Book: Megrahi — You Are My Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence – Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi courts opinion
THE man convicted of murdering 270 on British soil is alive. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber wants us to believe in his innocence. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi has terminal prostate cancer. In 2009, his cancer triggered his release on compassionate grounds.He was meant to be dead by now. But he lives on.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi says he is the victim of a plot. He says crucial documents were withheld from his defence team. He makes his claims in a book by British writer John Ashton called Megrahi — You Are My Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence. Only, you are not the jury. al-Megrahi is playing to the crowd. He wants the punters to see ‘evidence’ not presented at his trial in 1999.
He says in the book:
You know me as the Lockerbie bomber. I know that I’m innocent. Here, for the first time, is my true story: how I came to be blamed for Britain’s worst mass murder, my nightmare decade in prison and the truth about my controversial release. Please read it and decide for yourself.
al-Megrahi says he is the “innocent victim of dirty politics, a flawed investigation and judicial folly”.
The Sunday Times reports:
Much of it draws on the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which recommended that his case be returned to the Appeal Court in 2007. Their report has not been released publicly but was made available to the Libyan’s defence team. Megrahi is expected to reveal that statements made by Tony Gauci, the prosecution’s key witness, were never disclosed to his lawyers.
Gauci owned a shop in Malta where Megrahi allegedly purchased clothes that were wrapped around the Lockerbie bomb. Gauci’s testi-<QJ0> mony about the date when the clothing was purchased — December 7, 1988 — was crucial as that was the only day that Megrahi was known to be on the island.
Among the missing statements discovered by the SCCRC was one in which Gauci claimed his brother Paul was in the shop when the clothes were bought and helped the buyer carry the parcels to his car. It is claimed that, had Megrahi’s defence been aware of this, Paul Gauci would have been questioned and could have confirmed that Megrahi was not the buyer.
In another statement to Scottish police, Gauci said he “clearly” remembered an argument with his girlfriend on the day the clothes were purchased. Megrahi claims a failure to share this information denied his defence team a chance to interview the woman and corroborate the date.
Did al- Megrahi act alone. No. Of course he didn’t.
Last night, Pamela Dix, who lost her brother Peter in the Lockerbie bombing, tells the paper:
“The tragedy is still very distressing. I would far rather that new evidence was heard in a courtroom. The problem is none of it can be legally refuted and it will be his side of the story.”
John Ashton says:
“Abdelbaset and I are acutely aware of the anguish that the book might cause the victims’ relatives who believe him to be guilty. We simply wish them and the wider public to know all the important evidence that was available to us, most of which has been concealed from the relatives and was not aired at his trial.”
He wrote:
Next week, 11 years after his conviction, all the important primary evidence concerning the so-called Lockerbie bomber will, for the first time, be made public. My book ‘Megrahi: You are my Jury’ will reveal crucial new facts, never available to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s trial court, many of which were withheld from his lawyers. The Crown case was already holed below the waterline; now it should sink without trace. In its absence, those who assert Megrahi’s guilt will cling to two lifeboats: the first is that, regardless of the latest revelations, he was a senior agent of the Libyan intelligence service (the JSO), and therefore must have been involved in terrorism; the second is that Libya has admitted that it carried out the bombing. It’s time to scuttle these boats too.
What, then, of the other lifeboat – Libya’s ‘admission of guilt’? In 2004 the regime formally accepted responsibility for the bombing and agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims’ relatives… In February 2004 the Libyan prime minister, Shukri Ghanem, told the BBC that his government continued to protest its innocence, adding ‘We feel that we bought peace. After the sanctions and after the problems we faced because of the sanctions, the loss of money, we thought it was easier for us to buy peace and this is why we agreed on compensation’.
Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was murdered in the bombing, says:
“I very much hope the book will have influence on Scottish public opinion and persuade ministers to hold an independent inquiry into Megrahi’s guilty verdict.”
The media wil lap it up. BBC One Scotland has broadcast Lockerbie – The Lost Evidence and Aljazeera showed Lockerbie: Case Closed. Much more will follow. A death-bed confession seems unlikely…
Posted: 26th, February 2012 | In: Reviews Comments (10) | TrackBack | Permalink
