“The Lockerbie investigation was supposedly driven by old-fashioned detective work, but, as we have learned over the years, behind the scenes the CIA played a key role. We now know that the timer fragment was not from one of the 20 timers to Libya. Is it really far-fetched to suggest that the CIA planted it in order to conclusively link Libya to the bombing?”
John Ashton — Lockerbie investigator
March 21 2022 — On This day 10 years ago, Lockerbie investigator John Ashton posted a list of questions that the SCCRC officers should have asked to the FBI. Seven of those twelve questions are directly related to the infamous MST-13 timer and the miraculous fragment PT/35(b) allegedly found among the debris. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
RELATED POST : On This Day — Operation Flavius [Death on the Rock] (March 6 1988) — It’s Time to Revisit Lockerbie!
RELATED POST : One Year Ago — Unmasking The GOLFER. Who was Lockerbie Deep Throat?
Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!
QUICK NOTE — To make it easier for the readers to retrieve various chapters of my book, I have created a special page “Lockerbie” where all the links to the chapters will be listed with a brief description. You can access that page directly as it appears at the far right of the top bar of this blog.
Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!
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What the SCCRC should have asked the FBI by John Ashton (March 21 2012)
On 18 March Scotland on Sunday ran an article headlined Megrahi probe ‘failed to speak to FBI agents’, which reported criticisms of the SCCRC by FBI officers Oliver ‘Buck’ Revell and Richard Marquise.
It states:
Oliver “Buck” Revell, the former associate deputy director of investigations for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, has reacted angrily to the examination into the case by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). In an e-mail seen by Scotland on Sunday, Revell expressed frustration that no-one from the FBI was consulted by the SCCRC when it compiled its report into the safety of Megrahi’s conviction … In his e-mail to government and legal officials in Scotland and the US, Revell complained that the SCCRC failed to interview members of the FBI for its Statement of Reasons. The e-mail pointed out that the original Lockerbie investigation was carried out by Scottish police, Scotland Yard, the German BKA and the FBI. Revell added: “I don’t know what the SCCRC expects to determine when it is not even interviewing the actual investigators involved in solving this terrible crime.”
Marquise said:
“I don’t know if you can say you have done a comprehensive report unless you speak to key people. To me it is an incomplete report whatever they are going to publish. They never did speak to the people who might be able to shed some light on whatever it is that they were looking to find out. If you are going to say you have done a complete investigation, you should talk to everybody who was key, and I like to think people in the FBI were key. I like to think some people in the CIA were key and they could and should have been interviewed.”
While neither man shed any light on what the FBI investigators could have told the commission, we might infer from their comments that the Bureau held further evidence of Abdelbaset’s guilt. Of course, it almost certainly didn’t, because any such evidence would have been handed to the Crown.
That said, I share Revell’s and Marquise’s disappointment that the SCCRC failed to interview anyone from the FBI, as many important questions remain unanswered. For example:
- What did FBI agent John Hosinski discuss with Tony Gauci when he met him alone on 2 October 1989?
- What did Senegalese official Jean Collin reveal when interviewed in the US in December 1990?
- Was the content of Collin’s interview revealed to the Scottish police? And, if not, why not?
- Why did the FBI’s Tom Thurman ‘front’ for the CIA in relation to the identification of the timer fragment?
- According to FBI agent Hal Hendershott, Thurman had a laboratory in Lockerbie within days of the bombing. What forensic work did he undertake and was that work shared with the Scottish investigators?
- When, in June 1990, Thurman demonstrated to the Scottish police that PT/35b matched the control sample MST-13 timer, why did he not reveal that he was already aware that the timers were made by Mebo?
- Why was Hendershot aware of the contents of the Toshiba manual fragment PK/689 before it was examined for the Scottish police at RARDE?
- Why was the FBI able to investigate debris item PI/1389 (a blue T-shirt, which, according to the FBI’s Bonn legal attache David Keyes, showed blast damage and the imprint of the grills of two radio speakers) before RARDE?
- What information did Hendershot, Thurman and Bob Howen uncover in relation to the crystals used in the MST-13 timers? In particular, were they able to establish the date of manufacture of the crystal used in the control sample timer K-1, which was recovered from Togo and which Thurman used for comparative purposes with the fragment PT/35b?
- Regarding the episode at Frankfurt airport, witnessed by FBI agent Lawrence Whittaker and DI Watson McAteer, in which a baggage handler apparently entered a bag into the automated transit system without recording the transaction, why was Whittaker’s trial testimony at odds with McAteer’s statement S3743A?
- How many FBI FD302 reports by Lockerbie field agents were handed to the Crown? (Only a handful were provided to the defence.)
- The US Department of Justice has stated that only three reports were produced in relation to the FBI’s inquiries in Malta. Given the centrality of Malta to the case, why were there so few?
Perhaps Mr Revell and Mr Marquise can answer these questions.
The article is also notable for the following quote by Marquise:
“On the issue of witnesses being paid, no witness [was paid] to my knowledge. What some police officer or FBI agent might have told somebody in the corner in a dark room in the middle night that I don’t know about, I can’t vouch for that. But everybody that worked for me were under orders that they were not allowed to tell people that they could get money for this case. So, as far as I know, nobody was promised or paid money to testify.”
The SCCRC report states, at paragraph 23.19:
Enquiries with D&G [Dumfriesx and Galloway Police] have established that, some time after the conclusion of the applicant’s appeal against conviction, Anthony and Paul Gauci were each paid sums of money under the “Rewards for Justice” programme administered by the US Department of State. Under that programme the US Secretary of State was initially authorised to offer rewards of up to $5m for information leading to the arrest or conviction of persons involved in acts of terrorism against US persons or property worldwide. The upper limit on such payments was increased by legislation passed in the US in 2001.
According to DCI Harry Bell’s diary, on 28 September 1989, FBI agent Chris Murray told Bell that he (Murray): ‘had the authority to arrange unlimited money for Tony Gauci and relocation is available. Murray states that he could arrange $10,000 immediately.’ Murray would not have said these things unless he believe that the offer might have been put to Gauci, yet, according to Marquise, “everybody that worked for me were under orders that they were not allowed to tell people that they could get money for this case.” So, was Murray acting against Marquise’s orders? And, if so will he be held to account? Again, maybe Marquise and Revell can enlighten us.
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“PT/35(b) was extremely, extremely dodgy. It was very, very suspicious. The way it suddenly appeared, embedded in a shirt collar, with the information on the page overwritten and changed, all police procedures were thrown out of the window.”
Rev. John Mosey
On May 12 1989, PT/35(b) was allegedly extracted from the collar of a “SLALOM” shirt labelled PI/995. PT/35(b) will become the key piece of evidence of the Lockerbie Case.
RELATED POST: 30 Years Ago — PT/35(b) Forgery Planted Among Lockerbie Evidence (May 12 1989)
As Richard Marquise (the FBI Agent who led the US side of the investigation) himself said: “Without PT/35(b), there would have been no indictment.”
Today, we know that PT/35(b) is a forgery. We also know that at least one witness was well aware that PT/35(b) could not have been part of the MST-13 timers delivered to Libya and that this witness deliberately withheld this information from the court.
I have long believed that the ‘Lockerbie evidence’ [clothes from Malta, PT/35(b), and the infamous Toshiba radio] was planted to incriminate Libya.
RELATED POST: Lockerbie — Why I ruled out the bomb theory [Technical Analysis of the Debris Lines]
A few weeks ago, I received a few documents which were not disclosed to the defense. I believe these documents prove that the ‘evidence’ of an explosion has been fabricated.
Stay tuned!
PS — If you feel curious, I encourage you to read this post and take the test I have prepared for my readers.
Do you have what it takes to be an FBI Intelligence Analyst? [Parody]
REFERENCES
Megrahi: You Are My Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence by John Ashton
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10 Years Ago — Lockerbie : What the SCCRC should have asked the FBI
Intel Today 