Thread: Surprise, surprise: Lockerbie bomber disappears

When the craven dhimmi Brits freed him for oil, they should have seen this coming a mile off. "Mystery as Lockerbie bomber goes missing from home and hospital," by Martin Fletcher, Tim Reid and Angus Macleod in The Times, December 16



Fooling the United Dhimmi Kingdom is easy.


M

ystery surrounded the Lockerbie bomber last night after he could not be reached at his home or in hospital.

Libyan officials could say nothing about the whereabouts of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, and his Scottish monitors could not contact him by telephone. They will try again to speak to him today but if they fail to reach him, the Scottish government could face a new crisis.

Under the terms of his release from jail, the bomber cannot change his address or leave Tripoli, and must keep in regular communication with East Renfrewshire Council.

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic and relatives of the 270 people who died in the 1988 bombing expressed anger about al-Megrahi’s disappearance. Richard Baker, Labour’s justice spokesman in the Scottish Parliament, said the whole affair was turning into a shambles and putting Scotland’s reputation at risk. “This flags up just how ludicrous it is that East Renfrewshire Council, a local council thousands of miles away from Libya, is responsible for supervising al-Megrahi’s conditions of licence,” he said.
Bomb fear in UK's worst air disaster

About 300 people were killed last night when a Pan American Boeing 747 crashed and exploded on the small town of Lockerbie

Eliot Engel, a New York congressman, said: “I think it was a tremendous mistake to let him out in the first place. I don’t think a convicted terrorist has any integrity to abide by any type of agreement.”

Relatives of the victims were furious in August when Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, released al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds because he was expected to die of prostate cancer within three months.

On Sunday evening The Times called at the bomber’s home in suburban Tripoli. A policeman sitting on a plastic chair outside was asked to deliver a message to al-Megrahi. He spoke no English, but indicated that al-Megrahi was not there.

The next day The Times visited the Tripoli Medical Centre where alMegrahi was treated soon after his return to Libya. The receptionists said he had left the hospital some time ago.

Back at al-Megrahi’s home, there was no sign of activity. One of three security officers sitting in a grey Mercedes car outside said: “They’ve all gone.” He refused to elaborate.

Alerted by The Times, Jonathan Hinds, of East Renfrewshire Council, tried to telephone al-Megrahi at his home yesterday. He spoke to a Libyan man who said al-Megrahi was too ill to speak to him.

Mr Hinds has called al-Megrahi every other Tuesday since August, and has always been able to speak to him. Yesterday was not one of the regular Tuesdays, so al-Megrahi would not have been expecting a call.

“We will continue to attempt to call Mr Megrahi tomorrow and will then consider the situation,” a council spokesman said. If there were grounds for suspecting al-Megrahi was breaching the terms of his release, “we would report that to the Scottish Government and it would be up to them to decide what action to take”.

It is entirely possible that al-Megrahi was too ill to speak. Libyan doctors have sent monthly reports on his health to Scottish officials, but these have been kept private. Al-Megrahi has not been seen in public since September 9, when he briefly met a delegation of African politicians at the Tripoli Medical Centre. He was in a wheelchair, said nothing and coughed repeatedly. Observers said he looked frail. His older brother, Mohammed, has told The Times that al-Megrahi had been examined by Italian cancer specialists and that he was receiving his fourth dose of chemotherapy. He asked that he be left alone.

Tony Kelly, al-Megrahi’s Scottish lawyer, refused to discuss his client, and the British Embassy in Tripoli had no comment, but other British sources were adamant that al-Megrahi was terminally ill.

Even so, Bill Aitken, the Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, called for an immediate investigation. He said: “This is outrageous and there will be intense anger that Britain’s biggest mass murderer appears to be able to disappear.”

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter died on Pan Am Flight 103, said: “I’d certainly wish to know what is happening to him. This is a demonstration of how it is almost impossible to keep tabs on him — but he could also be seriously ill, so that must not be ruled out.”

Dey ain't gonna hand him back...

Libyan Rebels Will Not Extradite Lockerbie Bomber
August 28, 2011 - Libya's rebel government said Sunday it will not extradite the Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound jetliner which killed 270 people when it exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Mohammed al-Alagi, the Transitional National Council's justice minister, told reporters in Tripoli that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi already has been tried and convicted in Scotland for bombing Pan Am flight 103. He said the rebels will not hand over Libyan citizens as former leader Moammar Gadhafi did. Later Sunday, CNN television reported that al-Megrahi had been found in Tripoli and appeared "near death."

Nic Robertson, a correspondent for the network, said he found al-Megrahi at a spacious villa in the Libyan capital guarded by at least six security cameras and attended to by relatives. CNN footage showed al-Megrahi apparently laying unconscious in a bed. His family said he is being kept alive with oxygen and a fluid drip, that he has stopped eating and occasionally lapses into a coma.

Scottish authorities freed al-Megrahi in 2009 on compassionate grounds. Doctors said he had terminal cancer and only months to live. He had served eight years of a minimum 27-year prison sentence. The decision to release al-Megrahi outraged the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims, many of whom were from the U.S. The fall of the Gadhafi government has sparked hopes that Libya's new leaders would be willing to extradite the convicted Lockerbie bomber.

Source

Granny says bring him back on his deathbed...

Romney Wants Lockerbie Bomber Extradited to Face Justice by U.S.
Monday, August 29, 2011 – In the aftermath of the fall of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to see the Lockerbie bomber – responsible for 186 American deaths – extradited to the United States to face justice.

“What I’d like to do is have the Lockerbie bomber extradited from Libya,” Romney said at a campaign stop in Exeter, N.H., in response to a question on the matter. “This is a person responsible for killing Americans. The idea that he would be welcomed home as a hero in Libya is simply distasteful and disgusting and outrageous and I’d like him to be extradited and face justice at the hands of the United States.”

The Scottish government released Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi from his life sentence in the summer of 2009. He was convicted on 270 counts of murder, conspiracy to murder, and violating British-aviation legislation after PanAm flight 103 was destroyed at 31,000 feet, 38 minutes after departing Heathrow Airport in London bound for New York City. The 259 people on board the plane were killed, along with 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland, who were killed when the plane crashed. Scottish authorities released Megrahi “on compassionate grounds,” citing medical advice that his advanced prostate cancer gave him about three months to live. He is still alive.

He was welcomed back to Libya under Gaddafi’s regime, which sponsored the attack. “Guantanamo always serves a useful purpose in settings like this,” Romney added. “The process we follow, we’ll follow our laws with regards to this individual. But the right thing is that he should be extradited as an indication to the people of the world that you can’t kill American or other good people in the world without suffering consequence. And him being freed and walking around a free person, thumbing his nose at the world for having taken down an aircraft and killing almost 200 people is unacceptable and I’d get him extradited if we could possibly make that happen.”

His release generated public attention this month when four U.S. senators from New York and New Jersey called on the administration to probe the affair. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had also called for an inquiry into the matter by British and Scottish officials.

Source

See also:

With Megrahi ‘Near Death,’ Will Lockerbie Secrets Ever Be Revealed?
Sunday, August 28, 2011 – The only man convicted in the Lockerbie bombing is reported by CNN to be apparently near death, an eventuality that may deprive the families of the 1988 atrocity’s victims, and the world, of ever learning exactly who gave the orders for the deadliest act of terrorism on British soil.

CNN said it tracked down Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in Tripoli Sunday, in the care of relatives and reportedly “surviving on oxygen and an intravenous drip.” A month ago, Libyan television images showed Megrahi, frail and in a wheelchair, at a pro-regime rally. Two hundred and fifty-nine people onboard Pan Am Flight 103 and another 11 on the ground were killed when the London-New York plane was bombed over Lockerbie in Scotland. Among the dead were 189 American citizens. Two years ago, the former Libyan intelligence official serving a life sentence for the attack was freed from a Scottish prison, after doctors said he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and gave him three months to live. The Obama administration, which had urged against his release, appealed to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to ensure Megrahi’s reception was a low-key affair. Instead, he was given what was described as a hero’s welcome.

Megrahi’s survival long beyond the doctors’ prognosis angered many in the U.S. and Britain, and the collapse of the Gaddafi regime has prompted new calls on both sides of the Atlantic for Megrahi to be returned to prison. Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney last week said he hoped the new Libyan authorities would extradite Megrahi “so justice can finally be done.” Hours before CNN found him, the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) justice spokesman, Mohammed al-Alagi, told reporters Libyan citizens would not be deported. “Al-Megrahi has already been judged once and he will not be judged again,” Reuters quoted him as saying. “We do not hand over Libyan citizens. Gaddafi does.”

Also on Sunday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told British broadcasters that the TNC chairman, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, had given him an undertaking during a recent visit to Britain that the new government would cooperate fully with London over both the Lockerbie case and the still-unsolved shooting death of a British policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher, shot to death outside the city's Libyan Embassy in London in 1984. (After the 25 year-old constable was shot while policing a protest outside the mission, an 11-day armed siege ensued during which police could not enter the building because it enjoyed diplomatic immunity. Britain then allowed 30 people inside the mission to leave and fly to Libya, and diplomatic relations were broken off for the next 15 years.

They were restored in 1999, after the Gaddafi regime formally admitted responsibility for Fletcher’s death and promised to cooperate in a police investigation. No-one was ever indicted, but British media last week a junior diplomat at the embassy at the time, Abdulmagid Salah Ameri, as the prime suspect.) The fugitive Libyan leader may yet be captured and surrendered to the International Criminal Court, which has indicted Gaddafi, along with his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and intelligence chief, for alleged crimes against humanity arising from the armed suppression of this year’s rebellion. Even if he lands in the dock, however, unless he volunteers information about the Lockerbie bombing questions about the affair will remain unanswered. Megrahi’s chances of shedding more light on the affair are slipping away, and may be gone.

Miscarriage of justice concerns

They found him an hour ago.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3305202.htm