{"id":627,"date":"2012-05-31T13:27:02","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T13:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\/?p=627"},"modified":"2012-05-31T13:27:02","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T13:27:02","slug":"new-private-eye-article-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\/?p=627","title":{"rendered":"New Private Eye article"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The new edition of <em>Private Eye<\/em> carries the following article under the headline <em>Justice short-circuited. <\/em>The newly-revealed document to which it refers can be read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Williamson-memo-Sept-3rd-1990.pdf\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>For 19 years prosecutors and investigators kept secret a detailed report about the most important forensic evidence recovered from the debris of Pan Am 103 at Lockerbie \u2013 a fragment of timing device circuit board &#8211; which completely undermined their own case against Abdelbasset al-Megrahi. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>That such crucial material, obtained by the Eye,\u00a0 was never disclosed before the Libyan was convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity on UK soil,\u00a0 should in itself be sufficient grounds for a public inquiry of itself. Added to the wealth of other evidence concealed from his trial (Eyes passim) \u00a0the deeply flawed identification evidence \u201clinking\u201d \u00a0Megrahi to the \u00a0bombing, the use of a discredited Walter Mitty-type FBI informer as a \u201cstar witness\u201d, and the fact that other material in the case still remains secret protected by \u201cpublic interest immunity\u201d, the stench of cover-up becomes overwhelming.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The 11-page document is a detailed summary of the forensic analysis of the circuit board, which reveals that police and experts were well aware, relatively early in the investigation, that there was something \u201cvery unusual\u201d about the board. They had found that tracks on it were coated with pure tin, whereas the vast majority in manufacture have a tin\/lead mix. This was a significant lead. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWithout exception it is the view of all experts involved in the PCB <\/em><em>[printed circuit board] industry who have assisted with this enquiry that the tin application on the tracks of the circuit was by far the most interesting feature\u201d, said the police report.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Scandalously this was never revealed at Megrahi\u2019s trial and not disclosed to his defence lawyers until 2009 \u2013 a month before he was freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds to return to Libya, where he recently died. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Crown\u2019s case against Megrahi regarding the circuit board was always the opposite: namely, that the fragment was identical to circuit boards used in timers that were supplied to Libya by a Swiss company Mebo. \u00a0But these were not remotely \u201cunusual\u201d as they had the common tin\/lead mix. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Earlier this year writer and researcher John Ashton in his book, \u00a0<\/em><em>Megrahi: You are my Jury, <\/em><em>revealed how the <\/em><em>government scientist, Allen Feraday, who had told the trial that the circuit fragment was \u201csimilar in all respects\u201d to the Mebo devices,\u00a0 had, in fact, overseen <\/em><em>tests on the fragment and a control sample circuit board, (revealed in recently disclosed notebooks) which pointed up the differences between the two.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As this new document shows, the significance of such findings was known more widely. This raises questions about why the evidence remained buried for years and who exactly knew the Mebo timers were different.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The piece <\/em><em>of board was discovered among parts of a man\u2019s shirt recovered from the crash site. The shirt was in turn traced back to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper, who put Megrahi in the frame three years after the bombing, saying he resembled the man who had bought the clothing. (As Eye readers know Megrahi bore no resemblance to the man first described by Gauci to investigators, and it later emerged that the shopkeeper and his brother were handsomely \u201crewarded\u201d by the FBI.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The new material coupled, and the doubts about the veracity of the Gauci evidence, undermine the two main pillars of Megrahi\u2019s conviction. And while the Libyans were not averse to state-sponsored acts of terrorism at the time of the bombing in 1988, it remains the case \u2013 as the late Paul Foot pointed out in an Eye special report, Lockerbie: The Flight for Justice, in 2001 &#8211;\u00a0 that the attack bore the hallmarks of a Syrian-backed Palestinian terrorist cell which had been caught red-handed with devices equipped to bring down planes. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The excuse for not holding a public inquiry is because the criminal investigation is continuing. \u00a0So far investigators only seem to have travelled to Libya &#8211; no doubt to see if they can obtain new evidence that might somehow prop up the crumbling conviction.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new edition of Private Eye carries the following article under the headline Justice short-circuited. The newly-revealed document to which it refers can be read here. &nbsp; For 19 years prosecutors and investigators kept secret a detailed report about the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\/?p=627\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New Private Eye article - Megrahi: You are my Jury<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\/?p=627\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Private Eye article - Megrahi: You are my Jury\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The new edition of Private Eye carries the following article under the headline Justice short-circuited. The newly-revealed document to which it refers can be read here. &nbsp; For 19 years prosecutors and investigators kept secret a detailed report about the &hellip; Continue reading &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\/?p=627\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Megrahi: You are my Jury\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/megrahiyouaremyjury\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-31T13:27:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Ashton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Ashton\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?p=627#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?p=627\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"John Ashton\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a3d95b60ad859f79945180cdc6da1c84\"},\"headline\":\"New Private Eye article\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-05-31T13:27:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?p=627\"},\"wordCount\":688,\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?p=627\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?p=627\",\"name\":\"New Private Eye article - Megrahi: You are my Jury\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-05-31T13:27:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a3d95b60ad859f79945180cdc6da1c84\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?p=627#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?p=627\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?p=627#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"New Private Eye article\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/\",\"name\":\"Megrahi: You are my Jury\",\"description\":\"A site and blog to accompany the book\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a3d95b60ad859f79945180cdc6da1c84\",\"name\":\"John Ashton\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/547eacbbd4d2ecf9c9f757ab3b97c31751787bc616b24f7e6364a3302407682f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/547eacbbd4d2ecf9c9f757ab3b97c31751787bc616b24f7e6364a3302407682f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/547eacbbd4d2ecf9c9f757ab3b97c31751787bc616b24f7e6364a3302407682f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Ashton\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"New Private Eye article - Megrahi: You are my Jury","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.megrahiyouaremyjury.net\/?p=627","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"New Private Eye article - Megrahi: You are my Jury","og_description":"The new edition of Private Eye carries the following article under the headline Justice short-circuited. 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