The horror of Sept. 11th, 2001

... Bush NEVER clarified before the invasion that he was NOT saying that Iraq was involved in 9/11 ...

...

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens;

...

Interestingly I have never heard of a case of an American teacher suggesting to his/her pupils that the UK government (or Jack Straw at least) knowingly exchanged the Libyan killer of hundreds of Americans on PANAM 103 for a lucrative contract with the ill-famed Ghadaffi (that said, Saddam was far worse). Perhaps we lack the exquisite sensitivity of British citizens.

Al Megrahi is an innocent man.

But Tico, he's the great itd, is any other opinion of importance? Not to him, that's for damn sure.

Look, A2K is not a court of law, if you believe something you don't have to couch it in such terms. He is an innocent man.

Why not be honest, and say that what really grates, is that for once a British politician refused to kow-tow to American pressure? We could have done with a bit more of that from Tony Blair when Iraq was invaded.

What Were They Like?

Did the people of Viet Nam
use lanterns of stone?
Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
Did they use bone and ivory,
jade and silver, for ornament?
Had they an epic poem?
Did they distinguish between speech and singing?

Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
It is not remembered whether in gardens
stone gardens illumined pleasant ways.
Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
but after their children were killed
there were no more buds.
Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
All the bones were charred.
it is not remembered. Remember,
most were peasants; their life
was in rice and bamboo.
When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies
and the water buffalo stepped surely along terraces,
maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
When bombs smashed those mirrors
there was time only to scream.
There is an echo yet
of their speech which was like a song.
It was reported their singing resembled
the flight of moths in moonlight.
Who can say? It is silent now.

But Megrahi was convicted in a British court of law.

Are you suggesting that this judicial procedure was influenced by the evil American government?

The decision to steer the investigation away from the PFLP-GC and in the direction of Libya came in the run-up to the first Gulf War, as America was looking to rally a coalition to liberate Kuwait and was calling for support from Iran and Syria. Syria subsequently joined the UN forces. Quietly, the evidence incriminating Jibril, so painstakingly sifted from the debris, was binned.

Those who continued to press the case against the PFLP-GC seemed to fall foul of American law. When a New York corporate investigative company asked to look into the bombing on behalf of Pan Am found the PFLP-GC responsible, the federal government promptly indicted the company’s president, Juval Aviv, for mail fraud. Lester Coleman, a former Defense Intelligence Agency operative who was researching a book about the PFLP-GC and Lockerbie, was charged by the FBI with ‘falsely procuring a passport’. William Casey, a lobbyist who made similar allegations in 1995, found his bank accounts frozen and federal agents searching through his trash. Even so, documents leaked from the US Defense Intelligence Agency in 1995, two years after the Libyans were first identified as the prime suspects, still blamed the PFLP-GC.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/hugh-miles/inconvenient-truths

Views

In August 2011, one of Scotland's top legal experts, Professor Robert Black of the University of Edinburgh, claimed that the three judges at the trial of the Lockerbie bomber reached a guilty verdict "contrary to the evidence" because, "consciously or subconsciously", they were under pressure to convict from the then Lord Advocate (Scotland's leading legal official), Lord Boyd of Duncansby.[35] Lord Boyd declared the allegations "ludicrous".[36]
[edit]Views of Dr. Jim Swire
Dr. Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, and who has been a spokesman for UK Families Flight 103, which represented British relatives, has stated that he believes Megrahi is innocent.[37] Dr Swire is also concerned by comments attributed to the former lord advocate Lord Fraser, which appeared to doubt the credibility of a key prosecution witness, Tony Gauci.[38]
Dr. Swire has stated that "the scandal around Megrahi is not that a sick man was released, but that he was ever convicted in the first place. All I have ever wanted is to see the people who murdered my daughter are brought to justice."[39]
[edit]Law Prof. Robert Black
Professor Robert Black, an expert in Scots law who devised the non-jury trial that saw the Lockerbie case heard in 2000, has called al-Megrahi's murder conviction "the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for 100 years". Prof. Black said he felt "a measure of personal responsibility" for persuading Libya to allow Megrahi and his co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima, who was acquitted, to stand trial under Scots law.
"I have written about this and nobody is interested..Every lawyer who has ... read the judgment says 'this is nonsense'. It is nonsense. It really distresses me; I won't let it go." [40]
In 2007 Prof. Black has written that he is "satisfied that not only was there a wrongful conviction [of al-Megrahi], but the victim of it was an innocent man. Lawyers, and I hope others, will appreciate this distinction."[41]

[edit]Remarks by Lord Fraser
The Sunday Times of 23 October 2005 reported that Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who drew up the 1991 indictment against the two accused Libyans and issued warrants for their arrest, had now cast doubt upon the reliability of the main prosecution witness, Tony Gauci. Lord Fraser criticised the Maltese shopkeeper for inter alia being "not quite the full shilling" and an "apple short of a picnic".
The then Lord Advocate, Lord Boyd, reacted to the remarks, as follows:
"It was Lord Fraser who, as Lord Advocate, initiated the Lockerbie prosecution. At no stage, then or since, has he conveyed any reservation about any aspect of the prosecution to those who worked on the case, or to anyone in the prosecution service."
Lord Boyd has asked Lord Fraser to clarify his apparent attack on Gauci by issuing a public statement of explanation.
William Taylor QC, who defended Megrahi at the trial and the appeal, said Lord Fraser should never have presented Gauci as a crown witness:
"A man who has a public office, who is prosecuting in the criminal courts in Scotland, has got a duty to put forward evidence based upon people he considers to be reliable. He was prepared to advance Gauci as a witness of truth in terms of identification and, if he had these misgivings about him, they should have surfaced at the time. The fact that he is coming out many years later after my former client has been in prison for nearly four and a half years is nothing short of disgraceful. Gauci's evidence was absolutely central to the conviction and for Peter Fraser not to realise that is scandalous," Taylor said.
Tam Dalyell, former Labour MP who played a crucial role in organising the trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, described Lord Fraser's remarks as an 'extraordinary development':
"I think there is an obligation for the chairman and members of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to ask Lord Fraser to see them and testify under oath – it's that serious. Fraser should have said this at the time and, if not then, he was under a moral obligation to do so before the trial at Zeist. I think there will be all sorts of consequences," Dalyell declared.
Gerard Sinclair, chief executive of the SCCRC, refused to say whether the Commission was investigating Lord Fraser's reported remarks. "Any investigation we carry out we seek to do so as rigorously and as thoroughly as possible," he said.
Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at Edinburgh University and a Lockerbie expert, described the alleged remarks as "an indication that various people who have been involved in the Lockerbie prosecution are now positioning themselves in anticipation of the SCCRC holding that there was a prima facie miscarriage of justice, and sending it back for a fresh appeal."
[edit]UN observer
Professor Hans Köchler, who was appointed as one of the UN observers by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, criticised the trial in his report and evaluation. Köchler observed that the trial had been politically influenced in breach of legal traditions and principles, such as the Rule of law.[42] In an interview for the BBC on the day the first appeal was rejected, he described the court's decision as a "spectacular miscarriage of justice".[43][44]
In a radio programme entitled Politics and justice: the Lockerbie trial, which was broadcast on 9 September 2007 by Australia's ABC Radio National, Dr Köchler, Robert Black and Jim Swire expressed their views on the Lockerbie trial and the first appeal, and suggested what should happen next.[45]
In the June 2008 edition of the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm, Köchler referred to the 'totalitarian' nature of the ongoing second Lockerbie appeal process saying it "bears the hallmarks of an 'intelligence operation'."[46][47]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103_bombing_trial

Quote:

But Megrahi was convicted in a British court of law.

No, Gob, a Scottish court of law.

Quote:

Are you suggesting that this judicial procedure was influenced by the evil American government?

You are really one slimy piece of work, Gob.

Quote:

The decision to steer the investigation away from the PFLP-GC and in the direction of Libya came in the run-up to the first Gulf War, as America was looking to rally a coalition to liberate Kuwait and was calling for support from Iran and Syria. Syria subsequently joined the UN forces. Quietly, the evidence incriminating Jibril, so painstakingly sifted from the debris, was binned.

Those who continued to press the case against the PFLP-GC seemed to fall foul of American law. When a New York corporate investigative company asked to look into the bombing on behalf of Pan Am found the PFLP-GC responsible, the federal government promptly indicted the company’s president, Juval Aviv, for mail fraud. Lester Coleman, a former Defense Intelligence Agency operative who was researching a book about the PFLP-GC and Lockerbie, was charged by the FBI with ‘falsely procuring a passport’. William Casey, a lobbyist who made similar allegations in 1995, found his bank accounts frozen and federal agents searching through his trash. Even so, documents leaked from the US Defense Intelligence Agency in 1995, two years after the Libyans were first identified as the prime suspects, still blamed the PFLP-GC.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/hugh-miles/inconvenient-truths

Quote:

Views

In August 2011, one of Scotland's top legal experts, Professor Robert Black of the University of Edinburgh, claimed that the three judges at the trial of the Lockerbie bomber reached a guilty verdict "contrary to the evidence" because, "consciously or subconsciously", they were under pressure to convict from the then Lord Advocate (Scotland's leading legal official), Lord Boyd of Duncansby.[35] Lord Boyd declared the allegations "ludicrous".[36]
[edit]Views of Dr. Jim Swire
Dr. Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, and who has been a spokesman for UK Families Flight 103, which represented British relatives, has stated that he believes Megrahi is innocent.[37] Dr Swire is also concerned by comments attributed to the former lord advocate Lord Fraser, which appeared to doubt the credibility of a key prosecution witness, Tony Gauci.[38]
Dr. Swire has stated that "the scandal around Megrahi is not that a sick man was released, but that he was ever convicted in the first place. All I have ever wanted is to see the people who murdered my daughter are brought to justice."[39]
[edit]Law Prof. Robert Black
Professor Robert Black, an expert in Scots law who devised the non-jury trial that saw the Lockerbie case heard in 2000, has called al-Megrahi's murder conviction "the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for 100 years". Prof. Black said he felt "a measure of personal responsibility" for persuading Libya to allow Megrahi and his co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima, who was acquitted, to stand trial under Scots law.
"I have written about this and nobody is interested..Every lawyer who has ... read the judgment says 'this is nonsense'. It is nonsense. It really distresses me; I won't let it go." [40]
In 2007 Prof. Black has written that he is "satisfied that not only was there a wrongful conviction [of al-Megrahi], but the victim of it was an innocent man. Lawyers, and I hope others, will appreciate this distinction."[41]

[edit]Remarks by Lord Fraser
The Sunday Times of 23 October 2005 reported that Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who drew up the 1991 indictment against the two accused Libyans and issued warrants for their arrest, had now cast doubt upon the reliability of the main prosecution witness, Tony Gauci. Lord Fraser criticised the Maltese shopkeeper for inter alia being "not quite the full shilling" and an "apple short of a picnic".
The then Lord Advocate, Lord Boyd, reacted to the remarks, as follows:
"It was Lord Fraser who, as Lord Advocate, initiated the Lockerbie prosecution. At no stage, then or since, has he conveyed any reservation about any aspect of the prosecution to those who worked on the case, or to anyone in the prosecution service."
Lord Boyd has asked Lord Fraser to clarify his apparent attack on Gauci by issuing a public statement of explanation.
William Taylor QC, who defended Megrahi at the trial and the appeal, said Lord Fraser should never have presented Gauci as a crown witness:
"A man who has a public office, who is prosecuting in the criminal courts in Scotland, has got a duty to put forward evidence based upon people he considers to be reliable. He was prepared to advance Gauci as a witness of truth in terms of identification and, if he had these misgivings about him, they should have surfaced at the time. The fact that he is coming out many years later after my former client has been in prison for nearly four and a half years is nothing short of disgraceful. Gauci's evidence was absolutely central to the conviction and for Peter Fraser not to realise that is scandalous," Taylor said.
Tam Dalyell, former Labour MP who played a crucial role in organising the trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, described Lord Fraser's remarks as an 'extraordinary development':
"I think there is an obligation for the chairman and members of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to ask Lord Fraser to see them and testify under oath – it's that serious. Fraser should have said this at the time and, if not then, he was under a moral obligation to do so before the trial at Zeist. I think there will be all sorts of consequences," Dalyell declared.
Gerard Sinclair, chief executive of the SCCRC, refused to say whether the Commission was investigating Lord Fraser's reported remarks. "Any investigation we carry out we seek to do so as rigorously and as thoroughly as possible," he said.
Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at Edinburgh University and a Lockerbie expert, described the alleged remarks as "an indication that various people who have been involved in the Lockerbie prosecution are now positioning themselves in anticipation of the SCCRC holding that there was a prima facie miscarriage of justice, and sending it back for a fresh appeal."
[edit]UN observer
Professor Hans Köchler, who was appointed as one of the UN observers by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, criticised the trial in his report and evaluation. Köchler observed that the trial had been politically influenced in breach of legal traditions and principles, such as the Rule of law.[42] In an interview for the BBC on the day the first appeal was rejected, he described the court's decision as a "spectacular miscarriage of justice".[43][44]
In a radio programme entitled Politics and justice: the Lockerbie trial, which was broadcast on 9 September 2007 by Australia's ABC Radio National, Dr Köchler, Robert Black and Jim Swire expressed their views on the Lockerbie trial and the first appeal, and suggested what should happen next.[45]
In the June 2008 edition of the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm, Köchler referred to the 'totalitarian' nature of the ongoing second Lockerbie appeal process saying it "bears the hallmarks of an 'intelligence operation'."[46][47]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103_bombing_trial

Poor Izzy. He puts it out liberally, but reacts with sputtering indignation when he gets just a bit of his own medicine.