Christine Grahame: Al-Megrahi is home. And he is innocent

Christine Grahame: Al-Megrahi is home. And he is innocent

The release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber was long overdue, for the case against him was politically driven

Sunday, 23 August 2009

I became involved with Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi quite by accident. Like many people I had been suffering from Lockerbie fatigue. For me, and for you, I suppose, life had moved on from that horrendous crime over 20 years ago and the imprisonment of the Libyan murderer. That was that.

At least it was, until I agreed, by chance, to sponsor the showing of a Dutch documentary about the Lockerbie bombing at Parliament. I invited all MSPs and researchers, and indeed the press corps, to see this film. One MSP and one member of the press came, and I really only saw it because I felt obliged to attend. But that film changed my perspective. From that casual moment, and from much that I have learned since, I am convinced not only that Megrahi was not found guilty "beyond reasonable doubt", the test in Scot's law, but that he is an innocent man.

He is not a saint, of course – he had a history with Libyan intelligence – but his hands are clean over Lockerbie. For you should recall that five months before the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on that dark, wild December night just before Christmas in 1988, an American military cruiser, the Vincennes, shot down an Iranian passenger plane carrying 290 pilgrims. No one has been charged, let alone prosecuted, over that, even though it was all captured on film.

It is reasonable to deduce that when an American plane carrying, as some believed, military personnel back home to their religious festival, is blasted out of the sky, the finger of suspicion should not point first at Libya. Iran, maybe. However, Iran had to be kept on side because of the Iraq/Kuwait conflict. The Iran/Syria connection was soon dropped, and so Libya was indeed blamed. Here was a credible culprit.

To successfully frame a nation, pick one like Libya, in which all the baddies of the Middle East are personified in a recognisable hate figure like Gadhafi. If you want to frame a man, pick one with a feasible track record. Then first sell it to the world through the press and, hey presto!

But back to that film, which has not yet been seen here. After watching this disconcerting documentary, which challenged the reliability of key evidence, I got into conversations that night with Dr Jim Swire, with a forensic police scientist who had to label those bodies scattered across hundreds of acres of dark wintry hillside, with Father Patrick Keegan, the priest who lived in Sherwood Crescent (the only person who survived in that street) and with others. None of them supported the case against al-Megrahi.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/christine-grahame-almegrahi-is-home-and-he-is-innocent-1776188.html

Related thread:

Lockerbie: Will the truth ever come out?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x473763

should have died in prison. He is a fuckstick.

if he is guilty, why should he not be given humanitarian release with a few months to live? Who are we?