LOCKERBIE (thread title changed because it was awful)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/02/abdelbaset-megrahi-documents-lockerbie-witness

oh SHOCKING NEWS that no-one had known before...

i'm not a big tin-foil hat guy usually but anyone who has read anything about megrahi's conviction has long known what a steaming pile of shit it all was. it's vaguely interesting that the guardian is printing this.

but the bigger question is why has the media been so supine about this whole business?

well, i published some devastating articles in the bromsgrove advertiser and messenger eight years ago, but they failed to have the effect i'd hoped for. the guy who basically made the trial happen, jim swire, was clear before the verdict that megrahi was innocent. he just had to see the official story demolished first. when he heard the verdict, he passed out in court.

to be fair to the guardian, it was running op-eds from people like norton-taylor soon after the conviction saying it was "an impossible verdict". think their coverage has always been a bit sceptical but how often do papers really go to bat for a miscarriage of justice story, especially when it's one as complex as this?

yeah, i had wondered how the guardian covered it at the time, since i was a guardian reader back then and had absorbed, without much thought, the idea it was dodgy as all hell. when this whole thing reignited last month, having read more about it since, i was pretty surprised that only people like peter hitchens recalled that the evidence was paper-thin.

theres been loadsa stories in the daily record over the years about him being innocent. I think most ppl accepted he was.

doesnt stop labour supporters trying to put the boot into the snp for letting him out all the same.

http://gawker.com/5372901/americas-commitment-to-justice-helped-send-lockerbie-bomber-home

ex-ilxor ghost rider weighs in.

he should read this.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/peir01_.html

doesnt stop labour supporters trying to put the boot into the snp for letting him out all the same.

In England it hasn't stopped tories (or for that matter Obama) putting the boot into Labour for it either. People are very easily confused.

Did Paul Foot publish anything on this at the time?

yeah: in the guardian in 1995, then a much longer thing c. 2001 (?), a kind of private eye supplement iirc.

Foot was writing about this in Private Eye on a regular basis at the time, yes.

https://secure2.subscribeonline.co.uk/PEYE/digital_downloads.cfm free for subscribers, but I think I have it on another computer if anyone wants it.

another (subscriber-only) article about all this in the October 9 nyrb, nrq.

Dead.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18137896

one of the nicest people i ever knew in my life died on that plane. i think of her often. and her voice will live within me as long as i live.

What is your reaction to the death of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi? You can send us your views and experiences using the form below.

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Scott's post above could have been mine. Different person, though, I think. Nearly an entire year's worth of drama students from Syracuse U.

The idea of dying that way (in a plane) horrifies me on such a deep, primal level I cant even begin to imagine.

Also, this thread's title is fucking appalling.

It is, but it was the least irrelevant of the threads that mentioned Lockerbie and I didn't want to get this guy his own/a mention on the regular R.I.P. thread since, well, you know.

Another vote for: I had a good friend who was on that plane

Don't want to get all ;; on this wonderful thread but yeah, hearing the guy's voice, etc.

I didn't want to get this guy his own/a mention on the regular R.I.P. thread since, well, you know

why, cos he was almost certainly not guilty?

yeah, as hm said above, this really isn't tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy thing.

Don't think the lrb piece is behind the subscription wall.

Was walking across the Syracuse campus today towards the memorial and noticed that this had been remembrance week.

Never knew this bit about The Four Tops along with John Lydon and Nora almost being on the flight.

Maybe I will email the archives to see if they have anything related to my friend but I dunno.

one of my earliest memories growing up was seeing the breaking news about this as an 8-year old, sobbing intensely without realizing it, until mom came in to see what was upsetting me.

Thin White Rope missed their scheduled flight by 15 minutes from Milan to Frankfurt; the plane they were booked on going from Frankfurt back to the US was Pan Am 103

Thin White Rope missed their scheduled flight by 15 minutes from Milan to Frankfurt; the plane they were booked on going from Frankfurt back to the US was Pan Am 103

jesus, i never knew that

Never knew this bit about The Four Tops along with John Lydon and Nora almost being on the flight.

― We Have Never Been In Precise Modern Lovers Order (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, October 23, 2022 7:22 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Learned that about the Four Tops recently from the 500 Songs podcast. They'd been on Top of the Pops the night before, decided to sleep in the next day, and missed the flight.

In close shaves with death, Quincy Jones claims that he was supposed to be at the party Sharon Tate et al met their end.

Also, this thread's title is fucking appalling.

― Pureed Moods (Trayce), Monday, May 21, 2012 3:07 AM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

And it's not got any better in ten years.

The Lydona missed because…Nora took too long packing?

Lydons

And Kim Cattrall because she went to buy a souvenir for her mother?

Sorry, TWR-related story is here, from their tour manager at the time

http://mlcompton.blogspot.com/2009/01/thin-white-rope-and-face-of-death.html?m=1

There is apparently a Jim Sheridan mini-series currently in the works: https://deadline.com/2022/02/sky-peacock-lockerbie-drama-1234959299/

https://gavinbryars.com/work_composition/cadman-requiem/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySGdLpZsJvA

(Thanks for fixing thread title.)

I received an email today from the Pan Am 103 Archives today with a list of what they have in the files for my friend and a form to fill out if I want to request copies. It doesn't seem like much and I don't feel any particular desire to request anything, I am pretty content just to have the email for whatever reason.

Just finished watching the Sky documentary, it is (of course) completely heart-breaking and worth anyone's time, imho.

I can't shake the simple humanity of the couple that owns the farm where a body, still seated, landed close by.

They kept tabs on him in the hours before he could be collected by the police, because of the way the seat was pitched down, they couldn't even really see him properly except for his shiny black hair.

They started to refer to him as 'our boy', a temporary adoption, a simple transmission of fondness for a lost soul who they knew would have family worried sick at his absence, so they chose to think of him in such a way, just so he wouldn't be alone.

It turns out that he was a lot older than they thought and had a family of his own. The series explains that three years after the event, his family came to visit and they have been in continued contact ever since, which is shown in the doc, it's so moving.