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The case for [released 'Lockerbie bomber'] al-Megrahi's innocence
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| Contributor | Monsieur |
| Last Edited | Monsieur Aug 27, 2009 05:10pm |
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| Category | Investigation |
| Author | Gwynne Dyer |
| News Date | Thursday, August 27, 2009 11:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Al-Megrahi's trial took place in 2001. His colleague was freed, but he was jailed for 27 years (in Scotland, because Pan Am 103 came down in Lockerbie). As time passed, however, the case began to unravel. The Maltese shopkeeper who had identified al-Megrahi, Tony Gauci, turned out to be living in Australia, supported by several million dollars that the Americans had paid him for his evidence.
The allegation that the timer for the bomb had been supplied to Libya by the Swiss manufacturer Mebo turned out to be false. The owner of Mebo, Edwin Bollier, revealed that he had turned down an offer of $4 million from the FBI in 1991 to testify that he had sold his MST-13 timers to Libya.
One of Bollier's former employees, Ulrich Lumpert, did testify at al-Megrahi's trial that MST-13 timers had been supplied to Libya -- but in 2007 he admitted that he had lied at the trial.
And this year it was revealed that Pan Am's baggage area at London's Heathrow airport was broken into 17 hours before Pan Am 103 took off on its last flight. (The police knew that 12 years ago, but kept it secret at al-Megrahi's trial.) The theory that the fatal bag was put on a feeder flight from Malta became even less likely.
All of which explains why the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission announced in 2007 that it would refer al-Megrahi's case to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh because he "may have suffered a miscarriage of justice." |
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