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by Jason Allardyce,
The Sunday Times
Abdelbasset Ali Ahmed al Megrahi
Trail of the Octopus: From Beirut to Lockerbie -- Inside the DIA,
by Donald Goddard with Lester K. Coleman
The Maltese Double Cross, directed
by Allan Francovich -- Illustrated Screenplay & Screencap Gallery
Spy vs. Spy: Pan Am 103 -- To be
Onboard Was Not to Be Onboard, by Charles Carreon
21 June 2009
Lord Fraser says
alleged transfer of timer to FBI lab would have compromised the
Lockerbie bomb trial
Lord Fraser, the former lord advocate who charged the man convicted of
the Lockerbie bombing, has revealed he was unaware that evidence
presented at his trial seems to have left Britain beforehand.
The Tory peer has told a television documentary that he did not know
that a fragment of circuit board linked to the bomb had allegedly been
moved to an FBI lab in Washington for analysis ahead of the trial and
conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
Fraser said he would not have agreed to the step because it could have
left the crown open to accusations at the trial that the circuit board
could have been damaged or tampered with during the move.
The original trial heard the fragment was found in a piece of recovered
clothing in a wood 25 miles from Lockerbie, six months after the bombing
in December 1988.
Prosecutors linked it to Megrahi after Thomas Thurman of the FBI
identified it as part of a sophisticated timer used to detonate
explosives. He said it was made by Mebo, a Swiss firm which supplied the
component only to Libya and the East German Stasi.
Fraser’s comments were made in a Dutch documentary called “Lockerbie
Revisited”. (...)
The Libyan authorities have asked Scottish ministers to transfer Megrahi
to their custody under the terms of a transfer deal brokered by London
and Tripoli, but a condition of the treaty is that prisoners cannot
leave the country while criminal proceedings are ongoing.
Megrahi, who is terminally ill with prostate cancer, has revealed that
he does not believe he will live to clear his name. He said he may drop
his appeal to try to spend his final days with his family. (...)
He said his low spirits as a result of being away from his wife,
children and parents, were reducing the chances of his body responding
to medical treatment and that there was now little to keep him here.
He made his views known last week in a meeting with Christine Grahame,
the nationalist MSP, who has taken an interest in his case. He told her
he was happy for his views to be publicised although his lawyer has
stipulated that he cannot be directly quoted.
Megrahi believes he will die by the end of the year, long before his
appeal is expected to conclude and complains that prison is reducing his
lifespan. He claims his isolation and depression are reducing the chance
of his body responding to the medical treatment he receives. If your
mood is low the body will not respond properly to medication to fight
the disease, he told Grahame.
There is no consideration in the criminal justice system for his health,
Megrahi said. People do not care about his condition and the system is
unfair, he added.
The Scottish prison service says it always provides seriously ill
prisoners with support.
Megrahi regards as perverse the fact that his transfer to Libya would
not be guaranteed even if he agrees first to drop his appeal, but he
feels he may have to take the gamble.
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