US spies blamed Iran for Lockerbie bomb

[emad]

Source: sunday times

American intelligence documents blaming Iran for the Lockerbie bombing would have been produced in court if the Libyan convicted of Britain’s worst terrorist attack had not dropped his appeal.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer expected to be freed this week, had instructed his lawyers to produce internal US intelligence communications unavailable to his defence team at his trial in 2000.

The cables, from the American Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), suggest that Iran was behind the attack on Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people in 1988, in response to the shooting down of an Iranian commercial airliner by the USS Vincennes, an American warship, five months earlier.

One document that the defence team had planned to produce was a memo from the DIA dated September 24, 1989. It states: “The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar (Mohtashemi-Pur), the former Iranian minister of interior.


Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6797773.ece

[aquart]

1. Oh.

What would be the reason we didn't want that story told? What would be the reason we indicted a different nation? I'm a simple woman of my people. Could someone please tell me?

[emad]

2. Reckon that's only half the story.

Prosecuting and jailing Al-Meghrahi was a bit like busting Madoff, it ensured the focus remained on just one 'evil' perpetrator.

Al-Meghrahi has dropped his second appeal against sentence in return for a possible 'compassionate grounds' release due to advanced prostate cancer.

Yep, I expect it is of the utmost importance to former US Veep George Bush Sr (1980-84 & 1988-92) to close the entire topic.

Especially the production in court of the Pan Am 103 passenger list showing who had cancelled their flight reservations at the very last minute.

Always reckoned it was an assassination attempt carefully but incompetently choreographed with the help of Bush Sr's UK accomplice Margaret Thatcher.

[emad]

3. Al-Megrahi’s release ‘would free BP’ to join the rush for Libya’s oil

Sunday Times, 16/8/09



The release of the Lockerbie bomber from prison would liberate Britain’s largest industrial company from a string of problems hampering its $900 million (£546 million) Libyan gas projects, industry sources claimed last night.

BP, the oil giant, signed a deal with Libya in 2007 to explore for gas in the west of the country and offshore. But since then it has faced a string of bureaucratic obstacles, including delays securing official permits and approvals to import equipment through Libyan customs, the sources said.

They added that BP’s work programme, conducting geological studies on the Sitre basin, an offshore block the size of Belgium, had been hit by delays securing official paperwork for the next scheduled phase of work. “Now that al-Megrahi is released, BP expects to get the go-ahead,” said one source in Libya.

Dr Bassam Fattouh, an expert on the Libyan oil industry at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, added that Libya, which was opened up to foreign companies after sanctions were lifted in 2003, had proved to be a “difficult business environment” for BP and other companies. “BP was having difficulty getting heavy equipment into the country,” he said. However, BP denied that it had faced anything more than routine problems in Libya. A spokesman said that the company was very happy with progress so far.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6797118.ece

[CJCRANE]

4. Not sure I believe this either.

But it seems likely that Libya wasn't behind it.