Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber (Al Jazeera’s essential documentary)

As al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, nears the end of his life, this al-Jazeera investigation (first broadcast in June) is worth another watch.

Scottish private investigator George Thomson sidesteps the politics, conspiracy theories, alternative suspects and suchlike and concentrates on the two areas of evidence that were used to convict al-Megrahi.

1) Witness Identification
2) Forensic Evidence.

There was only one witness: Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who identified al-Megrahi as the person who bought the grey Slalom shirt which the timer fragment was allegedly found embedded in.

There were only two scraps of forensic evidence to link al-Megrahi to the bombing: the MEBO timer fragment and the piece of grey shirt it was allegedly found embedded in.

Make up your own minds whether the only witness and the two scraps of forensic evidence were genuine or corrupt.

This is investigative journalism of the very highest order.

Comments (0)

Leave a Reply to Scottish republic Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

  1. Just shared this on Facebook, commented that it’s a great pity that UK channels will show 9/11 conspiracy theory rubbish but won’t show this.

  2. Tocasaid says:

    Interesting stuff. Agree with above – it needs sharing.

  3. Scottish republic says:

    It’s evident that Megrahi is innocent.

  4. Siôn Jones says:

    I believe he was a secret service operative. Surely, he would have worn a disguise, and so not been identifiable by the Maltese shop-keeper? Or have I been reading too much john le-caree?

  5. vronsky says:

    The position of the SNP in this is quite inexplicable. Why does Salmond take such a definite position, announcing that he is convinced that Megrahi is guilty? All he had to do to embarrass the unionists was facilitate the progress of Megrahi’s appeal, exposing the corporatist fix that framed him. At a bare minimum he could have freed Megrahi but volunteered no view at all on the safety of his conviction – just sat on his hands while events played out. Stating an obvious untruth is risky behaviour, and our Alex doesn’t usually do that – especially when there seems more than a glimmer of a chance that the lies wil be exposed.

    The right, the unionists and the media have tried to argue that the release of Megrahi was Salmond’s big mistake. Might they be right, albeit for very different reasons from those they pretend to believe?

    1. bellacaledonia says:

      If the political Executive questions or over-rules its own Judiciary then there is a problem in any democracy. I’d guess thats why the First Minister and Justice Secretary feel they have to stand behind the decision of any Scottish Court’s decision, on any case. Including on Al Megrahi. Irrespective of what they might think privately. That’s the theory anyway.

      1. vronsky says:

        An understandable and defensible position, but there is a strong suspicion in this case (and not in this case alone) that the judiciary had already had its independence compromised by a government – and not its own government at that. I think my question to Salmond would still stand. What was wrong with constructively doing nothing – letting Megrahi’s appeal continue? Something is wrong with this picture.

  6. dougie says:

    as per vronsky, etc, etc,

    It seems that more stuff is coming out of Libya about how the CIA and MI6 were implicit in what happened there. Y’know rendition and stuff.

    Care to comment?

    As far as I can tell the SNP are pretty well an innocent party. Unless you have access that the rest of us do not to the findings of the Scottish Criminal Review Board? Something you and I should be allowed to peruse, Soonest.

  7. bellacaledonia says:

    Dont get your hopes up too much about the SCCRC report. It sounds like its going to be redacted and shredded of content when it becomes public.

    1. Carandol says:

      It’s good that things such as these are still held open and that seperately compassion IS seen to be held by the state as, as mebbe this case in particular shows, things that are held to be in the interests of ‘national security’ can and will be acted upon and although we may not immediately see the who, what, where and why of any given circumstance it is right that such is discussed; as is being done here.
      Maybe part of what matters is that we’re no just speaking to oursel’s but that somehow others are added into the equation.

  8. Dominic Vincent Nkoyoyo says:

    THE TRUTH WILL ALWAYS BE REVEALED NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES——If what is said in this documentary is true, and in my opion it appears to be so, then the Story of Al Megrahi, reveals alot about the so called democratic western countries and their corrupt judiciary systems!!! If the Scotish government could imprison a person, namely Al Megrahi with no thread of evidence tying him to the crime, then all those who were envolved in imprisoning him, are worse than Gaddafi!! And this an indication that the so called democratic governments are not
    better than dectorships! GEORGE THOMSON DESERVES OUR THANKS.
    Dominic Vincent Nkoyoyo.

  9. Phillip Burns says:

    The are three questions;

    1. “Who was / is preventing the necessary information from the “Crown Office” being submitted to the original and current defence team ?
    2. Why have the Crown Office done this ?
    3. Why are the Scottish Governement allowing this case to to be surpressed ?

    Have a look at the Diary of Injustice, Rogues Gallery Scotland, Bentjudges.com. Its time Scotlands voice was heard.

  10. Barry Lanza says:

    I was traded away as a witness in the original trial and the appeal. I can send you emails from the victims or the Libyans [email protected] . The US was trying to put the Shah’s son into power with a coup. PanAm largest shareholder was the Shahs family. The US had just elected Bush and the Ollie North trial was coming. Both the Shah and current government in Iran allow the National Iranian oil company in London to give kickbacks to the NHS, Royal charities and politicans so the UK govt would not allow any serious talk of Iran being blamed as they knew they would have to take them out. The new group may not be willing to forceable ‘share’ the revenues. Hence, the coverup.

    Ghaddafi did far worse things and wanted off the ‘lists’. After the trial was rigged, they made a deal . Pay the victims on scale; 40 percent for getting US sanctions off; 40 percent for getting off UN sanctions and 20 percent to get off the US terrorist list. Ghaddafi paid nothing and the money was paid by new oil contracts in which they passed into a fund. Even the NYT got reported the fund. Shell, BP and others got new contracts, among others. Ghaddafi paid nothing.

    The US Department of Intelligence said Iran did it and this was reported by the Times of London 5 days before releasing Mehgrahi in August 2009. The Libyans also agreed to put money to work in the FTSE LSE and pushed the market up for 3 months.

    The SNP made deals as well and I was blacklisted after the deals.

    The current Iran ‘issues’ are to stick in the Shahs son or a similar group.

Help keep our journalism independent

We don’t take any advertising, we don’t hide behind a pay wall and we don’t keep harassing you for crowd-funding. We’re entirely dependent on our readers to support us.

Subscribe to regular bella in your inbox

Don’t miss a single article. Enter your email address on our subscribe page by clicking the button below. It is completely free and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.