Unsolved mysteries plague Lockerbie tragedy 22 years on

The plethora of unsolved mysteries that have long surrounded the Lockerbie tragedy continues to the present day. With the main players who made the decision to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, having confirmed they will not be in attendance, why is a U.S. Senate hearing on Scotland’s decision to release al Megrahi still taking place this week?

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Kenny MacAskill--the Scottish minister who released al Megrahi on compassionate grounds--who was asked to attend, has declined. Britain’s former justice secretary Jack Straw has also turned down an invitation to appear before the U.S. hearing into the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber. Without the main characters, the hearing would be only a charade; the equivalent of holding a murder trial without the accused murderer in the dock. The Obama administration, which reportedly told Scottish officials last August that, although it opposed any release of the Lockerbie bomber, it would rather see him released in Scotland than transferred to a Libyan prison, has now been called upon to declassify documents related to the release by Scotland. A secret memo indicating that the US preferred Scotland rather than Libya for al Megrahi was unearthed by the Sunday Times in London. The memo bears witness to the lies of President Barack Obama days after his words at a press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron when he said “all of us...were surprised, disappointed and angry by the Scottish government’s decision to free Abdel Baset al-Megrahi last year.” Those are the present day unsolved mysteries plaguing the Lockerbie affair. The questions left unanswered during al Megrahi’s trial hang like a pall in the air. Most everyone knows that al Megrahi who was said to have only three months to live when he was released last August is still among us some 11 months later. Not so well known are some of the troubling factors both heard and unheard in sworn testimony during al Megrahi’s trial. A contingent of self-appointed sleuths, led by Canada Free Press columnist, Doctor in Nuclear Sciences, Ludwig De Braeckeleer, contend that the Lockerbie bombing was carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, employing Palestinian terrorists in retaliation for the US downed Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988.

In Part 108 in his Diary of a Vengeance Foretold, De Braeckeleer wrote on Oct. 18, 2008, how Tam Dalyell, a Labour member of the House of Commons from 1962 to 2005 had led some 17 Adjournment debates on the Lockerbie bombing, “in which he repeatedly demanded answers by the government to the reports of Hans Kochler, the United Nations observer at the Lockerbie Trial”, and calling his latest comments “extraordinary”. “If I thought there was any scintilla of possibility that he was guilty of mass murder, I might agree with Ruth Cohen, the intransigent American relative, who says she has no pity,” Dalyell wrote. “But the American relatives, intent on vengeance, should understand that the United States scapegoated Libya, a country which had nothing whatever to do with the Lockerbie crime at a time when they wanted to blame someone, small and unpopular, in order not to have trouble with Iran and Syria, who harboured the real perpetrators, before the planned invasion of Iraq.”

“The dreadful question has to be asked--if Mr. Megrahi’s illness is as terminal as is indicated in medical bulletins, what happens now? Do we just sweep it under the carpet; do we allow it to evaporate or go away?” De Braeckeleer wrote. “Certainly not, say some of us. The issue is not only Mr. Megrahi, but the integrity and good name of the Scottish legal system.” “There are many people who want to see this sorted,” said Dr. Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing of Pan AM 103. In total, De Braeckeleer had written 174 articles in his Diary of a Vengeance Foretold, including details of the controversial Goben memorandum which claims that Abu Elias, a relative of Ahmed Jibril and senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command (PFLP-GC), planted the bomb in the luggage of Khalid Jaafar. In his Memorandum, Goben, nicknamed “the Professor” in his organization, also claims that the Lebanese American passenger was involved in a CIA-approved heroin-smuggling operation. The luggage used for these operations, it is claimed, bypassed normal security screening. “The prosecution asked Syria to hand over information about Goben’s allegations. To this day, Syria has refused to collaborate with the investigation,” De Braeckeleer wrote. Last summer, De Braeckeleer, who was then a professor at Bogota University, sent an email to Canada Free Press (CFP) saying that he was “in trouble” and on his way to the Dutch embassy. Although he has since sent an email saying that he had arrived safely in Belgium, he has never written again about Lockerbie. While his blog, Gaia Post, remains online it has not been updated since October, 2008.