Alt+F4
diabolical globalist
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2006
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I'll comment on your previous post tommorw (bedtime here) but I think that the compassionte release issue and the guilt/innocence issue are totally separate.
Merged [Ed] Convicted Lockerbie bomber released
- Thread starter E.J.Armstrong
- Start date
I'll comment on your previous post tommorw (bedtime here) but I think that the compassionte release issue and the guilt/innocence issue are totally separate.
That might have to do with the fact that only after the "compassionate release" turned out to be a sham, where those who released him were suckered into believing he is deathly ill, did people suddenly turn to considering whether or not he was actually guilty.
So I don't buy the claim that this concern about his guilt is motivated by concern for justice. It's merely an excuse, an attempt to change the subject, by those who having enthusiastically supported his release on "compassionate humanism" grounds -- and having lectured everybody who doubted the wisdom of such an action for their "cruelty" and "backwardness" -- were exposed as naive fools, as not only his embarrassing continued survival but also the disgusting hero's welcome he got in Libya showed.
It's a bit like the famous case of Norman Mailer and Jack Abbott, author of In the Belly of the Beast. Abbott, knowing full well what kind of sucker he's dealing with, wrote passionate letters to Mailer to help him get paroled, due to his "unjust incarceration by a brutal and unjust prison system" (these were collected in the book). Mailer naturally bought it all, and started a campaign that got him released. Everybody who thought Mailer is being suckered by a career criminal was just a racist who was supporting the unjust system or something.
Sure enough, weeks after he was released -- and a day before the star-struck suckers in the New York Times published a rave review of the book (because, you know, no books written by someone so boring as to be law-abiding were found to be worthy enough to compare with this masterpiece) -- Abbott killed in cold blood a waiter in a Cuban restaurant. Just like the evil racist supporters of the unjust system told Mailer in advance would probably happen.
So Mailer naturally started changing the subject -- it was no longer an issue that Abbott was unjustly treated, it was that his literary talent made it worth to "make some sacrifices" (but only of other people's lives, naturally).
Sucker!
Changing the subject when one's naivete had been exposed is the common strategy by those whose "advanced progressive and humanitarian compassionate" viewpoint got them suckered by criminal thugs like Abbott or, in this case, the Libyan government. Given the motivation behind this change of subject, it is reasonable to believe the "serious doubts about his guilt" story about as much as to believe the "three months to live" story.
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Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
When this has actually been demonstrated, I might get around to reading the rest of your post.
Of which 'people' do you speak here? Massive doubts about Megrahi's guilt were being freely investigated, reported and held by 'people' on this side of the pond for many years before his release.
It looks very much like you're projecting your own perception of the issue onto 'people'. Shoddy thinking.
Rolfe
Adult human female
What GlennB said. It's not necessarily a shame to have been figuratively hiding under a rock for the past 20 years as regads this case, but to assume everybody else is in the same position is a bit silly.
Here's a link to an award-winning documentary (warning, film is over 2½ hours long, this isn't a YouTube clip) expressing massive doubts about his guilt. It was made in 1994. The Maltese Double Cross. It wasn't even the first, but it's the earliest available online. Lester Coleman's 1993 book Trail of the Octopus is another early starter. (Note, the indictment was only issued in late 1991.)
There are many other publications, both print and AV, which go into a lot of detail about the case even before the trial and express the view that the authorities have got the wrong man. For example Silence over Lockerbie. And that's even before the CIA's "star witness", without whom the indictment would never have been issued in the first place, was exposed in court as a lying scumbag who made it all up for money.
Only a months after the verdict was annouced in January 2001, the official UN observer to the trial published a withering critique of the proceedings as a blatantly biassed miscarriage of justice. The earliest independent publication detailing the unsoundness of the conviction that I'm aware of is dated just the following month. The Lockerbie Trial: a perverse verdict. Paul Foot's famous analysis of the trial, Lockerbie: Flight from Justice, was published a few months later.
Moving on, the SCCRC report into the outcome of the trial which detailed no less than six identified grounds for appeal, on which a miscarriage of justice was suspected, was published in 2007. (Most convicts would be ecstatically happy with one identified ground.) Professor Robert Black QC started his Lockerbie blog at about that time. I myself started my first JREF thread questioning the soundness of the conviction in 2007.
The dismay expressed at the compassionate release by those who had been following the case over the years was based on the fact that the ongoing appeal was dropped at that time (for no good reason anyone can explain). It was widely believed that the appeal, which was scheduled to conclude last February, would have resulted in the conviction being quashed.
Skipping over your embarrassing misconceptions at the beginning of that paragraph, I'll merely point out that those who greeted Megrahi at the airport were welcoming someone they believed to have been unjustly convicted. In fact, they believed he was a "hero" for voluntarily surrendering himself to trial for a crime he didn't commit in order to bring to and end 8 years of US sanctions against Libya which cost thousands of lives.
You really need to get up to speed with some of this stuff before you make ignorant comments about the issue.
I doubt it. Since it isn't even remotely like you think is was, I seriously doubt whether any comparison you make is likely to be a valid one.
Go read (and watch) just some of the mountains of original documentation and commentary expressing these serious doubts which date from well before the cancer was even diagnosed, before you make such an idiotic statement.
Rolfe.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
I know this point of view has been expressed, but I'm struggling here. Even leaving aside the suspicions that the compassionate release might have been used as a bargaining chip (or blackmail tool) to get Megrahi to drop his appeal (so that the authorities could go right on claiming he was the "Lockerbie bomber and not have to look for anyone else), do you really think you can just ignore the fact that he actually didn't commit the crime and carry on lambasting the compassinate release regardless?
Rolfe.
That is just nonsense. Doubts about his conviction have been really widespread in this country almost from the beginning: and certainly after the trial. Jim Swire and other families of the victims have been at the forefront of that, and have campaigned for justice throughout
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/scotland/2000/lockerbie_trial/715658.stm
This article is quite sad because it shows that he had a misplaced faith that the trial eventually secured would be fair and would examine the whole issue properly: I find it makes me really angry that he was not correct in that assumption. And it makes him angry too
http://www.sacl.info/Lockerbie.htm
It may be new where you live:it is not new here.
ETA: post is redundant in face of Rolfe's much more detailed knowledge and evidence: I will leave it in place though, because I have not made a study of it as she has: I am more maintream in my knowledge of the issue and probably represent the views of a great many scots who have not made a specific study of it.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
There is so much documentation about this that it's hard to know where to start. Just reading the actual court verdict for comprehension leads inescapably to the conclusion that Megrahi is innocent, in not just my opinion. It has been suggested that one needs "a PhD in Lockerbie Studies" to understand the full ramifications, but actually the basics are fairly simple and come down to a biassed judgement based on circular reasoning.
Much of the popular commentaries deal with suspected fabrication of evidence by the forensic investigators. In my opinion it's likely this happened, but it's a difficult point to get newbies to accept - even though the forensic investigators in question were all implicated in doing similar stuff in other miscarriage of justice cases, including the Birmingham Six case.
However, a seminal point often overlooked is that even if none of the forensic evidence was in any way tampered with, the evidence still points to Megrahi not having committed the crime he was charged with. (And I should say that he wasn't even convicted as being the man who put the bomb on the plane, merely as being mixed up in it in some way.)
I would recommend Hans Kochler's reports on the trial and first appeal - he was the official UN observer to the trial who was horrified by the bias and illogic of the judges' findings. Also the writings of David Morrison, a journalist who published a couple of excellent analyses without mentioning any possibility of forensic dishonesty.
Kochler's report on the trial
Kochler's report on the first appeal
Morrison on the original verdict
Morrison on the first appeal
Morrison on the second appeal
Morrison is an easier read, and also more direct. Kochler has more official standing of course. I think Morrison is probably the best introduction to the case.
Rolfe.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
You'll get through Morrison pretty quickly. For more detail, and going somewhat into the suspicions of forensic evidence being fabricated, Paul Foot's Private Eye publication Lockerbie: the Flight from Justice is a good read. That link goes to the page where you can purchase the pdf of the report for £5, and in my opinion it's worth it. I notice a link in Google to a Pirate Bay rip-off as well. but I wonder if that's just poorly-formatted text - the real thing is a nice illustrated booklet.
If you're still going after Foot, I would say it's time to read some original source material, such as the court judgement, the judgement of the first appeal, and the SCCRC press release of 2007.
Yesterday afternoon I met Buncrana in Edinburgh to attend the award-winning Fringe play Lockerbie: Unfinished Business. This took the form of a single-handed monologue by an actor playing the part of Jim Swire, taking us right from the break-up of the plane through to the present day, concentrating mostly on the evidence, the fact that all the evidence against Megrahi was discredited, the fact that a much more plausible set of suspects existed whom the authorities seemed strangely reluctant to pursue, and the verdict being entirely perverse.
Of course a lot of detail had to be left out for reasons of length and comprehension (many of the audience would be approaching the subject cold), but I thought the actor-writer did a remarkable job in putting the basics of the thing over in an understandable way. The thing is, anyone suspecting that the play was just conspiracy-theorising could easily access more detailed information on the internet and get confirmation of everything that was said - and more.
I'll post a more detailed review in one of the threads in the CT forum.
Rolfe.
If you're still going after Foot, I would say it's time to read some original source material, such as the court judgement, the judgement of the first appeal, and the SCCRC press release of 2007.
Yesterday afternoon I met Buncrana in Edinburgh to attend the award-winning Fringe play Lockerbie: Unfinished Business. This took the form of a single-handed monologue by an actor playing the part of Jim Swire, taking us right from the break-up of the plane through to the present day, concentrating mostly on the evidence, the fact that all the evidence against Megrahi was discredited, the fact that a much more plausible set of suspects existed whom the authorities seemed strangely reluctant to pursue, and the verdict being entirely perverse.
Of course a lot of detail had to be left out for reasons of length and comprehension (many of the audience would be approaching the subject cold), but I thought the actor-writer did a remarkable job in putting the basics of the thing over in an understandable way. The thing is, anyone suspecting that the play was just conspiracy-theorising could easily access more detailed information on the internet and get confirmation of everything that was said - and more.
I'll post a more detailed review in one of the threads in the CT forum.
Rolfe.
Aepervius
Non credunt, semper verificare
Well. Glad Rolfe is back 
. Is that one mean with a knock out in one round or a slam dunk ?
. Is that one mean with a knock out in one round or a slam dunk ?Rolfe
Adult human female
Perhaps I'm being premature with this remark, and Alt+F4 and Skeptic will be back with reasoned comment. However, what has disturbed me about the Lockerbie threads for some time is the repeated disappearance without trace of people who were originally fulminating that Megrahi was obviously guilty and any suggestions to the contrary were pure twooferism. Only McHrozni had the grace to say that he had realised the evidence against Megrahi was in fact a lot weaker than he had originally assumed, before quitting the discussion. Everybody else, as far as I recall, has simply vanished without comment.
Where's the open-mindedness? Where's the willingness to take on board new ideas, and to change one's viewpoint according to the evidence presented?
Come to that, where's the absolute bloody outrage that the CIA, the US DoJ, the Scottish Crown Prosecution Service and the Lord Advocate fitted this guy up for one of the most notorious terrorist acts of the 20th century, and let the real perpetrators off scot-free? If the issue is worth getting worked up about from one side, then isn't it equally worth getting worked up about when one's perspective is forcibly changed by exposure to some facts?
Rolfe.
Where's the open-mindedness? Where's the willingness to take on board new ideas, and to change one's viewpoint according to the evidence presented?
Come to that, where's the absolute bloody outrage that the CIA, the US DoJ, the Scottish Crown Prosecution Service and the Lord Advocate fitted this guy up for one of the most notorious terrorist acts of the 20th century, and let the real perpetrators off scot-free? If the issue is worth getting worked up about from one side, then isn't it equally worth getting worked up about when one's perspective is forcibly changed by exposure to some facts?
Rolfe.
Guybrush Threepwood
Trainee Pirate
I presume it's stored in a secret government containment unit with the outrage over the false convictions of the Guildford four, Birmingham six, Judith Ward, Colin Stagg, Barry George........
Miscarriages of justice don't generate much outrage, just a lot of people denying that they were miscarriages at all.
Agreed. To put it succinctly, the Scottish authorities screwed the pooch on the investigation, trial and the "compassionate release."
Rolfe
Adult human female
Funnily enough, I'm not going to argue with you on that one. Though on the last point, perhaps not for the reason you might be thinking of. (Why would you object in principle to releasing an innocent man?)
ETA: But what about the role of the CIA and the US DoJ in procuring the perjured evidence the Scottish authorities relied on for their indictment in the first place? You've somehow omitted that bit.
Rolfe.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
Sally Clark, Donna Anthony, Angela Cannings.... and these weren't even crimes.
You missed the Maguire Seven, which is slightly ironic because that's the case Thomas Hayes was under investigation for fabricating the evidence in, when he was working on the controversial (possibly fabricated) Lockerbie evidence. He left RARDE soon afterwards and put his PhD in electronics to work by re-training as a chiropodist....
Lord Denning at the forefront....
Lord Denning about the Birmingham Six said:
Oh dear.
Rolfe.
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He wasn't released because he was innocent. He was released because he supposedly had three months left on this planet.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Not quite, exactly. The "three months" part was only ever a guideline. It was stated at the time that of course he might live longer (or he might die sooner). Also, and again this was stated at the time, the three months estimate was based on how his condition was likely to progress if he stayed in prison, and it was recognised that a massive iimprovement in his environment and personal circumstances might result in a different outcome.
However, once it has been realised that he was in fact innocent, what's the objection in principle to releasing him? I object to Kenny and Alex continuing to assert that they have no doubts about the safety of the conviction when they obviously know as well as I do (or better, as they will have had sight of the 800-page SCCRC report we all rather wish would find its way to Wikileaks) that he didn't do it. That's rather different.
The outrage is that an innocent man was fitted up by the CIA and the US DoJ, that the Scottish Crown Prosecution Service didn't question the bona fides of their "star witness" as they should have done before issuing the indictments, and that worse still, when they found out during the trial that the man was a lying scumbag who was being both paid and threatened by the CIA and the DoJ to say what they wanted him to say, not only did they continue with the prosecution, the Lord Advocate lied to the court to try to prevent the defence from finding this out.
The scandal is that three judges were so appalled at the very idea that eight years of sanctions against Libya (causing thousands of deaths), eight years of declaring that there was "irrefutable evidence" these men were guilty, and all the expense and hoopla of the Zeist trial, should fail to secure any conviction, that they simply laid out all the evidence showing Megrahi didn't do it and concluded by saying they were going to convict him anyway.
The scandal is that five more judges, when appealled to, also saw the evidence that he wasn't guilty, but chose to fall back on the fact that the unique trial format had misled the defence into appealling on the wrong grounds to reject the appeal on a technicality.
The scandal is that after this point (which was reached in 2001), it took until 2003 to get an SCCRC investigation going, then it took the SCCRC a further 3½ years to issue its findings and grant leave for a second appeal. The scandal is that by late 2008, when the prisoner was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer, the appeal still hadn't come to court because the Crown was refusing to release a secret document the defence needed sight of, in spite of the court ordering its release.
The scandal is that in May 2009, when the appeal was finally before the court (and going very well for the defence), it was adjourned until November with the final outcome not to be decided until February 2010, even though the appellant was terminally ill and deteriorating.
And the biggest scandal seems to be that the appellant may have been blackmailed into dropping the appeal as a quid pro quo for being granted compassionate release, even though there was no legal requirement for this. And even that the appellant may have been led to believe he had a shorter time left to live than was actually the case, in order to facilitate this (I don't insist on that last, it's merely a suspicion).
However, it is in no way a scandal that he was actually released, and indeed it's in no way surprising that he received a warm welcome in Tripoli, from people who believed he was innocent, and had voluntarily surrendered himself for trial, being innocent, in order to get the killing sanctions lifted from his country.
Let's just point our outrage in the right direction.
Rolfe.
However, once it has been realised that he was in fact innocent, what's the objection in principle to releasing him? I object to Kenny and Alex continuing to assert that they have no doubts about the safety of the conviction when they obviously know as well as I do (or better, as they will have had sight of the 800-page SCCRC report we all rather wish would find its way to Wikileaks) that he didn't do it. That's rather different.
The outrage is that an innocent man was fitted up by the CIA and the US DoJ, that the Scottish Crown Prosecution Service didn't question the bona fides of their "star witness" as they should have done before issuing the indictments, and that worse still, when they found out during the trial that the man was a lying scumbag who was being both paid and threatened by the CIA and the DoJ to say what they wanted him to say, not only did they continue with the prosecution, the Lord Advocate lied to the court to try to prevent the defence from finding this out.
The scandal is that three judges were so appalled at the very idea that eight years of sanctions against Libya (causing thousands of deaths), eight years of declaring that there was "irrefutable evidence" these men were guilty, and all the expense and hoopla of the Zeist trial, should fail to secure any conviction, that they simply laid out all the evidence showing Megrahi didn't do it and concluded by saying they were going to convict him anyway.
The scandal is that five more judges, when appealled to, also saw the evidence that he wasn't guilty, but chose to fall back on the fact that the unique trial format had misled the defence into appealling on the wrong grounds to reject the appeal on a technicality.
The scandal is that after this point (which was reached in 2001), it took until 2003 to get an SCCRC investigation going, then it took the SCCRC a further 3½ years to issue its findings and grant leave for a second appeal. The scandal is that by late 2008, when the prisoner was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer, the appeal still hadn't come to court because the Crown was refusing to release a secret document the defence needed sight of, in spite of the court ordering its release.
The scandal is that in May 2009, when the appeal was finally before the court (and going very well for the defence), it was adjourned until November with the final outcome not to be decided until February 2010, even though the appellant was terminally ill and deteriorating.
And the biggest scandal seems to be that the appellant may have been blackmailed into dropping the appeal as a quid pro quo for being granted compassionate release, even though there was no legal requirement for this. And even that the appellant may have been led to believe he had a shorter time left to live than was actually the case, in order to facilitate this (I don't insist on that last, it's merely a suspicion).
However, it is in no way a scandal that he was actually released, and indeed it's in no way surprising that he received a warm welcome in Tripoli, from people who believed he was innocent, and had voluntarily surrendered himself for trial, being innocent, in order to get the killing sanctions lifted from his country.
Let's just point our outrage in the right direction.
Rolfe.
Let's. Had Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill admitted he was releasing Megrahi because he was innocent, then at least there would be some small hope in salvaging some dignity and respect for himself and his government. However, MacAskill and the Scottish government do not get to vacuum their conscience and establish credibility by substituting pusillanimous perfidy for admitting error all around. You can't have it both ways. Either Magrahi was guilty and released on "compassionate" grounds, or he was innocent and released because there was a miscarriage of justice. Pick one.
I have an idea. Why isn't this thread merged with the Amenda Knox one? Where zealots who agree absolutely that there has been a conspiracy by a First World government and judiciary to convict an innocent person can be in violent agreement? Two rather than one threads to avoid.