbie was at once the worst act of terrorism on British soil and the most heinous act of terrorism yet perpetrated against Americans. Twelve years later, Lockerbie would produce one of the most expensive trials in world history (75 million pounds sterling, circa $120 million) and what has become a highly contentious verdict.

At the time of the tragedy, an extremist group of Palestinians backed by Iran was selected as the primary suspect, but two years later when Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait the spotlight of suspicion shifted to Libya. Bush, Sr. needed Iranian support for the invasion of Kuwait – a nation courted assiduously by the Reagan-Bush administration through the notorious Iran-Contra Scandal and beyond.

megrahi

Under the crushing weight of draconian sanctions, Libya eventually realized the wisdom of producing members of its own intelligence apparatus who could help them engineer the lifting of crippling trade restrictions. In the course of time, two hapless Libyans: Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah would be extradited and sent to an obscure US military base called, Camp Zeist, where they would be placed on trial. On the 31st of January 2001, over twelve years after the tragedy shook the civilized world, a panel consisting of three Scottish judges convicted Megrahi and acquitted Fhimah. Megrahi received a life sentence intended to compel him to serve at least 27 years in prison.

Over the course of the intervening eight years, lawyers representing Megrahi have argued for a new trial. In 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred the Megrahi case to the Justiciary, the Scottish Appellate Court, a development that could have led to his acquittal. The grounds for the Commission’s ruling were stark: exculpatory evidence had been repressed at the original trial. The official announcement from the Commission stated: “The applicant (Megrahi) may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.”

These developments were adequately reported in the Scottish, UK and European Media, but sadly and mysteriously – these crucial decisions were sparsely reported in the US media where the Murtagh Building and 9/11 have obscured the finite analysis of all previous terrorist tragedies.

In 2007, Hugh Miles published a masterful analysis of the case in the London Review of Books, but the in-depth coverage has been slight or virtually invisible in Bush Era / Post-9/11 America. The result is a dismally uninformed nation and government.

In recent months, Megrahi’s attorneys have come to an arrangement whereby their client -- who is now suffering terminal cancer and estimated to be within only a few months of his death -- should be released on compassionate humanitarian grounds. This decision will almost surely alleviate any potential lawsuit by Libya over the $2.7 billion she continues to pay to the families of the 270 victims – a settlement of $10 million per family.

This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a public statement opposing Megrahi’s release, while the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry, Senator Edward Kennedy, Senator Patrick Leahy and others signed a letter objecting to the release of Megrahi. This epistle may embarrass the writers in the future.

From the accounts of the Senators’ letter that have been published , it now appears that none of the US officials were adequately briefed on the judicial developments in the case. None of the American officials have mentioned the SCCRC’s judicial review, and none of them recognized the growing public sentiment in Scotland, Britain, Europe and the Middle East that a massive miscarriage of justice was committed in Megrahi’s case.

LOCKERBIETRIALCAMPZEIST

The original case was tried in a Kafkaesque atmosphere. With proceedings convened at the former US military installation, Camp Zeist, the two defendants were tried under Scottish law by a three-judge panel. The prosecution alleged a conspiracy that involved planting the bomb on the Pan Am plane at a stop in Malta. The forensic evidence has been described as tenuous. Three days after he had seen a photograph of Megrahi in a newspaper, a Maltese shop owner identified him as the man who had purchased clothes. Forensic technicians traced fragments of the clothing to his shop in Malta, the same fragments detected amidst bomb debris in their painstaking investigation.

To make matters worse, over the years, intelligence and police officials have disclosed that they were in control of evidence that proved Megrahi to be innocent -- and that other perpetrators known to the international intelligence community were guilty of the atrocity. To recount only one bizarre incident, Susan Lindauer, a US Congressional aide, testified that Dr. Richard Fuisz of the CIA had informed her that he knew for a fact that Megrahi was not involved in the Lockerbie bombing – and that he could identify the actual perpetrators, “If the government would let me.” After making her evidence known, Lindauer was charged with being an Iraqi agent, and a federal court promptly gagged the loquacious Dr. Fuisz.

A Scottish jurist and a UN official have criticized the Kafkaesque atmosphere that surrounded Megrahi’s ‘trial’ at Camp Zeist. Apparently, officials from the US Department of Justice swirled around the improvised courtroom imbuing the proceedings with the unmistakable stench of oppressive political influence.

The Director of Central Intelligence should order his staff to remove the gag from Dr. Fuisz and any other informant with knowledge of the facts in this labyrinthine and Kafkaesque case – and report the findings to the President and the people as a matter of course.

Lockerbie remains a compelling and inscrutable tragedy. The victims deserve an unbiased investigation – but at this late date the probability that the perpetrators of Lockerbie will ever be known is diminishing. The current legal posture of the case is untenable.

LOCKERBIETRIAL

Michael Carmichael is the founder of Planetary.

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written by Entebbe1, August 22, 2009

Very enlightening. Yet, quite disturbing to have to acknowledge the persistent deceit, secrecy and conniving of the American government--and may i add, immorality.

Incorrect
written by Guido Blokland, August 22, 2009

I have to point out that your article contains an error that seriously undermines the reasoning behind it. Camp Zeist is NOT a US military installation, it is in fact a Dutch military base. The whole point of the trial being held there was that it was a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands (Zeist is a small town some 30 miles southeast of Amsterdam), i.e. on neutral territory. This was part of the deal by which Gadaffi agreed to hand over two of his security personnel for trial. I agree that these men were scapegoats, put up to cover the tracks of bigger culprits.

Lies
written by Rick Baker, September 08, 2009

To even think that the U.S. government isn't behind and aiding in the tradgeties happening around the world is ridiculous. Their aim is world government or zionist control which ever you prefer. president wilson handed our economy to the zionists in 1913. And ever since presidents have covered up for the zionists and their goal of world control. roosevelt gave the zionists everything they wanted , no wonder he served 4 terms as a puppet.
Huey Long who ran against roosevelt was asassinated by a zionist who was conveinently shot and killed by Long's body gaurd. roosevelt stopped any investigation into the matter. The same as bush did with the Tower's.
The same thing was done with the Murrah Building. A policeman and a doctor were conveinently murdered to stop the truth from being known.
The Amerikan government is owned and ruled by the zionists (ZOG), we are just pawns in the game of killing all of the zionist's enemies. Afghanistan , Iraq , Iran and soon we will be silenced. We have done nothing but lose Freedoms since the zionist's took over. Like idiots we have accepted privilege's over Freedom's for almost 100 years. We have no one to blame but ourselves because we accepted excuse after excuse as to why we must lose Freedom's.It's harder to get Freedom back than it is to give them up.

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