http://i-p-o.org/IPO-nr-Lockerbie-5Oct07.htm
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Lockerbie
trial: an intelligence operation? BBC
interview of Dr. Hans Köchler New
revelation about financial offer to a key witness from Switzerland Vienna/Zurich, P/RE/20653c-is In an exclusive interview
earlier this week with Gordon Brewer of the BCC’s Newsnight
Scotland, Dr. Hans Koechler said that the
withholding of evidence by the investigators and the Prosecution from the
Defense at the Lockerbie court is a serious breach of the fundamental norms
of a fair trial. If such action occurs on the basis of a written commitment
given to a foreign intelligence service, as has now been revealed concerning
crucial evidence related to the timer that allegedly triggered the explosion
of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, the judicial nature of
the entire proceedings is to be put into question. If a foreign intelligence
service is allowed to determine what evidence may be disclosed in court and
what not, judicial proceedings before a court of law are perverted into a
kind of intelligence operation the purpose of which is not the search for the
truth, but the obfuscation of reality. This evaluation is further
confirmed by the offer of huge amounts of money by US officials to at least
three key witnesses. Dr. Koechler,
a professor of philosophy of law at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, served
in the period May 2000 – March 2002 as international observer, appointed by
the United Nations, at the Lockerbie trial and appeal before the Scottish
Court in the Netherlands. In his trial and appeal reports, issued in January
2001 and March 2002, he had highlighted the problematic role of intelligence
services in the trial and stated that proper judicial proceedings cannot be
conducted under conditions in which extrajudicial forces are allowed to
intervene. It is noteworthy that now –
more than six years after Dr. Koechler’s first
report – more and more details emerge that confirm the UN observer’s original
doubts: ·
One of the “secret” grounds of referral
of the convicted Libyan national’s case back to the appeal court has been
revealed to be the fact that crucial information in the possession of the CIA
that is related to the timer issue was withheld from the Defense; ·
Another of the “secret” grounds of appeal
has now been revealed to be the offer of a huge payment by the CIA to the
Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, a key witness of the
prosecution, for identifying the Libyan Al-Megrahi
as the one who bought clothes in his shop in Malta; ·
The Libyan-US double agent Abdul Majid Giaka had similarly been
offered a huge amount for his testimony as a prosecution witness; ·
At least two forensic “experts” who were
invited as witnesses by the Prosecution had links to intelligence agencies
and were proven to be totally unreliable; ·
One of the directors of the “Lockerbie
Trial Briefing Unit” at the Furthermore, Mr. Edwin Bollier, head
of the Zurich-based company MEBO, today confirmed vis-à-vis Dr. Koechler that during a visit to the headquarters of the
American FBI in Washington DC at the beginning of 1991 he was offered an
amount of up to USD 4 million plus a new identity (name) in the United States
if he would testify in court that the timer fragment that was allegedly found
on the crash site around Lockerbie stemmed from a MST-13 timer that his
company had delivered to Libya. Mr. Bollier told
Dr. Koechler that he did not make use of the offer
and did not make the requested statement, and that he
reported this incident after his return from the In view of all these
revelations and serious allegations Dr. Koechler
renewed his call for an independent international investigation of the
handling of the Lockerbie case by the Scottish and British authorities. It remains to be seen whether the Scottish judicial and
political system will live up to the challenge and whether the authorities
will allow a full and objective inquiry. It is to be recalled here what
Dr. Koechler had stated in his original report on
the Lockerbie trial of “… proper judicial
procedure is simply impossible if political interests and intelligence
services − from whichever side − succeed in interfering in the
actual conduct of a court. […] The purpose of intelligence services − from
whichever side − lies in secret action and deception, not in the search
for truth. Justice and the rule of law can never be achieved without transparency.” o
Dr. Hans Koechler's Lockerbie trrial observer mission |
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International Progress
Organization |
Dr Jim Swire
(jim@swirefamily.net)