Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/

According to the newspaper 'Scotland on Sunday' , 28 August 2005, a Scottish Police chief has revealed that the Lockerbie evidence was faked.

The 1989 Lockerbie Bomb incident killed 270 people.

The former police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.

The officer has testified that the CIA planted the fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting Al Megrahi.

The police chief's identity has not yet been revealed.

According to the Scotsman, "the claims pose a potentially devastating threat to the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system."

The officer is supporting claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses "wrote the script" to incriminate Libya.

An insider told Scotland on Sunday that the retired officer approached them after Megrahi's appeal - before a bench of five Scottish judges - was dismissed in 2002.

The insider said: "He said he believed he had crucial information. A meeting was set up and he gave a statement that supported the long-standing rumours that the key piece of evidence, a fragment of circuit board from a timing device that implicated Libya, had been planted by US agents.

"Asked why he had not come forward before, he admitted he'd been wary of breaking ranks, afraid of being vilified.

"He also said that at the time he became aware of the matter, no one really believed there would ever be a trial. When it did come about, he believed both accused would be acquitted. When Megrahi was convicted, he told himself he'd be cleared at appeal."

The source added: "When that also failed, he explained he felt he had to come forward.

"He has confirmed that parts of the case were fabricated and that evidence was planted. At first he requested anonymity, but has backed down and will be identified if and when the case returns to the appeal court."

The evidence that linked the bombing of Pan Am 103 to Megrahi was a tiny fragment of circuit board found in a wooded area many miles from Lockerbie.

The fragment was later identified by the FBI's Thomas Thurman as being part of a sophisticated timer device used to detonate explosives.

Thurman has been revealed as a fraud who had given false evidence in American murder trials. He had little in the way of scientific qualifications.

In 2003, a retired CIA officer gave a statement to Megrahi's lawyers in which he alleged evidence had been planted.

It has long been rumoured the fragment was planted to implicate Libya for political reasons.

Following the Lockerbie Bomb trial, legal observers, including senior United Nations officials, expressed doubts about the verdict.

Internal documents emerged from the offices of the US Defence Intelligence Agency. Dated 1994, they described the PFLP-GC, and not the Libyans, as the Lockerbie bombers.

A source close to Megrahi's defence said: "Britain and the US were telling the world it was Libya, but in their private communications they acknowledged that they knew it was the PFLP-GC.

"The case is starting to unravel largely because when they wrote the script, they never expected to have to act it out. Nobody expected agreement for a trial to be reached, but it was, and in preparing a manufactured case, mistakes were made."





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