Wikileaks: Lockerbie Dead Sold Out For Weapons And Oil
WIKILEAKS and Lockerbie: Three years ago and a lifetime away Anorak readers were asked the question:
“The name Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi ring any bells?”
It soon did. Anorak had foreseen the bomber’s release which came on August 20, 2009 and this is the last clear photograph taken of him as he boarded a Libyan jet at Glasgow airport.
The man remains Britain’s worst ever convicted mass murder and as a prostate cancer victim he will die with that tag around his metaphorical big toe. He did not die in the three months predicted before the release “on compassionate grounds” and there is no real sign of him turning up his toes in the Tripoli home provided for him by a grateful Libyan state leader
His daughter, right on cue, has today told the BBC the bomber is now in “a coma” and has no real knowledge of anyone around him.
There are those would breathe a sigh of relief at that news since when the Scottish Courts were set up to try him and another at Camp Zeist in Holland the belief was he may have been killed by assassins for what he could tell rather than the Lockerbie Bombing.
When the question was asked the convicted former Libyan intelligence agent was residing at HM Prison Greenock. A lovely spot high on a rolling hill with panoramic views over the River Clyde.
Anorak said:
“He was convicted, after a lengthy trial, for his part in the events leading to December 21, 1988, when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board as well as 11 on the ground. It was clear a bomb had caused the disaster but it took more than eleven years to bring anyone to trial.
“Time tends to fade memories a little, so it may help to point out the downing of Flight 103 is the biggest single act of mass murder in British history
“Bells ringing?”
Yesterday the Daily Mail ( and straight-faced too) carried a lead story based on a Wikileaks leak. This while on same day the Wikileaks founder was sitting in a British jail awaiting developments on analleged Swedish sex charge .
His site has exposed the fact that:
“The Lockerbie bomber was freed following ‘thuggish threats’ from Colonel Gaddafi, above, to take ‘harsh and immediate action’ against UK interests in Libya.”
The Mail then went on say:
“The dictator threatened to cut Britain ‘off at the knees’ unless Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi was sent home and offered a ‘parade of treats’ to the Scottish government.
“By releasing the bomber, Scottish leaders sparked fury among the relatives of the 270 killed in 1988 when a Pan Am plane was brought down over Lockerbie.”
The Daily Mail claims here these were “shock” revelations contained in leaked diplomatic cables finally torpedo the claims of the UK’s then Labour government that commercial considerations played no role in the release of the man convicted of Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity.
The U.S. documents, show reveal Libyan officials ‘convinced UK embassy officers that the consequences if Megrahi were to die in prison… would be harsh, immediate and not easily remedied’.
Among the ‘specific threats’ were the ‘immediate cessation of all UK commercial activity in Libya, a diminishing or severing of political ties, and demonstrations against official UK facilities’.
Not really new news. Also three years ago Anorak said:
“The Glasgow Herald’s Chief Reporter Lucy Adams has today done a terrific round up of the whole affair.
Her conclusions? Well guess.
Arrived there yet? Oil and gas exploration and Bae weapon system sales have an awful lot to do with it.
Call me a curmugeon but what directorships are awaiting the squeezed out Premier Tone and his barrister wife Ms. C. Booth?”
The Wikileaks documents do show Gordon Brown’s government was in full agreement that Megrahi should be sent home.
Former Justice Secretary Jack Straw has admitted that plans to include Megrahi in the agreement were made in part for commercial reasons.
But the former minister says the ultimate decision to release him was taken solely by the Scottish executive and that it was in no way a response to pressure from Tripoli.
The Guardian says Jack Straw is still wriggling on the Libyan hook and repeats his claim not have been involved in the release, while Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said his government acted appropriately
After the release, the US ambassador wrote that the Scots had got out of their depth, saying:
‘The Scottish government severely underestimated both US government and UK public reaction to its decision … Alex Salmond has privately indicated that he was ‘shocked’.’
Mr Straw said he did not feel the cables ‘really add anything to what was already known’. He also says he had “nothing at all to do with the release”.
‘It was a matter of record that Libya wanted Al-Megrahi released,’ he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
The U.S. cables reveal that Megrahi was thought to have ‘as long as five years to live’. A panel of doctors gave the three-month estimate, despite not being prostate cancer specialists.
In October 2008, senior US diplomat Richard LeBaron said Britain was ‘in an awkward position’ and ‘between a rock and a hard place’
That information was passed to American diplomats by the Downing Street and Foreign Office officials in charge of Africa policy.
The most important question of all is the one Anorak first asked and still waits for the answer …
Who now speaks for the murdered 270?
The Chilcot Inquiry today announced it will recall 12 witnesses to the stand in it’s Iraqi War Inquiry. Amongst them are former Labour Government Prime Minister Tony Blair and one Jack Straw. Surely it is not beyond the wit of someone to grab these people as they leave Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry and ask the right questions of the right people and at the right time; because one thing is for sure, the Iraqi and Libyan fiascos are linked somewhere along the line.
My advice to inquirers would be to follow the money. – AW
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Undated file photo : Lockerbie trial prosecution witness Tony Gauci's family-run clothes shop, Mary's House, in the seaside suburb of Sliema on Malta. Gauci linked one of the accused men, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, with the crime. * but the trial judges rejected his claim that Al Megrahi visited his clothes shop and bought a sky blue baby romper suit, umbrella and adult clothes in the weeks leading up to the bombing. Detectives later traced charred pieces of clothing found the among the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 to Mr Gauci's shop.
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Posted: 9th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Politicians Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
