“Operation El Dorado Canyon (1986) turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined. There were revenge killings of British hostages organized by Libya, which I bitterly regretted. But the much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place. There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years.”
Margaret Thatcher
The Downing Street Years
(Memoirs 1993, pp 448-9)
December 21 2021 — On December 21 1988, N739PA — the Boeing 747 aircraft operating the transatlantic leg of Pan Am Flight 103 — broke up in flight over Scotland. All 243 passengers and 16 crew died as well as 11 residents of Lockerbie. This horrific crime has been called the world’s biggest unsolved murder. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today
RELATED POST: LOCKERBIE — Analysis of the New Indictment [UPDATE II : Unhindered by truth, BBC doubles down on factless allegations]
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…!
“On December 21 2020, we learned that the US DoJ intends to charge Abu Agila Massud, and perhaps Abdullah Senussi, in connection to the Lockerbie bombing. Why is it that they are not charging Mousa Kousa who was their boss for almost two decades?”
Intel Today
December 21 2021
UPDATE (December 21 2022) — Khaled Masoud, the Libyan Justice Minister, has announced that Fathi Bashagha’s government will form a team of lawyers to defend Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir al-Marimi.
RELATED POST : LOCKERBIE — Analysis of the New Indictment : Who is Abu Agela Masud? [UPDATE : DoJ Press Release & Timeline]
RELATED POST : LOCKERBIE — Analysis of the New Indictment [UPDATE : Lockerbie 3rd suspect taken into U.S. custody]
I am afraid that the Good Minister has got off to a bad start. In an interview, he declared:
“This person is innocent. His name was not mentioned during the Lockerbie investigation.”
While I am convinced that MASUD is not responsible for the Lockerbie tragedy, it is absolutely incorrect to say that he was not mentioned during the FBI/CIA investigation.
In his book, Richard Marquise (Head of the FBI Lockerbie Investigation) mentions MASUD many times, although he uses an alias: Abu Agila Mahmudi.
“Abu Agila Mahmudi was a name which had come up before and he remained a shadowy figure throughout the investigation. He had flown out of Malta with Abdusamad (Megrahi) on December 21 1988. Intelligence assessments indicated that he may have been the technical expert who had armed the IED.”
As I pointed out in an email (Feb 8 2010) to Marquise, the CIA was still believing that Masud was an alias of Megrahi in late 1989!
Obviously, I can only repeat the advice I gave before the recent 3rd appeal of Megrahi. The defense team will need help from serious experts, not from people who repeat factless allegations.
PS — Many people are wondering why the US DoJ is not charging others (including Abdullah Senussi and Mousa Kousa), as I have already asked at the end of this post last year?
John Bellinger, former legal adviser to the US State Department, has said that the arrest of the Libyan citizen, Abu Agila Masud Al-Maryami, “may not be the final chapter” in the Lockerbie bombing case, as it is likely that more information will be revealed about the attack, and it may lead to the arrest of other Libyan intelligence officials.
In a recent opinion piece, Kenny MacAskill (Secretary for Justice from 2007 to 2014) asks explicitly why Abdullah Senussi remains off limits?
As for Mousa Kousa, I have already answered. This man has nothing to fear from the US and UK. For decades, Kousa has been a Western Intelligence asset.
The case of Abdullah Senussi is a bit more complicated to handle. Back to Sarkozy…
In February 2019, two french judges travelled from Paris to Tripoli to interview former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi — who was also the brother-in-law of Gaddafi — as part of their ongoing investigation into financial ties between Libya and Sarkozy particularly in the run up to the 2007 French elections.
French Mediapart news website said it had gained access to extracts from the statements provided by Senussi, who reportedly detailed to French officials how he oversaw the multi-million dollar payment for Sarkozy’s campaign, as ordered by Colonel Gaddafi.
“Senussi also confirmed that as part of the deal, the former French president’s personal lawyer and friend Thierry Herzog attempted to overturn an international arrest warrant issued against Senussi, after his conviction in absentia by a Paris court for his part in the blowing up of a French airliner [UTA 772] in 1989. (…)
Yet Senussi’s latest statement is also believed to detail the time frame in which the money was transferred to the French interior minister over two instalments in 2006.
According to Mediapart, Senussi’s testimony is in line with some of the evidence already collected by the investigators, while other details still need fact-checking.”
Last week, Nicolas Sarkozy has appeared in court again, in an appeal against a guilty verdict from March 2021 for bribery and undue influence. The court will announce the decision on May 17 2023.
Let me repeat… If Sarkozy is indeed guilty, then one can only assume that he has indeed accepted money from Libya. Why would this smart guy obstruct justice if he had nothing to hide? Now the question is rather obvious. What is it the Libyans wanted in return?
Perhaps, this could explain why the US DoJ has not yet announced that they intend to charge Abdullah Senussi in connection to the Lockerbie bombing? Honor among thieves! Criminals have a code of conduct among themselves.
END of UPDATE
“I tend to the view that the disaster is due to mechanical failure. Although I keep an open mind, I have great doubts about the bomb theory.”
William Trench — Chief inspector of Air Accidents from 1974 to 1981
(December 27 1988)
The three Lockerbie judges wrote [Court Opinion] :
[1] At 1903 hours on 22 December 1988 Pan Am flight 103 fell out of the sky. The 259 passengers and crew members who were on board and 11 residents of Lockerbie where the debris fell were killed. The Crown case is that the cause of the disaster was that an explosive device had been introduced into the hold of the aircraft by the two accused whether acting alone or in concert with each other and others.
[2] It is not disputed, and was amply proved, that the cause of the disaster was indeed the explosion of a device within the aircraft. Nor is it disputed that the person or persons who were responsible for the deliberate introduction of the explosive device would be guilty of the crime of murder.
Pan Am Flight 103 disintegrated in flight over Lockerbie on December 21 1988 — not December 22 — because of a massive structural failure due to well-known issues of metal fatigue in section 41 and 42 of the Boeing 747, not because of an explosive device.
Perhaps, someone should have written a foreword to the court opinion. I would suggest the following warning:
“This verdict is based on a fictional story. Any similarity with real events or characters is purely coincidental.”
In the final chapter of my book, I exposed some of the characters who certainly played an important role in one of the greatest cover-up in modern history.
One should never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but, as Einstein argued, don’t rule out malice!
Tam Dalyell was MP for Linlithgow for 43 years and Father of the House of Commons when he retired from Westminster in 2005.
During an official dinner, Dalyell asked Thatcher why in 800 pages of her Memoirs, she did not mention Lockerbie once?’
Mrs Thatcher replied:
“Because I do not know what happened and I do not write about things that I do not know about.”
This answer can not be entirely true. In her memoirs — The Downing Street Years (Memoirs 1993, pp 448-9) — British prime minister Margaret Thatcher wrote:
“[Operation El Dorado Canyon] turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined. …
There were revenge killings of British hostages organized by Libya, which I bitterly regretted.
But the much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place …
There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years.”
Published two years after the indictment of Fhimah and Megrahi, Thatcher’s Memoirs is evidence that the Iron Lady was well aware that Libya had no involvement in the Lockerbie tragedy.
On July 24 2018, the UK National Archives released files from the Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Office predominantly covering the year of 1993. A Lockerbie file dated 1992-93 was however withheld.
Two years before, on November 2 2016, the UK Government [Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)] decided to withhold all Lockerbie air accident investigation reports [dating from 1990 Jan 01 to 1992 Dec 31] until at least 2026, and possibly indefinitely. Why on earth?
Why on earth would the UK Government decide to withhold these technical reports if they did not reveal foul play or gross incompetence?
If ever released, these reports will show that the AAIB investigators knew all along that there was no bomb on Pan Am Flight 103, and that they knew the real cause of the tragedy long before the crash even happened.
Why on earth? — On December 21 2020, we learned that the US DoJ intends to charge Abu Agila Massud, and perhaps Abdullah Senussi, in connection to the Lockerbie bombing.
Just ask yourself just one question. Why is it that they are not charging Mousa Kousa who was their boss for almost two decades?
It is fairly obvious to understand what Lady Thatcher meant when she wrote:
“The much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not (…) take place.”
But what did she mean when she said:
“The much-vaunted Libyan counter attack (…) could not take place.”
Think about that.
PS — Allow me to remind you that there is ZERO evidence of a bomb having caused the tragedy of Pan Am 103. I have summarized all my research on this subject in a single graphic.
RELATED POST: Lockerbie — Why I ruled out the bomb theory [Technical Analysis of the Debris Lines]
I would argue that anyone who understands these data does not need to wait until at least 2026, and possibly much longer, to determine the real cause of the tragedy. It is plain obvious!
“There was a single (Radar) primary return received 16 seconds before SSR returns were lost. No explanation can be offered for its presence.” [AAIB]
REFERENCES
U.S. Said to Be Near Charges for Another Suspect in 1988 Lockerbie Bombing — NYT (21 Dec 2020)
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On This Day — Pan Am Flight 103 disintegrates over Lockerbie (December 21 1988)
On This Day — Pan Am Flight 103 disintegrates over Lockerbie (December 21 1988) [UPDATE : Libyan government to form defense team of Masud]
Intel Today 
In terms of explosion noise – we are only talking a very tiny amount of Semtex or C4. The noise would not be catastrophic and it is highly possible the explosion was not enough to ignite the fuel tank. The small explosion could have been enough to initiate the aircraft disintegration. The cassette player is clearly significant in terms of it being some serious kit for terrorism activity as there existed a group known for creating bombs using cassette players timed to detonate around the 20-30 minute mark. Although we know it was not the same timers sold to a certain country as Bollier from Mebo testified!
There is a reason for so much doubt around the convictions.
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