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“The Framing of al-Megrahi”

Clara Heyworth23 September 2009

Gareth Peirce, celebrated defense lawyer and author of the forthcoming Dispatches from the Dark Side, has written the most astonishing piece for the London Review of Books, in which she carefully lays out the framing of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, wrongfully convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. As the article progresses, and the horrifying details of the cover up accumulate, they become almost farcical in number and elaborateness. 

It is, of course, now all about oil. Only a simpleton could believe that Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted of responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, was not recently returned to his home in Libya because it suited Britain. The political furore is very obviously contrived, since both the British and American governments know perfectly well how and for what reasons he came to be prosecuted. More important than the present passing storm is whether any aspect of the investigation that led to al-Megrahi's original conviction was also about oil, or dictated by other factors that should have no place in a prosecution process.

Visit the London Review of Books to read the article in full.

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