General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Osama bin Laden will never walk on this earth again" is the rhetoric we want to represent us? [View all]JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Your phrase is meaningless. The peoples and their governments are not the same. The governments also have different agencies and actors. Generally I have rarely found myself supporting the actions of either, the USG or the former Libyan government. Your personal cheap shot indicates insecurity and resort to overkill and amounts to self-impeachment. Isn't your evidence and argument enough on its own? This case is either one way or another; it doesn't make me a "Gaddafi lover" or you a "CIA stooge."
The BBC story you link is a report on the 2000 Scottish trial (in the Netherlands) of Megrahi and Fhima (the latter of whom would be acquitted). From it I gather the prosecution (whose side you seem to prefer) disliked Bollier as a witness, and they leaked ("revealed" that they "considered" indicting him as well, which they did not do and sounds like witness harrassment. The defense complained about this prosecution maneuver. Bollier was not indicted. In the BBC writeup he accepts that the timer shown in court was from his company, but that doesn't make it the same timer used in the bombing and doesn't say that the CIA didn't plant it (as later accusations held). There is no contradiction in Bollier claiming the CIA tried to bribe him (the second such allegation of CIA bribery in this case) and also that Gaddafi made wild promises in the hope Bollier could help get Megrahi freed, so I don't know what you think you're saying by that. Gaddafi was known for his obsession with this case and his bizarre extravagance.
Regardless, the story's out of date, because about seven years later a Scottish review board assessing allegations of CIA manipulations and planted evidence ordered a retrial of Megrahi. I submit they knew more about this case and why they thought it was flawed than either of us. Before this retrial was completed, UK authorities puzzled the world by ordering Megrahi's release. Curious.