Is there justice now Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is dead or has an innocent man suffered for nothing?

Is a interesting question following the death of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi today who had lived on longer than many people had thought he might. But does this latest episode in the mystery behind the tragic bombing of that Pan-Am flight one christmas.

The death of the only man to have been convicted of the Lockerbie bombing – when Pan Am flight 103 was blown out of the sky over Scotland in the week before Christmas 1988, means it is less likely than ever that the full story behind the outrage will be told.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi who died in Tripoli on Sunday, two years and nine months after his release from a Scottish jail, always protested his innocence.
The 60-year-old, whose imminent death had been predicted on several occasions since his return to Libya, had, according to US and UK authorities been a Libyan intelligence officer as well as head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines and director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli.
In November 1991, he and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah were indicted in the US and Scotland for the bombing which killed 259 passengers and crew on the Pan Am jet and 11 people on the ground. Libya refused to extradite them, though they were kept under arrest in Tripoli.
However, eight years later they were handed over after complex negotiations that led to their being prosecuted under Scottish law, at a court with three judges but no jury, in the Netherlands. In January 2001, Megrahi was convicted of 270 murders and jailed for life. Fhimah was acquitted.
The Libyan government paid $2.7bn (£1.7bn) in compensation and accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials while not admitting direct responsibility for the bombing. Megrahi was jailed first at Barlinnie, in Glasgow, and later at Greenock. His wife and children moved to Scotland too.
Years of legal wrangling followed, with an appeal rejected in 2002, and a £1.1m investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) that found there were six grounds where a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.
A full appeal got under way in April 2009. But it was dropped suddenly the following August, two days before Megrahi was put aboard a plane to Tripoli. Climbing aboard the plane, he wore a white shell-suit to hide body armour. He had been transferred from prison in a bombproof vehicle accompanied by security officers, also wearing body armour and drawing enhanced danger pay.
International furore erupted over the release, with allegations it had been sanctioned by the UK government in order to secure more business and oil deals with the Gaddafi regime. Gordon Brown's administration was forced to admit it had known in advance of the release but that it had been a matter for the Scottish justice system. Nonetheless, David Miliband, then foreign secretary, made no apology for protecting business links with Libya. "With the largest proven oil reserves in Africa and extensive gas reserves, Libya is potentially a major energy source in the future", he told MPs at Westminster. David Cameron always said that Megrahi should have died in jail.
Even as the Gadaffis faced overthrow last year, state TV showed Megrahi at a rally in support of the threatened rulers. But when rebel forces took control of Tripoli and discovered Megrahi apparently close to death, the national transitional council said he would not be returned to Britain.
Late last year, the new Tripoli government gave Britain some encouragement to mount fresh investigations, both into Lockerbie and the shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher in London in 1984.
Megrahi's family insisted he was too ill to be seen by British officials and in March this year Libyan officials appeared to rule out the possibility of UK detectives travelling to Libya to conduct new inquiries for the foreseeable future.
However, Frank Mulholland, the Lord Advocate and Scotland's chief law officer, recently visited Tripoli with the FBI chief Robert Mueller to kickstart talks about getting access to records from Gaddafi's regime and potential suspects, believed to include the former Libyan head of intelligence Abdullah al-Senussi.
While many relatives of Lockerbie victims remain convinced of Megrahi's guilt, there are some, particularly in Britain, who believe he is innocent.


The UK and US authorities have repeatedly brushed off claims by campaigners that the bomb was planted by Syrian agents and Palestinian terrorists in revenge for the attack on an Iranian passenger airliner by a US warship.
The Scottish first minister Alex Salmond said: "The Lockerbie case remains a live investigation, and Scotland's criminal justice authorities have made clear that they will rigorously pursue any new lines of inquiry. "
Jim Swire, whose daughter was a passenger on Pan Am 103 told Sky News: "It's a very sad event. Right up to the end he was determined – for his family's sake, he knew it was too late for him, but for his family's sake – how the verdict against him should be overturned.
"And also he wanted that for the sake of those relatives who had come to the conclusion after studying the evidence that he wasn't guilty, and I think that's going to happen."

Will we ever know the truth I wonder? Did an innocent man go to prison or was he part of a bigger cover up. I don’t know but whatever happened many innocent people lost their lives in the process which is unforgivable. Someone was behind it and I hope there I justice one day for the families of lost loved ones.



With extracts from the Guardians piece on the same story.

Happy new year and lets keep this movement going

So as 2010 draws to a close tonight i reflect on what has been a big year for me and for the world. We now have a coalition governemnt tory lead with liberal democrats in toe for the first time in a good while. Getting to work on slashing the deficit and cutting like there is no tommorrow.

2010 will be reemembered for the year the young population and students more so finally woke up and bravely began the fightback against these harsh savage cuts. The students have started the ball rolling so to speak with protests on the streets. Now it is up to the rest of us trades unions included to ramp up the pressure on the governemnt to back down on these unessesary cuts.

As the phrase goes when they say cutback ... we say .... fightback.

I think that will be one of the major themes for next year lots of strike action being called from public sector workers who will face growing pressure to relieve people from their jobs to save money.

Next year will be the big royal wedding as it is being billed between Prince William and Kate Middleton this will have to be carefully carried out by the royals to not appear to be lavishing it up too much whilst the rest of the country suffers from deep harsh cuts.

I feel one of the biggest stories going into the early part of next year certainly january and febuary with the VAT going up to 20% from the 4th of january will really start to hit home with petrol prices going through the roof for drivers. I wouldnt be surprised if we saw fuel strikes once again with supplies being disrupted.

All in all 2011 promises to be another interesting year with a glimer of hope coming from those who are starting to mobilise on the left to take action and stand up and be counted. It will also be a interesting year for our countries opposition party. The labour party with Ed miliband in charge. Ed it has been said has got off to a slow frustrating start if more of this continues and say they dont win the Oldham East bi-election i think pressure will start to mount on him. Saying that he could have a shadow cabinet reshuffel and come back storming the government and stamping his mark on the party and the country as a whole.

I do think we have a long way to come out of this economic crisis and 2011 will not be the end of it. Whilst i try to remain positive about next years prospects it is tricky to see where these cuts will leave us when they are all done.

For myself a prospect of a open university course starting in Febuary in socail science will be very interesting for myself. I am looking forward to this a hell of a lot. It is a chance for me to further my knowledge in this area and fill my time with some good study. I was very lucky to get on the course and get fully funded before the open university will have its budget cut from this tory lead coaliton so i feel very thankful.

I wish to get to see more friends across the country next year more people i have come in to conversation with over twitter and facebook over thel ast year. I also have my podcast i am slowly starting to organise and get going. Do contact if you would like to be involved in any shape or form too.

So that's it from me signing off for 2010 wishing you all a very happy new year and the best of luck in whatever you get up to next year.

the growing movement of the excellent UKuncut

I've been following the progress of a movement known on the internet on twitter and facebook called UKuncut.
They are at this website here : http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/

I was listening to a bbc radio 4 podcast on the growing movement and the excellent work they are doing so far tonight, you can listen back to it here for a limited amount of time only.

http://j.mp/i3ZYhW

Please do listen to this it offers a good arguement from both sides and includes interviews from the founders of Ukuncut and representitives of the tax payers alliance which i will come on to a bit later on.

If you havent heard of them before UKuncut are a new protest movement group set up on the internet using twitter and facebook to communicate to spread the word and highlight the fact that while public sector money is being cut hugely that on the other side to represent that we are not in fact contary to what some tories may say we are not all in this together.

Ukuncut's aim is to bring to the wider publics attention that big business's multinationals in alot of cases areavoiding and dodging huge tax bills. Whilst this is not strictly against the law it is moraley wrong in my opinion.

With Vodafone having been found to have avoided paying a estimated 6 billion pounds to the british HMRC this provoked anger with people and UKuncut took to the streets to make this point heard that there is something very wrong going on out there.

In the podcast it highlights some of the protesters inside Top shop in Oxford street in London before christmas protests of which i followed very closely on twitter live at the time. But to hear actual sound clips from the protests gives me real hope and belief that there are people out there fighting for a fairer future for all.

People such as Phillip Green who i have blogged about in the past were targetted by UKuncut. ALthough Phillip has not committed any tax evasion as far as we know his wife is a non british citizen and it is rumoured he ships a lot of his company Arcadia's profits off to Monaco where she apparently lives to avoid having to pay tax on it while in Britain.

I feel this is a outrage and for innocent hard working people in the public sector having to loose their jobs due to cuts and job loss's when no cuts wouldh ave to be made if cases's like Vodafone and Top shops owners paid their tax properly we would be ok.

What angers Ukuncut protesters even more is the absolute lack of effort being made from our present government which is conservative lead with the vast majority of the current cabinet being millinaires themselves. They feel a lot lot more could be done to plug the loop holes that these rich multinationals are exploiting for their own benifit. To me it smacks of a very unbalanced unequal system when you have hard working honest poor people paying their bit of tax which will be a lot of their weekly earnings to the government when the people who really can afford to pay tax and a hell of a lot more in my opinion do not consistently.

The tax payers alliance which i eluded to earlier in my post rear their ugly head again. They all seem to be a load of daily mail reading look after yourself type person really and feel that we will have to put up with this as it has always been this way in this country. They also feel that taxing big business's too much in the end will drive them away to other countries. To me i'd say good ridence really maybe in their place we would bring in fairer and more honest companies who want to play by the rules. We as a country need to be setting an example i feel as with a lot of things our actions are often reflected and replecated around the world. So i whole hartidly support Ukuncut and their efforts to protest and make their message heard. Also good on radio 4 for highlighting their efforts i think its about time this sort of message is heard loud and clearly and those who are not playing by the rules are named and shamed.