In an earlier post on the Lockerbie bombing I mentioned how Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter was one of the 259 people on board the Panam flight 103 that exploded over the Scottish town twenty years ago, was campaigning for the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi who, although innocent, is sitting in a Scottish prison where he is dying of cancer.(1) Dr Swire, according to Lord Fraser, the lord advocate and head of Scotland's prosecution system at the time of the bombing, "is suffering with "Stockholm Syndrome.""(2) "Stockholm Syndrome" is a condition where people who are kidnapped by terrorists ultimately identify with their aims. One wonders what Lord Fraser's aims are with this attack?
Perhaps, the real reason behind the attack is not Dr Swire's affliction to "Stockholm Syndrome" but rather because the former lord advocate is beginning to wet his pants in fear that his role in the biggest scandal in Scottish justice might be revealed by a man who just cannot find satisfaction in having an innocent man jailed for the murder of his daughter and countless others.
1 http://thediplomatabroad.blogspot.com/2008/10/scottish-justice.html
2 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5375656.ece
2 comments:
I lost an extremely close friend and several acquaintances on Pan Am 103. The charges against al-Megrahi and his co-defendant Fhimah always struck me as weak in content and dubious in their timing. I have never believed them.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie is smearing Jim Swire by claiming Swire has Stockholm syndrome. But this syndrome happens to hostages, not bereaved parents. Peter Fraser is a fine one to accuse Dr Swire of lacking objectivity: it was Fraser who in 1991 came up with Megrahi & Fhimah's indictment!
PA103 was bombed only five months after the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air 655 and Ronald Reagan failed to issue a timely or adequate apology. The USA and UK spent the next two years accusing Iranian-backed PFLP General Command Palestinian terrorists of bombing PA103 in revenge, acting on Iranian orders.
The PFLP-GC is based in Syria. The USA and UK suddenly stopped accusing the PFLP-GC just before the first Gulf War as part of a strategy to to dissuade Ba'athist Syria from supporting Ba'athist Iraq. The USA and UK then accused Libya instead, on scant evidence except the uncertain memory of one Maltese draper.
Freeing al-Megrahi should be just the start. The UK must reopen the investigation into the PFLP-GC and Iran, and also investigate Peter Fraser and his cohorts who indicted the two Libyans.
Genuinely sorry to hear about your friend!
My own research on the incident was confined to the chapter devoted to it in John Pilger's, 'Tell Me No Lies' and some articles in the internet. These articles, although not always in agreement with one another, would seem to corroborate your own contentions as would John Pilger's theories.
When I was younger, I used to hitch on the A74, I am from Glasgow, and I visited Lockerbie shortly after the tragedy. Knowing the town well the site of the crater where the house stood left quite an impression.
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