“I need not go into the rest of the story and the explosion, except to say that some of us believe that, within hours, the Americans had guessed, at a very high level, what had gone wrong. It is a matter of fact that the American helicopters were on site within an hour and 25 minutes. It began back in December 1988, New Year’s Eve to be precise, when a police officer, a constituent and friend, came to me and said that he was very worried about so many Americans, on the awful site of Lockerbie, searching and rummaging through the wreckage, and possibly destroying important evidence.”
Tam Dalyell
“All three forensic scientists who worked intensively on this case, one for the FBI (Tom Thurman) and two for a branch of the UK ministry of defense (Allen Fereday and Thomas Hayes) had run into trouble in the past for concealment of evidence (Hayes), wrong conclusions (in one case, false testimony on an explosive timer—Fereday), and fabrication of evidence (Tom Thurman).”
Edward S. Herman
“The forensic link to Libya was allegedly established by a tiny piece of circuit board from a timer, mysteriously found in remote countryside after the bombing, and traced by the FBI to a Swiss manufacturer who sold timers to Libya. The genius behind this detective work was FBI agent Tom Thurman.
For reasons that were never clear Mr Thurman was not called to give evidence to the hugely expensive trial of two Libyans three years ago. The US authorities and their media, however, were full of praise for Thurman and his work. In November 1991, for instance, he was named “Person of the Week” on the TV Network ABC.
The rivers of praise dried up rather suddenly when The Person of the Week’s work at the FBI Explosives Unit was investigated by the Department of Justice. Their inquiry found that Thurman had been routinely altering the reports of scientists working in the unit. Fifty-two such reports were investigated. Only 20 had not been altered.”
Paul Foot — Imbeciles of the FBI (Guardian – May 2003)
“Williams and Thurman merit special censure for their work. It recommends that Thurman, who has a degree in political science, be reassigned outside the lab and that only scientists work in its explosives section.”
US DOJ/OIG Report on the FBI Forensic Lab
On December 28 1988, seven days after the Lockerbie tragedy, AAIB inspector Michael Charles announced that two pieces of metal recovered in the wreckage of PA 103 provided convincing evidence of a detonating high performance plastic explosive. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →
