“…How much more suffering does the Obama administration want American relatives of Lockerbie bombing murder victims to take? Fresh off delivering a hero’s welcome for freed Lockerbie jihadist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, blood-stained Libyan terrorist-enabler Moammar Gadhafi is headed to America next month.

And he wants to pitch a tent in upscale Englewood, NJ after speaking to the UN General Assembly. I wish it were just a sick joke. It’s not:

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi will set foot on U.S. soil for the first time next month when he comes to address the U.N. General Assembly. Now he wants to put down stakes in the middle of American suburbia.

Plans to set up a tent and allow him to stay at a Libyan-owned estate in this upscale community 12 miles north of Manhattan were attacked Monday by neighborhood residents and public officials, particularly after the hero’s welcome Libya extended last week to the lone man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103.

The attack over Lockerbie, Scotland, thought to be the work of Libyan intelligence, killed all 259 people on board the flight, including 33 from New Jersey. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was freed from a life sentence in a Scottish jail and returned to Libya on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer.

“Gadhafi is a dangerous dictator whose hands are covered with the blood of Americans and our allies,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, whose district includes Englewood. He promised there would be “hell to pay” if the U.S. State Department violates a long-standing deal barring the dictator from staying at the Libyan estate.

State department officials said no decision had been made on the issue.

A smack in the face of Lockerbie victims’ families — and all families who have lost loved ones to jihadi acts of evil: …”

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/24/sick-gadhafi-wants-to-pitch-a-tent-in-new-jersey/

Gwynne Dyer: Al-Megrahi is free because the case was so weak

“…THE KANGAROO COURT

Al-Megrahi’s trial took place in 2001. His colleague was freed, but he was jailed for 27 years (in Scotland, because Pan Am 103 came down in Lockerbie). As time passed, however, the case began to unravel.

The Maltese shopkeeper who had identified al-Megrahi, Tony Gauci, turned out to be living in Australia, supported by several million dollars that the Americans had paid him for his evidence.

The allegation that the timer for the bomb had been supplied to Libya by the Swiss manufacturer Mebo turned out to be false. The owner of Mebo, Edwin Bollier, revealed that he had turned down an offer of $4 million from the FBI in 1991 to testify that he had sold his MST-13 timers to Libya.

One of Bollier’s former employees, Ulrich Lumpert, did testify at al-Megrahi’s trial that MST-13 timers had been supplied to Libya–but in 2007 he admitted that he had lied at the trial.

And this year it was revealed that Pan Am’s baggage area at London’s Heathrow airport was broken into 17 hours before Pan Am 103 took off on its last flight. (The police knew that 12 years ago, but kept it secret at al-Megrahi’s trial.) The theory that the fatal bag was put on a feeder flight from Malta became even less likely.

All of which explains why the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission announced in 2007 that it would refer al-Megrahi’s case to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh because he “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”.

THE DEAL

The Review Commission’s decision caused a crisis, because a new court hearing would reveal how shoddy the evidence at the first one was. Happily for London and Washington, al-Megrahi was now dying of cancer, so a deal was possible. He would give up his plea for a retrial, no dirty linen about the original trial would be aired in public, and he would be set free.

A miserable story, but hardly a unique one. A man who was probably innocent of the charges against him, a loyal servant of the Libyan state who was framed by the West and hung out to dry by his own government, has been sent home to die. …”

http://www.straight.com/article-248956/gwynne-dyer-almegrahi-free-because-case-was-so-weak

The United States and Iran: Part IX: Pan Am 103: More Americans Dead and Iranian Military Escalation

“…When Libya agreed to cooperate and coordinate with Iran on terrorist operations, that put Libyan President Muammar Qadhafi right where Iran needed him for the revenge attack against the United States for the Iran 665 shoot-down.

For the victims and their families in Iran, Scotland, and the United States, the whole truth would be secondary to protecting state secrets — even if it was those very secrets that had caused their family members’ deaths.

When the Pan Am 103 commissioners finally brought in their report, in 1990, they were adamant in concluding that the bombing could have been prevented and that there “are gaping holes throughout the system.” They charged that the FAA had failed to keep pace with changing times. “At a time when bombings already had become the preferred method for terrorists, the security program was still aimed largely at preventing hijackings. There were shortcomings in virtually all areas . . .” The 182-page commission report called for a complete remodeling of US airline security. That did not happen.

To this day, the United States has not released files on secret military, DEA and other intelligence operations smuggling drugs and other contraband from the Middle East, through Europe and into the United States. Time magazine reported in 1992 that a team of agents operating in Lebanon to help secure release of American hostages were on board Pan Am 103 returning to the United States. Time wrote:

Almost immediately after the Pan Am bombing, which killed the 259 people aboard the plane and 11 more on the ground, the prime suspect was Ahmed Jibril, the roly-poly boss of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (P.F.L.P.-G.C.). Two months earlier, West German police had arrested 16 members of his terrorist organization. Seized during the raids was a plastic bomb concealed in a Toshiba cassette player, similar to the one that blew up Flight 103. There was other evidence pointing to Jibril. His patron was Syria. His banker for the attack on the Pan Am plane appeared to be Iran. U.S. intelligence agents even traced a wire transfer of several million dollars to a bank account in Vienna belonging to the P.F.L.P.-G.C. Iran’s motive seemed obvious enough. The previous July, the U.S.S. Vincennes had mistakenly shot down an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf, killing all 298 aboard. …”

http://www.storiesthatmatter.org/20090820244/NSNS-Stories/part-ix-pan-am-103-more-americans-dead-and-iranian-military-escalation.html

Bleeding hearts for bloody terrorist

By Michelle Malkin