The Rohingya, Has The World Ignored Them?

The Rohingya are a Muslim people who live in the state of Rakhine (Arakan) in western Myanmar (Burma). As of 2012, 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar. According to the UN, they are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. Many Rohingya have fled to ghettos and refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, and to areas along the Thai-Myanmar border. • Etymology The origin of the term "Rohingya" is disputed. Some Rohingya historians like Khalilur Rahman contend that the term Rohingya is derived from Arabic word 'Rahma' meaning 'mercy'. They trace the term back to a shipwreck in the 8th century CE. According to them, after the Arab ship wrecked near Ramree Island, Arab traders were ordered to be executed by the Arakanese king. Then, they shouted in their language, 'Rahma'. Hence, these people were called 'Raham'. Gradually it changed from Raham to Rhohang and finally to Rohingyas. However, the claim was disputed by Jahiruddin Ahmed and Nazir Ahmed, former president and Secretary of Arakan Muslim Conference respectively. They argued that shipwreck Muslims are currently called 'Thambu Kya' Muslims, and currently reside along the Arakan sea shore. If the term Rohingya was indeed derived from that group of Muslims, "Thambu Kyas" would have been the first group to be known as Rohingyas. According to them, Rohingyas were descendants of inhabitants of Ruha in Afghanistan. Another historian, MA Chowdhury argued that among the Muslim populations in Myanmar, the term 'Mrohaung' (Old Arakanese Kingdom) was corrupted to Rohang. And thus inhabitants of the region are called Rohingya. Burmese historians such as Khin Maung Saw have claimed that the term 'Rohingya' was unknown before the 1950s. Another historian, Dr Maung, notes that the word Rohingya is not used in the 1824 census, conducted by the British. Historian Aye Chan from Kanda University of International Studies states that the term Rohingya was created by descendants of Bengalis in 1950s who migrated into Arakan during colonial times. He also holds that the term cannot be found in any historical source in any language before the 1950s. However, he accepts that there may have been Muslim communities in Arakan before 1824. However, Arakan history expert Dr Jacques P. Leider points out that the term Rooinga was in fact used in a late 18th century report published by the British Francis Buchanan-Hamilton. In his 1799 article “A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the Languages Spoken in the Burma Empire,” Buchanan-Hamilton stated: "I shall now add three dialects, spoken in the Burma Empire, but evidently derived from the language of the Hindu nation. The first is that spoken by the Mohammedans, who have long settled in Arakan, and who call themselves Rooinga, or natives of Arakan." Leider also adds that the etymology of the word "does not say anything about politics." He adds that "You use this term for yourself as a political label to give yourself identity in the 20th century. Now how is this term used since the 1950s? It is clear that people who use it want to give this identity to the community that lives there." Language The Rohingya language is the modern written language of the Rohingya people of Arakan (Rakhine) State of Burma (Myanmar). It is an Indo-European language linguistically related to the Chittagonian language spoken in the southernmost part of Bangladesh bordering Burma. Rohingya scholars have successfully written the Rohingya language in various scripts including Arabic, Hanifi, Urdu, Roman, and Burmese, where Hanifi is a newly developed alphabet derived from Arabic with the addition of four characters from Latin and Burmese. More recently, a Latin alphabet has been developed, using all 26 English letters A to Z and two additional Latin letters Ç (for retroflex R) and Ñ (for nasal sound). To accurately represent Rohingya phonology, it also uses five accented vowels (áéíóú). It has been recognized by ISO with ISO 639-3 "rhg" code. History Muslim settlements have existed in Arakan since the arrival of Arabs there in the 8th century CE. The direct descendants of Arab settlers are believed to live in central Arakan near Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw townships, rather than the Mayu frontier area (near Chittagong Division, Bangladesh), where the majority of Rohingya are populated. Kingdom of Mrauk U Early evidence of Bengali Muslim settlements in Arakan date back to the time of King Narameikhla (1430–1434) of the Kingdom of Mrauk U. After 24 years of exile in Bengal, he regained control of the Arakanese throne in 1430 with military assistance from the Sultanate of Bengal. The Bengalis who came with him formed their own settlements in the region. Narameikhla ceded some territory to the Sultan of Bengal and recognized his sovereignty over the areas. In recognition of his kingdom's vassal status, the kings of Arakan received Islamic titles and used the Bengali Islamic coinage within the kingdom. Narameikhla minted his own coins with Burmese characters on one side and Persian characters on the other. Arakan's vassalage to Bengal was brief. After Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah's death in 1433, Narameikhla's successors repaid Bengal by occupying Ramu in 1437 and Chittagong in 1459. Arakan would hold Chittagong until 1666. Even after gaining independence from the Sultans of Bengal, the Arakanese kings continued the custom of maintaining Muslim titles. The Buddhist kings compared themselves to Sultans and fashioned themselves after Mughal rulers. They also continued to employ Muslims in prestigious positions within the royal administration. The Bengali Muslim population increased in the 17th century, as they were employed in a variety of workforces in Arakan. Some of them worked as Bengali, Persian and Arabic scribes in the Arakanese courts, which, despite remaining mostly Buddhist, adopted Islamic fashions from the neighbouring Sultanate of Bengal. The Kamein/Kaman, who are regarded as one of the official ethnic groups of Burma, are descended from these Muslims. Burmese conquest Following the Burmese conquest of Arakan in 1785, as many as 35,000 Arakanese people fled to the neighbouring Chittagong region of British Bengal in 1799 to avoid Burmese persecution and seek protection from British India. The Burmese rulers executed thousands of Arakanese men and deported a considerable portion of the Arakanese population to central Burma, leaving Arakan as a scarcely populated area by the time the British occupied it. According to an article on the "Burma Empire" published by the British Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in 1799, "the Mohammedans, who have long settled in Arakan," "call themselves Rooinga, or natives of Arakan." British colonial rule British policy encouraged Bengali inhabitants from adjacent regions to migrate into the then lightly populated and fertile valleys of Arakan as agriculturalists. The East India Company extended the Bengal administration to Arakan, thus there was no international boundary between Bengal and Arakan, and no restrictions on migration between the regions. In the early 19th century, thousands of Bengalis from the Chittagong region settled in Arakan seeking work. In addition, thousands of Rakhine people from Arakan also settled in Bengal. The British census of 1891 reported 58,255 Muslims in Arakan. By 1911, the Muslim population had increased to 178,647. The waves of migration were primarily due to the requirement of cheap labor from British India to work in the paddy fields. Immigrants from Bengal, mainly from the Chittagong region, "moved en masse into western townships of Arakan". To be sure, Indian immigration to Burma was a nationwide phenomenon, not just restricted to Arakan. Historian Thant Myint-U writes: "At the beginning of the 20th century, Indians were arriving in Burma at the rate of no less than a quarter million per year. The numbers rose steadily until the peak year of 1927, immigration reached 480,000 people, with Rangoon exceeding New York City as the greatest immigration port in the world. This was out of a total population of only 13 million; it was equivalent to the United Kingdom today taking 2 million people a year." By then, in most of the largest cities in Burma, Rangoon (Yangon), Akyab (Sittwe), Bassein (Pathein), Moulmein, the Indian immigrants formed a majority of the population. The Burmese under the British rule felt helpless, and reacted with a "racism that combined feelings of superiority and fear." The impact of immigration was particularly acute in Arakan, one of less populated regions. In 1939, the British authorities, alert to the long-term animosity between the Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims, formed a special Investigation Commission led by James Ester and Tin Tut to study the issue of Muslim immigration into the Rakhine state. The commission recommended securing the border; however, with the onset of World War II, the British retreated from Arakan. World War II Japanese occupation On 28 March 1942, around 5,000 Muslims in Minbya and Mrohaung Townships were killed by Rakhine nationalists and Karenni. Meanwhile, Muslims from Northern Rakhine State massacred around 20,000 Arakanese including the Deputy Commissioner U Oo Kyaw Khaing, who was killed while trying to settle the dispute. During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Burma, then under British colonial rule. The British forces retreated and in the power vacuum left behind, considerable violence erupted. This included communal violence between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya villagers. The period also witnessed violence between groups loyal to the British and Burmese nationalists. The British armed Muslim groups in northern Arakan to create a buffer zone from Japanese invasion when they retreated. The Rohingya supported the Allies during the war and opposed the Japanese forces, assisting the Allies in reconnaissance. The Japanese committed countless acts of rape, murder and torture against thousands of Rohingya. In this period, some 22,000 Rohingya are believed to have crossed the border into Bengal, then part of British India, to escape the violence. 40,000 Rohingya eventually fled to Chittagong after repeated massacres by the Burmese and Japanese forces. The Mujahid party was founded by Rohingya elders who supported Jihad movement in northern Arakan in 1947. The aim of the Mujahid party was to create an autonomous Muslim state in Arakan. They were much more active before the 1962 Burmese coup d'état by General Ne Win. Ne Win carried out some military operations targeting them over a period of two decades. The prominent one was "Operation King Dragon" which took place in 1978; as a result, many Muslims in the region fled to neighboring Bangladesh as refugees. In addition to Bangladesh, a large number of Rohingya have also migrated to Karachi, Pakistan (see Rohingya people in Pakistan). Nevertheless, the Burmese mujahedeen (Islamic militants) are still active within the remote areas of Arakan. The associations of Burmese mujahedeen with Bangladeshi mujahedeen were significant, but they have extended their networks to the international level and countries, during the recent years. They collect donations, and receive religious military training outside of Burma. Burmese juntas The military junta which ruled Burma for half a century, relied heavily on Burmese nationalism and Theravada Buddhism to bolster its rule, and, in the view of US government experts, heavily discriminated against minorities like the Rohingya, Chinese people like the Kokang people, and Panthay (Chinese Muslims). Some pro-democracy dissidents from Burma's ethnic Burman majority do not consider the Rohingyas compatriots. Successive Burmese governments have been accused of provoking riots against ethnic minorities like the Rohingya and Chinese. In 2009, a senior Burmese envoy to Hong Kong branded the Rohingya "ugly as ogres" and a people that are alien to Myanmar. 2012 Rakhine State riots The 2012 Rakhine State riots are a series of ongoing conflicts between Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. The riots came after weeks of sectarian disputes and have been condemned by most people on both sides of the conflict. The immediate cause of the riots is unclear, with many commentators citing the killing of ten Burmese Muslims by ethnic Rakhine after the rape and murder of a Rakhine woman as the main cause. Whole villages have been "decimated”. Over three hundred houses and a number of public buildings have been razed. According to Tun Khin, the President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK), as of 28 June, 650 Rohingyas have been killed, 1,200 are missing, and more than 80,000 have been displaced. According to the Myanmar authorities, the violence, between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, left 78 people dead, 87 injured, and thousands of homes destroyed. It also displaced more than 52,000 people. The government has responded by imposing curfews and by deploying troops in the regions. On June 10, state of emergency was declared in Rakhine, allowing military to participate in administration of the region. The Burmese army and police have been accused of targeting Rohingya Muslims through mass arrests and arbitrary violence. A number of monks' organizations that played vital role in Burma's struggle for democracy have taken measures to block any humanitarian assistance to the Rohingya community. In July 2012, the Myanmar Government did not include the Rohingya minority group–-classified as stateless Bengali Muslims from Bangladesh since 1982—on the government's list of more than 130 ethnic races and therefore the government says that they have no claim to Myanmar citizenship. Religion The Rohingya people practice Sunni Islam with elements of Sufi worship. Because the government restricts educational opportunities for them, many pursue fundamental Islamic studies as their only educational option. Mosques and religious schools are present in most villages. Traditionally, men pray in congregations and women pray at home. Human rights violations and refugees The Rohingya people have been described as “among the world’s least wanted” and “one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.” They have been stripped of their citizenship since a 1982 citizenship law. They are not allowed to travel without official permission, are banned from owning land and are required to sign a commitment to have not more than two children. According to Amnesty International, the Muslim Rohingya people have continued to suffer from human rights violations under the Burmese junta since 1978, and many have fled to neighboring Bangladesh as a result: “ The Rohingyas’ freedom of movement is severely restricted and the vast majority of them have effectively been denied Burma citizenship. They are also subjected to various forms of extortion and arbitrary taxation; land confiscation; forced eviction and house destruction; and financial restrictions on marriage. Rohingyas continue to be used as forced labourers on roads and at military camps, although the amount of forced labour in northern Rakhine State has decreased over the last decade. […] In 1978 over 200,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, following the ‘Nagamin’ (‘Dragon King’) operation of the Myanmar army. Officially this campaign aimed at "scrutinizing each individual living in the state, designating citizens and foreigners in accordance with the law and taking actions against foreigners who have filtered into the country illegally." This military campaign directly targeted civilians, and resulted in widespread killings, rape and destruction of mosques and further religious persecution. […] During 1991–92 a new wave of over a quarter of a million Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh. They reported widespread forced labour, as well as summary executions, torture, and rape. Rohingyas were forced to work without pay by the Burmese army on infrastructure and economic projects, often under harsh conditions. Many other human rights violations occurred in the context of forced labour of Rohingya civilians by the security forces. ” As of 2005, the UNHCR had been assisting with the repatriation of Rohingya from Bangladesh, but allegations of human rights abuses in the refugee camps have threatened this effort. Despite earlier efforts by the UN, the vast majority of Rohingya refugees have remained in Bangladesh, unable to return because of the negative attitude of the ruling regime in Myanmar. Now they are facing problems in Bangladesh as well where they do not receive support from the government any longer. In February 2009, many Rohingya refugees were rescued by Acehnese sailors in the Strait of Malacca, after 21 days at sea. Over the years, thousands of Rohingya have fled to Thailand also. There are roughly 111,000 refugees housed in 9 camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. There have been charges that groups of them have been shipped and towed out to open sea from Thailand, and left there. In February 2009 there was evidence of the Thai army towing a boatload of 190 Rohingya refugees out to sea. A group of refugees rescued by Indonesian authorities also in February 2009 told harrowing stories of being captured and beaten by the Thai military, and then abandoned at open sea. By the end of February there were reports of a group of 5 boats were towed out to open sea, of which 4 boats sank in a storm, and 1 boat washed up on the shore. February 12, 2009 Thailand's prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said there were "some instances" in which Rohingya people were pushed out to sea. “ There are attempts, I think, to let these people drift to other shores. [...] when these practices do occur, it is done on the understanding that there is enough food and water supplied. [...] It's not clear whose work it is [...] but if I have the evidence who exactly did this I will bring them to account. ” The prime minister said he regretted "any losses", and was working on rectifying the problem. Steps to repatriate Rohingya began in 2005. In 2009 Bangladesh announced it will repatriate around 9,000 Rohingya living in refugee camps in the country back to Burma, after a meeting with Burmese diplomats. In October 16, 2011, the new government of Burma agreed to take back registered Rohingya refugees. It seems the world has ignored them, and they don't have a place they can call home. As it is now, they are refugees in their own country. The UN seems to be mute on the killings of the Rohingya. Posterity will judge humankind if their plight is not addressed now. They are also entitled to the basic human rights as enjoyed by most people in this world. This must not be allowed to continue.

Law Of Karma At Work?

Almost exactly a year ago in 2011, the Libyan Leader Muammar Qaddafi was brutally murdered by a combined force of NATO and the Benghazi rebels. Many people also lost their lives in during those sad and shameful periods in the history of Libya. Here was someone who was providing virtually everything for his people, then all of a sudden, a group of former Taliban fighters whose freedom he secured from the Americans from the Guantanamo Bay Prison, with a condition that he would make sure they do not engage in any form of terrorist activities. These former Taliban fighter were Libyans and they numbered about two hundred.He then resettled them in the city of Benghazi and made them comfortable. Due to their programming at the Guantanamo Bay Prison, the time was ripe for them to initiate their plans for the overthrow of Qaddafi in 2011. How the rebellion started and the subsequent incidents are now confined to the yet to be written chapters on Libyan and African history. Fast forward to the year 2012, Qaddafi's loyalists were just waiting for their time to punish the perpetrators of the heinous atrocity committed on Libyan soil.Someone makes a short film entitled "Innocence of Muslims" which demeans the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W), then the trouble begins in the Arab world starting first with a protest in Cairo, Egypt, then Benghazi. In these two cities, the American Consulate in Benghazi was attacked and the Ambassador and three of his staff were killed. The American Embassy in Cairo was also attacked resulting in the removal of the American flag and some minor casualties. Most western powers condemned both the film and the attacks on the American Diplomatic Missions in the Arab world. Then just a few days ago, Omar Shaaban, the man credited with finding Qaddafi in the sewer was also kidnapped, tortured and murdered by Qaddafi loyalists. Libya has not known peace ever since the overthrow and death of Qaddafi. During Qaddafi's rule, not a single Embassy or Consulate was attacked. Now they are blaming the attacks on Al Qaeda. Coming events truly cast their shadows. I think its payback time and they have sent out a clear statement to all those who condoned and connived to murder Qaddafi that, no matter how long it takes, wherever they hide, their time would surely come and would also face the same music. The US should try and give her diplomacy around the world a new face. These are just the thoughts of an ordinary blogger somewhere on the surface of the earth..

"Frankenstein" Goes Berserk.

There is this story of a doctor who created a human monster called "Frankenstein", which later turned out to be his worst nightmare as this monster caused more havoc in the community. In fact this monster went berserk and it was very dangerous to stay in that community as it went about terrorizing the people around. This doctor thought he could control the monster, but the monster developed a brain of its own and turned against its master. We all witnessed the so called "Arab Spring" in some parts of the Middle East and the Arab world in 2011. The countries involved were Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria. Whiles the Tunisian leader Ben Ali fled into exile, the Yemeni leader Abdullah Salleh negotiated for his safe exit into exile after he was guaranteed immunity from prosecution in the deal that was brokered. The Egyptian leader, Hosni Mubarak was also kicked out of power and made to face the full rigors of the law. But in Libya, Muamar Gaddafi was brutally murdered by the NATO and rebel forces. That was an act that was seen to be justified by the west and its Allies led by the US. Little did the US know that they had created a "Frankenstein" monster that was to unleash its fury on them one day. On September 11, 2012 the American Consulate in Benghazi was attacked by a mob who were protesting against a short film entitled "Innocence of Muslims" produced by an American Coptic Christian, Sam Bacile. This film is alleged to have insulted the Holy Prophet of Islam and it led to the attacks on the US Embassy in Cairo and Consulate in Benghazi during which the American Ambassador to Libya was killed together with three of his staff. Now the Frankenstein created by the Americans during the Libyan uprising has turned around and unleashing its fury on them. The question i would ask is that, has Frankenstein gone berserk, or can the Americans still control him. It looks like coming events cast their shadows. Muamar Gaddafi would be turning in his grave right now, for he has won a victory even in death as the Americans are being paid in equal measure what was done to him. God bless Africa and God bless us all.

Friends Today, Enemies Tomorrow.

Have you ever been in a friendship that seems to be everlasting, and all of a sudden the two best friends become sworn  enemies? When that happens all types of strategies would be employed to get rid of each other or to make one look bad. This enmity has come down to us in this our modern world, and it is happening between countries who were once good allies and fought for a common interest. The USA used to have friendly and warm relations with Iran during the 1970s when the Shah of that country was at the helm of affairs. But this relationship turned sour and cold when the Shah was overthrown by the fundamentalists led by the spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The US then fought a proxy war with Iran by propping Saddam Husein of Iraq and sending him weapons. This was the Iran/Iraq War from 1980-1988. This war ended with no clear victor. Saddam Husein was then branded an enemy by the USA when he decided to invade Kuwait. That was the biggest mistake he did. We all know what happened after that invasion. Then in the early part of the 21st century Iraq was invaded by the USA and her allies, Saddam Hussein was eventually captured and later executed. All these were done on the pretext that Saddam Hussein was having Weapons Of Mass Destruction (WMDs). But the whole world never got to know where those weapons were being kept in Iraq. In fact no WMDs have been found in Iraq up to date. The late ruler of Libya Muamar Gaddafi was once an avowed enemy of the west, he then became friendly towards them. But later events led to his country being bombarded by NATO after a rebel insurrection in the Libyan city of Bengazi. Syria is now paying dearly for refusing to do the bidding of the west in an ongoing civil war with the western powers trumpeting that Assad must leave power at all cost giving little room for any political solution. Innocent lives are being lost in a senseless war. I know for sure Iran would be the next stop for the western powers. They did it to Manuel Noriega of Panama, tried it on Fidel Castro of Cuba, but it never worked. So as the saying goes, "Beware of the Greeks when they come bearing gifts", these acts of friendship by the western powers might end up being a "Trojan Horse". We all have to be careful when entering into a friendship, because that friendship can turn into enmity tomorrow. Just be careful who you become friends with, it might later spell your doom.

The Syrian Question.

The world is on the brink of a major conflict in the Middle East, and it seems the innocent lives being lost in this senseless conflict in Syria is being left to pass by. This Syrian  crisis has so many actors involved. For ethical and security reasons no names would be mentioned here. Some of these actors have come out openly to support one faction and the other actors are doing what they know what to do best, that is clandestinely supporting one faction with arms and ammunition. If i may ask, why is this happening now in Syria? Let me take you back to the genesis of this conflict. It has been raging on for more than a year and almost 7000 lives have been lost. If you look at the situation carefully, it seems there is a calculated plan to get rid of all leaders who have stayed for so long in power in the world. It started with the so called 'Arab Spring' (even though there is nothing like a 'Spring' season in Africa) in Tunisia, where long time leader Ben Ali was forced to flee into exile, followed by Hosni Mubarak of Egypt who was also forced to leave office, and hand over power to the powerful Egyptian military, then the time became very ripe to get rid of their one time foe and later turned ally Muamar Gaddafi of Libya who was murdered after the whole world was told by NATO that he was not a target of their aerial bombing campaigns, in which innocent people also lost their lives. Yemen and Bahrain also had their fair share of uprisings with Abdullah Salleh of Yemen relinquishing his rule by signing an agreement laced with immunity clauses. Bahrain have been able to withstand  protests for some time now. I have a hunch that Iran, Jordan, Morocco and the other countries in the Middle East with long time leaders would be on the list as the next points of call for the so called bastions of democracy. Now, we all know those behind the uprisings in the Middle East, and eventually Bashir Al Assad of Syria would be kicked out and a puppet government would be installed like what they have done in Libya, but Assad would not go without a fight. I hope Syria does not turn into another Iraq, as the situation has now turned into a full scale civil war with women and children bearing the brunt of both the Syrian government forces and the rebels. If i may ask, who is behind all these conflicts in the Middle East? First they ask you to initiate reforms, then they send spies in the form of a UN Observer Mission, they they call for regime change and thats your end.But remember that if you decide use a long spoon to sup with the devil, you must be prepared to bear the consequences when pay back time is due.

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak Goes To Jail For Life.

Former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak

The Cairo courtroom erupted in chaos Saturday after an Egyptian judge convicted former President Hosni Mubarak, but acquitted six of his aides, for the killing of protesters during last year's pro-democracy uprising.

The judge handed Mubarak, 84, a life sentence.

It appeared the entire gallery of men dressed in suits began shouting and stood on their chairs chanting that the decision wasn't harsh enough. Fists flew and at least one man suffered a bleeding gash to his chin.

"We want honesty!" they shouted. "Revolution til victory!"

Other Mubarak opponents headed to Tahrir Square, the center of last year's protests, shouting, "Illegitimate! Illegitimate!" They also chanted for Mubarak's execution.

Vowing not to leave, the crowd later forced the square to be shut down.

The Islamist group Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and oldest opposition group which has the other run-off candidate, called for protests in the Tahrir Square.

Protesters in the square later burned campaign posters of secularist Ahmed Shafiq, a former official in Mubarak's regime who running against a Muslim Brotherhood candidate in this month's presidential runnoff.

The former president on a bed wheeled into the courtroom.

The echoing cheers outside the police academy where the trial was held turned to angry shouts as people heard that all of Mubarak's senior advisers and his two sons were acquitted.

The mostly anti-Mubarak crowd threw rocks at police, smashed cars, and cursed the ruling military council.

Mubarak was immediately transferred to a prison in southern Cairo to serve his life sentence, a prosecutor said, a final fall from grace for a man who ruled the nation with an iron fist for nearly three decades.

"Mubarak arrived to Tura prison by helicopter, and will be admitted to a hospital in prison," said Adel Saeed, a spokesman for the prosecutor. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said Mubarak refused to leave the helicopter on arrival at the prison.

About 840 people died and more than 6,000 others were injured in last year's 18-day uprising, according to Amnesty International.

Arab leaders: Where are they now?

The sentence delivered by Judge Ahmed Refaat was the final chapter of Mubarak's iron rule of Egypt that ended in February 2011.

Handing down the verdict before a packed courtroom, the judge praised the revolution, saying it offered people relief after living "in 30 years of dark without any hope."

He found Mubarak guilty of the killings, but cleared him of corruption and misappropriation of funds.

The judge also convicted former Interior Minister Habib El Adly of ordering security forces to kill protesters and sentenced him to life in prison.

The courtroom melee erupted after the judge cleared six of Mubarak's aides, primarily security officials, in connection with the killings. Authorities removed Mubarak and the judge from the courtroom amid the outburst.

The judge also cleared Mubarak's sons, Gamal and Alaa, of corruption and using their father's political power for profit.

"The verdicts are insults to the Egyptian people and the judicial system. It's a festival of innocent verdicts to El Adly's aides who killed and tortured free citizens for years," said Rami Shath, a member of the Egyptian Revolution Alliance.

Human Rights Watch said the verdict sends a message to Egypt's future leaders that they are not above the law, though it said the acquittals give "a green light to future police abuse."

Timeline of Mubarak's ascent and fall from power

Amnesty International said the verdict is "a significant step towards combating long-standing impunity in Egypt," but it, too, said the ruling leaves many waiting for full justice.

David Scheffer, an American lawyer and diplomat who served as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, said it the trial was significant for the Arab world even if it could have been run better.

"While I want to emphasize the problems with the trial itself, it's also important to recognize that the Egyptian judicial system has held a leader accountable for very serious crimes that occurred during the uprising in Egypt," Scheffer told CNN.

"In the very heart of the Arab world, where this has not occurred before in a civilian court, a leader has actually been brought to to justice, a leader who has been present in the courtroom has brought to some level of justice by a domestic court for gross human rights abuses."

The trial has been a spectacle few Egyptians thought they would see. Images broadcast worldwide showed the 84-year-old former leader wheeled into the court on a hospital gurney and locked in a defendant's cage.

The verdict follows Friday's expiration of a notorious emergency law that was in effect since shortly after Mubarak came to power in October 1981 and gave police sweeping powers. It comes ahead of a polarizing mid-June runoff in the presidential election that pits the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi against Shafiq.

Analysts in Egypt say the verdict may not help Shafiq and may strengthen Morsi's chances, given his position as an opposition figure.

The Muslim Brotherhood said it is not happy with Saturday's verdict and may call for a retrial. Shafiq's side did not immediately comment on the outcome.

The verdict follows Friday's expiration of a notorious emergency law that was in effect since shortly after Mubarak came to power in October 1981 and gave police sweeping powers.

As he is being taken away to start serving his sentence, i ask this question, will Ben Ali former president of Tunisia face justice and be dealt with? It seems the Tunisian issue is being allowed to die a natural death. Our leaders must learn lessons from what is happening to some of the former African leaders like Charles Taylor of Liberia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

Was The ICC Created For Africans? Part One

The International Criminal Court from its very beginning has taken a great delight in prosecuting only Africans. I will be serializing an article on the African indictees. In all there are about twenty-five Africans who have been indicted by the ICC.These is courtesy of the New African Magazine, May 2012 edition.

President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.

He was indicted on March 4,  2009 on five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes with regard to the situation in Darfur, Sudan. On July 12, 2010, he was additionally charged with three counts of genocide. He is accused of intending to partially destroy the Fur, Masalit, and the Zaghawa ethnic groups by killings, "causing serious bodily or mental harm," and "deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction".

Bahr Abu Garda of Sudan.

Indicted on May 7, 2009  on three counts of war crimes also with regard to the situation in Darfur, Sudan. He was accused of being criminally responsible for murder, pillaging, and "intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, materials, units, and vehicles involved in a peacekeeping mission". On February 8, 2010 Pr-trial Chamber 1 ruled that the charges against him would not be confirmed and all charges against him were dropped.

Abdallah Banda of Sudan

On August 27, 2009, he was indicted on three counts of war crimes. He faces similar charges to Garda. Banda voluntarily appeared before the Court on June 17, 2010 and the case against him is currently in the pre-trial stage.

Jean-Pierre Bemba of DR Congo

Jean Pierre Bemba was indicted on May 23, 2008 on two counts of crimes against humanity and four counts of war crimes with regard to the situation in the Central African Republic. On June 10, 2008, the arrest warrant was replaced with an amended version that charged him with three counts of crimes against humanity and five counts of war crimes. He is alleged to have led the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC), a Congolese rebel movement, into the Central African Republic when his assistance was sought by CAR president Ange-Felix Patasse to fight off a rebellion led by Francoise Bozize. Bemba was accused of allowing his soldiers to rape, torture, murder and inhumanely treat civilians. He was arrested in Belgium on May 24, 2008 and transferred to the Court on July 3, 2008. His trial began in November 22, 2010 and is ongoing.

To be continued.............

Pan Am Flight 103 Conspiracy Theories.

Pan Am Flight 103 conspiracy theories suggest a number of possible explanations for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988. Some of the theories preceded the official investigation by Scottish police and the FBI; others arose from different interpretation of evidence presented at Libyan agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's 2000/2001 trial; yet others have been developed independently by individuals and organisations outside the official investigation. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) was the first suspect, in light of a threat it issued against U.S. and Israeli interests before the bombing. The state of Iran was also in the frame very early, with its motive thought to be revenge for the July 1988 shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by USS Vincennes. This theory was later reinforced by Abolghasem Mesbahi, former head of Iranian intelligence operations in Europe, who stated after defecting to Germany that Iran had asked Libya and Abu Nidal, a Palestinian guerrilla leader, to carry out the attack on Pan Am 103. In his 1994 film The Maltese Double Cross, Allan Francovich suggested that rogue CIA agents were implicated in a plot that involved them turning a blind eye to a drug running operation in return for intelligence. Evidence presented at Megrahi's trial, together with concerns about the reliability of his conviction, spawned a theory that Libya was framed. Abu Nidal allegedly confessed to the bombing before his death, thereby triggering another theory, while Joe Vialls put forward his own explanation that relied on the bomb being detonated remotely. Finally, in December 1989, Patrick Haseldine suggested that the bombing was an assassination by South Africa's apartheid government of United Nations Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson.

PFLP-GC

For many months after the bombing, the prime suspects were the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a Damascus-based rejectionist group led by former Syrian army captain Ahmed Jibril, sponsored by Iran. In a February 1986 press conference, Jibril warned:

"There will be no safety for any traveler on an Israeli or U.S. airliner" (Cox and Foster 1991, p28).

Secret intercepts were reported by author, David Yallop, to have recorded the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) in Baalbeck, Lebanon making contact with the PFLP-GC immediately after the downing of the Iran Air Airbus. Israeli intelligence allegedly intercepted a telephone call made two days after PA 103 by Mohtashemi-Pur, Interior Minister in Tehran, to the chargé d'affaires at the Iranian embassy in Beirut, instructing the embassy to hand over the funds to Jibril and congratulating them on the success of operation 'Intekam' ('equal and just revenge'). Jibril is alleged to have received $11 million from Iran - although a banking audit trail to confirm the payment has never been presented.

Jibril's right hand man, Hafez Dalkamoni, set up a PFLP-GC cell which was active in the Frankfurt and Neuss areas of West Germany in October 1988, two months before PA 103. During what Germany's internal security service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), called Operation Herbstlaub (Operation "Autumn Leaves"), the BfV kept cell members under strict surveillance. The plotters prepared a number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) hidden inside household electronic equipment. They discussed a planned operation in coded calls to Cyprus and Damascus: oranges and apples stood for detonating devices; medicine and pasta for Semtex explosive; and, auntie for the bomb carrier. One operative had been recorded as saying: "auntie should get off, but should leave the suitcase on the bus" (Duffy and Emerson 1990). The PFLP-GC cell had an experienced bomb-maker, Jordanian Marwan Khreesat, to assist them. Khreesat made at least one IED inside a single-speaker Toshiba Bombeat 453 radio cassette recorder, similar to the twin speaker model RT-SF 16 Bombeat that was used to blow up PA 103. However, unlike the Lockerbie bomb with its sophisticated timer, Khreesat's IEDs contained a barometric pressure device that triggers a simple timer with a range of up to 45 minutes before detonation.

Unbeknown to the PFLP-GC cell, its bomb-maker Khreesat was a Jordanian intelligence service (GID) agent and reported on the cell's activities to the GID, who relayed the information to Western intelligence and to the BfV. The Jordanians encouraged Khreesat to make the bombs but instructed him to ensure they were ineffective and would not explode. (A German police technician would however be killed, in April 1989, when trying to disarm one of Khreesat's IEDs). Through Khreesat and the GID, the Germans learned that the cell was surveying a number of targets, including Iberia Flight 888 from Madrid to Tel Aviv via Barcelona, chosen because the bomb-courier could disembark without baggage at Barcelona leaving the barometric trigger to activate the IED on the next leg of the journey. The date chosen, Khreesat reportedly told his handlers, was 30 October 1988. He also told them that two members of the cell had been to Frankfurt airport to pick up Pan Am timetables.

Acting upon this intelligence, the German secret police moved in to arrest the PFLP-GC cell on 26 October, raiding 14 apartments and arresting 17 men, fearing that to keep them under surveillance much longer was to risk losing control of the situation. Two cell members are known to have escaped arrest including Abu Elias, a resident of Sweden who, according to Prime Time Live (ABC News November 1989), was an expert in bombs sent to Germany to check on Khreesat's devices because of suspicions raised by Ahmed Jibril. Four IEDs were recovered, but Khreesat stated later that a fifth device had been taken away by Dalkamoni before the raid, and was never recovered. The link to PA 103 was further strengthened when Khreesat told investigators that, before joining the cell in Germany, he had bought five Toshiba Bombeat cassette radios from a smugglers' village in Syria close to the border with Lebanon, and made practice IEDs out of them in Jibril's training camp 20 km (12 mi) away. The bombs were inspected by Abu Elias, who declared them to be good work. What became of these devices is not known. Some journalists such as Private Eye's Paul Foot and a PA 103 relative, Dr Jim Swire, believed that it was too stark a coincidence for a Toshiba cassette radio IED to have downed PA 103 just eight weeks after the arrest of the PFLP-GC cell in FrankfurtIndeed, Scottish police actually wrote up an arrest warrant for Marwan Khreesat in the spring of 1989, but were persuaded by the FBI not to issue it because of his value as an intelligence source. In the following spring, King Hussein of Jordan arranged for Khreesat to be interviewed by FBI agent, Edward Marshman, and the former head of the FBI's forensic lab, Thomas Thurman, to whom he described in detail the bombs he had built. In the 1994 documentary film Maltese Double Cross, the author David Yallop speculated that Libyan and Iranian-paid agents may have worked on the bombing together; or, that one group handed the job over to a second group upon the arrest of the PFLP-GC cell members. The former CIA head of counter-terrorism, Vincent Cannistraro, who previously worked on the PA 103 investigation, was interviewed in the film and said he believed the PFLP-GC planned the attack at the behest of the Iranian government, then sub-contracted it to Libyan intelligence after October 1988, because the arrests in Germany meant the PFLP-GC was unable to complete the operation. Other supporters of this theory believed that whoever paid for the bombing arranged two parallel operations intended to ensure that at least one would succeed; or, that Jibril's cell in Germany was a red herring designed to attract the attention of the intelligence services, while the real bombers worked quietly elsewhere.

Iran

A number of journalists considered that the Iranian revenge motive (retaliation for the shooting down of the Iran Air Airbus by USS Vincennes) was prematurely dismissed by investigators. They drew attention to a comment by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in her 1993 memoirs, where she seemed to discount the Libya revenge motive (for the 1986 bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi by the United States air force):

"It turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined. ...There were revenge killings of British hostages organized by Libya, which I bitterly regretted. But the much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place... There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years" (Thatcher 1993, pp448-9).

Additionally, Abolghasem Mesbahi, former head of Iranian intelligence in Europe, eventually defected and "told [German] investigators that Iran had asked Libya and Abu Nidal, a Palestinian guerrilla leader, to carry out the attack on Pan Am 103." The US Defense Intelligence Agency alleges that Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur (Ayatollah Mohtashemi), a member of the Iranian government, paid US$ 10 million for the bombing:

Ayatollah Mohtashemi: (...) and was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103 in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus.

Part of report, which is dated 1989-09-24, cites information acquired at Ft. Meade, MD:

The mission was to blow up a Pan Am flight that was to be almost entirely booked by US military personnel on Christmas leave. The flight was supposed to be a direct flight from Frankfurt, GE, to New York, not Pan Am flight 103 which was routed through London, UK. The suitcase containing the bomb was labeled with the name of one of the US passengers on the plane and was inadvertently placed on the wrong plane possibly by airport ground crew members in Frankfurt. The terrorist who last handled the bomb was not a passenger on the flight.

and

The bomb was designed by Mu'Ay Al-Din ((Mughanniya)), a Lebanese national who lives in IR and who is supposedly Iran's expert on aircraft bombing and high-jacking operations. The bomb was constructed in LY and then shipped to GE for placement on the aircraft (NFI).

CIA drug smuggling

This theory suggests that U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents had set up a protected drug route from Europe to the United States—allegedly called Operation Corea—that allowed Syrian drug dealers, led by Monzer al-Kassar (who was involved with Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal) to ship heroin to the U.S. using Pan Am flights, in exchange for intelligence on Palestinian groups holding hostages in Syria. The CIA allegedly protected the suitcases containing the drugs and made sure they were not searched. On the day of the bombing, as the theory goes, terrorists exchanged suitcases: one with drugs for one with a bomb.

Time introduced another version of this theory, claiming that the American intelligence officers on PA 103 – Matthew Gannon and Maj. Charles McKee – had found out about the drug operation, and were headed to Washington to raise their concerns about its impact on their hostage rescue plans.

Juval Aviv introduced a variation of this story in October 1989. Aviv was the owner of Interfor Inc, a private investigation company based on Madison Avenue, New York. Aviv claimed to be a former Mossad officer who led the Operation Wrath of God team that assassinated members of Black September who were believed to have been responsible for the Munich Massacre in 1972. According to his theory, the CIA knew in advance that the baggage exchange would take place, but let it happen anyway, because the protected drugs route was a rogue operation, and the American intelligence officers on PA 103 – Matthew Gannon and Maj. Charles McKee – had found out about it, and were on their way to Washington to tell their superiors.

After PA 103, Aviv was employed by Pan Am as their lead investigator for the bombing. He submitted a report (the Interfor report) in October 1989, blaming the bombing on a CIA-protected drugs route (Barrons December 17, 1989). This scenario provided Pan Am with a credible defense against claims for compensation by relatives of victims, since, if the U.S. government had helped the bomb bypass Pan Am's security, the airline could hardly have been held liable. The Interfor report alleged inter alia that Khalid Jafaar, a Lebanese-American passenger with links to Hezbollah, had unwittingly brought the bomb on board thinking he was carrying drugs on behalf of Syrian drug dealers he supposedly worked for. However, the New York court, which heard the civil case lodged by the U.S. relatives, rejected the Interfor allegations for lack of evidence. Aviv was never interviewed by either the Scottish police or the FBI in connection with PA 103. The theory of the CIA-protected suitcase was detailed as well in Patrick Pesnot's Rendez-vous avec X radio program on June 1998. In 1990 the protected suitcase theory was given a new lease of life by Lester Coleman in his book Trail of the Octopus. Coleman was a former journalist-turned-intelligence agent working with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) while employed by Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Cyprus. Coleman claimed to have seen Khalid Jafaar in the DEA office in Nicosia, Cyprus once again implying that Jafaar was a drugs mule, but this time for the DEA instead of Syrian drug dealers. In 1997, Coleman pleaded guilty to five counts of perjury in a Federal court after admitting that he submitted a false testimony in a civil litigation brought on behalf of the families of passengers killed in the bombing. Coleman's theory gained impetus when British journalist Paul Foot wrote a glowing review of Coleman's book for the London Review of Books. But on March 31, 2004—four months before his death—Foot reverted to the orthodox Iran/PFLP-GC theory in an article he wrote for The Guardian entitled "Lockerbie's dirty secret".The previously mentioned 1994 documentary film The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie, which included interviews with Lester Coleman and Juval Aviv, seemed to favour a hybrid version embracing both the CIA-protected suitcase and the drugs mule versions of the theory. Shortly after the film was broadcast by Channel 4 television on 11 May 1995, Aviv was indicted on fraud charges. Aviv was quick to claim that these were trumped-up charges, and in due course they were dropped. The film can be viewed on the internet here by scrolling down to Allan Francovich - The Maltese Double Cross.

Alleged framing of Libya

This conspiracy theory is based on the premise that key evidence presented at the trial (e.g. timer fragment, parts from a specific radio cassette model, clothing bought in Malta, bomb suitcase originating at Luqa Airport) could have been fabricated by the U.S. and Britain for the "political" purpose of incriminating Libya.

Recent Libyan history

Muammar al-Gaddafi's regime in Libya had a long and well-documented history of support for rebel and paramilitary groups. During the 1970s and 1980s, Gaddafi supplied large quantities of Libyan weapons and explosives to the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Other incidents that have been attributed to Libya are not so clear cut:

●      The 1984 murder of police constable Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London was blamed on Libya and led to a long-term rupture of diplomatic relations. No prosecution has taken place, but Libya has paid compensation to WPC Fletcher's family and recently allowed Scotland Yard to interview suspects in that country. US president Ronald Reagan was convinced that Libya was responsible for the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing – in which two American servicemen were killed and another 50 injured – and, in retaliation, ordered the bombing of Tripoli in Operation El Dorado Canyon. In 2001, a Libyan and two Palestinians were convicted and imprisoned by Berlin's Supreme Court, and in 2004 Gaddafi agreed to pay $35 million in compensation to the non-American victims of the Berlin bombing.

●      A French court convicted six Libyans nationals (some members of Libyan Intelligence) in absentia of the 1989 bombing of French UTA Flight 772. The bomb bore remarkable similarities to the one that brought down Pan Am 103, since it was also consisted of PETN (Semtex) carried in a Samsonite suitcase and detonated by a timing device. France at the time supported Libya's neighbour Chad in a border dispute. A Paris court convicted six Libyan. With remarkable parallels to the Lockerbie trial, the Paris court heard that UTA Flight 772 was brought down by a bomb triggered by a sophisticated timing device. Libya supplied the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) with tonnes of Semtex — amongst other weapons. See also Provisional IRA arms importation#Libyan arms.

At the end of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial an international observer appointed by the United Nations, Hans Köchler, called the verdict a "spectacular miscarriage of justice". Even though Libya never formally admitted responsibility for Pan Am Flight 103 or UTA Flight 772, Libya "accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials" and agreed to pay compensation to the relatives of the victims. In October 2008 Libya paid $1.5 billion into a fund which will be used to compensate relatives of the

1. Lockerbie bombing victims with the remaining 20% of the sum agreed in 2003 ($2.7 billion);
2. American victims of the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing;
3. American victims of the 1989 UTA Flight 772 bombing; and,
4. Libyan victims of the 1986 US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi. 

Lord Advocate's comment

In an address to a conference of law officers in August 2001 (seven months after the PA 103 verdict) the Scottish Lord Advocate, Lord Boyd, rejected any suggestion that Libya had been framed and denied that this was a politically driven prosecution, instead blaming conspiracy theorists for such allegations:

"Conspiracy theorists have alleged that the investigators' move away from an interest in the PFLP-GC was prompted by political interference following a re-alignment of interests in the Middle East. Specifically it is said that it suited Britain and the United States to exonerate Syria and others such as Iran who might be associated with her and to blame Libya, a country which we know trained the IRA. Accordingly, evidence was 'found' which implicated Libya. This is best answered by looking at the evidence."

The Lord Advocate went on to list the various pieces of evidence found to prove that the PA 103 investigators' interest in Libya was "as a result of the evidence which was discovered and not as a result of any political interference in the investigation". He reiterated: "There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that there was political interference. The investigation was evidence-led." Lord Boyd dealt with each piece of evidence, as follows:

●      Toshiba radio cassette fragment:

"evidence was obtained from Toshiba [by DERA's Alan Feraday] which showed that during October 1988 20,000 black Toshiba RT-SF 16 radio cassettes, the type used in the Pan Am bomb, were shipped to Libya. Of the total world-wide sales of that model 76% were sold to the General Electric Company's subsidiary in Libya, whose chairman was Said Rashid.[information added]"

●      Mebo timer fragment:

"In June 1990, with the assistance ultimately of the CIA and FBI, Alan Feraday of the Explosives Laboratory was able to identify the fragment as identical to circuitry from an MST-13 timer. It was already known to the CIA from an example seized in Togo in 1986 and photographed by them in Senegal in 1988. That took investigators to the firm of Mebo in Zurich. It was discovered that these timers had been manufactured to the order of two Libyans Ezzadin Hinshin, at the time director of the Central Security Organisation of the Libyan External Security Organisation and Said Rashid, then head of the Operations Administration of the ESO."

●      Clothing material:

"In September 1989 Tony Gauci, the shopkeeper, was interviewed by Scottish police officers. He convincingly identified a range of clothing which he had sold to a man sometime before Christmas 1988. Among the items he remembered selling were two pairs of Yorkie trousers, two pairs of striped pyjamas, a tweed jacket, a blue babygro, two slalom shirts collar size 16 and a half, two cardigans, one brown and one blue and an umbrella. He described the man, and subsequently identified him as Megrahi. More importantly at the time he was in no doubt that he was a Libyan."

Reliance on forensic science

Warning against over-reliance upon forensic science to secure convictions, one of Britain's foremost criminal lawyers, Michael Mansfield QC, in the BBC Scotland Frontline Scotland TV programme Silence over Lockerbie, broadcast on 14 October 1997, said he wanted to make just one point:

"Forensic science is not immutable. They're not written in tablets of stone, and the biggest mistake that anyone can make—public, expert or anyone else alike—is to believe that forensic science is somehow beyond reproach: it is not! The biggest miscarriages of justice in the United Kingdom, many of them emanate from cases in which forensic science has been shown to be wrong. And the moment a forensic scientist or anyone else says: 'I am sure this marries up with that' I get worried."

A number of news media also investigated the bombing and the various theories that were put forward to explain it. One news team headed by Pierre Salinger accused the prosecution of disinformation, and of attempting to steer the investigation toward Libya.

Iran and the London angle

Towards the end of the bombing trial, lawyers for Megrahi argued that the PA 103 bomb could have started its journey at Heathrow, rather than at Luqa Airport in Malta. The Boeing 747 that was destined to carry the 259 passengers and crew on the London-New York leg had arrived from San Francisco at noon on 21 December 1988, and stood unguarded on the tarmac for much of the period before PA 103's passengers began to board the aircraft after 17:00 (scheduled departure 18:00). The Iran Air terminal in Heathrow was adjacent to the Pan Am terminal, and the two airlines shared tarmac space. The lawyers invoked the 1990 Scottish Fatal Accident Inquiry and the evidence it heard that the baggage container AVE 4041, into which the bomb suitcase had been loaded, was left unsupervised at Heathrow for about forty minutes that afternoon.

Libya and Abu Nidal

Abu Nidal was widely regarded as the most ruthless international terrorist until that mantle was assumed by Osama bin Laden. Nidal (aka Sabri al-Banna) was reported to have died in a shoot-out in Baghdad on 16 August 2002. A former senior member of his group, Atef Abu Bakr, told journalists that shortly before his death Abu Nidal had confided to Bakr that he had orchestrated the PA 103 bombing. After settling in Tripoli in 1985, Nidal and the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi allegedly became close, Gaddafi sharing what The Sunday Times called "Abu Nidal's dangerous combination of an inferiority complex mixed with the belief that he was a man of destiny." According to Atef Abu Bakr, Gaddafi asked Nidal to coordinate with the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, an attack on the U.S. in retaliation for the 1986 bombing of Benghazi and Tripoli. Nidal then organized the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi on September 5, 1986 killing 22 passengers and wounding dozens of others. In August 1987, Abu Nidal allegedly tried again, this time using an unwitting bomb mule to carry a device on board a flight from Belgrade (airline unknown), but the bomb failed to explode. For PA 103, Senussi allegedly told Nidal to supply the bomb, and Libyan intelligence would arrange for it to be put on a flight. No evidence has been produced in support of these theories.

Radio detonation

According to conspiracy theorist and self-styled private investigator Joe Vialls, who died in July 2005, the bomb on PA 103 was triggered not by a simple timing device, but by a more complex technique of radio detonation. The Vialls theory relies on the assumption that the aircraft was handed over to a different air traffic control center when it passed over the Dean Cross navigational beacon, requiring it to communicate on one of the 22 frequencies used by Shanwick Oceanic Control. Maid of the Seas would then have been flying at about 500 mph between Dean Cross beacon and where it crashed on the town of Lockerbie, an overall distance of 30 miles (48 km) representing a point-to-point flight time of barely four minutes. As PA 103 passed overhead the Dean Cross beacon, a light would have flashed on in the cockpit alerting the pilots to change frequency in order to obtain permission for the Atlantic crossing from Shanwick Oceanic Control at Prestwick, ScotlandUsing standard reaction times, according to Vialls, it would have taken between three and five minutes for the crew to be ready to communicate on the new frequency. In its PA 103 report, the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) stated:

"At 18.58 hrs the aircraft established two-way radio contact with Shanwick Oceanic Control on frequency 123.95 MHz. At 19.02:44 hrs the clearance delivery officer at Shanwick transmitted to the aircraft its oceanic route clearance. The aircraft did not acknowledge this message and made no subsequent transmission." The AAIB report continued: "The cockpit voice recorder tape was listened to for its full duration and there was no indication of anything abnormal with the aircraft, or unusual crew behaviour. The tape record ended, at 19.02:50 hrs ± 1 second, with a sudden loud sound on the cockpit area microphone channel followed almost immediately by the cessation of recording whilst the crew were copying their transatlantic clearance from Shanwick ATC."

The Vialls radio detonation theory puts forward two different triggering mechanisms:

●      A remotely controlled bomb in the aircraft that was triggered by a radio signal sent from outside the aircraft

●      A sophisticated device onboard the aircraft that monitored multiple variables including time and the use of specific air-traffic control frequencies by the aircraft.

Vialls cited the following example of how the Israelis used the technique of radio detonation: In the late 1980s, Israeli intelligence managed to obtain the cellular phone of Yahya Ayyash by fooling him into believing that his phone had a fault; the phone was booby-trapped with explosives when he brought it in for repairs, then subsequently detonated by a signal sent over the Israeli-controlled mobile phone network when he answered it. According to Vialls, the inside of a Boeing 747 is a Faraday cage, which would ensure that secondary emissions—from the captain's radio message to Shanwick Oceanic Control, for example—would be sufficient to activate the radio trigger of the bomb. Thus, the PA 103 bomb could have been triggered by an internally generated command radio signal transmitted to or received from Shanwick. However, Vialls believed that the extent of the damage caused to the aircraft meant that the bomb was probably positioned close to the fuselage, rather than—as the prosecution maintained at the trial—being wrapped in clothing, packed in a suitcase and loaded inside a baggage container. Vialls himself blamed the Israeli Mossad for the PA 103 bombing. This fitted with the general theme of Vialls's investigations: he blamed Israel and Mossad for a variety of international disasters and events, including the 2004 Asian Tsunami and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

South-West Africa (Namibia)

Reuters: S. Africa Minister Denies Knowing of Lockerbie Bomb

According to another theory, suggested by UK's Patrick Haseldine, apartheid South Africa was responsible for the sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103. The theory is rooted in an allegation made in the film the The Maltese Double Cross and by Die Zeit that the United States government knew of the bomb and warned staff from its embassies in Helsinki and Moscow, as well as a high-level South African delegation, to avoid the flight. Someone allegedly contacted the US embassy in Helsinki, Finland 16 days before the bombing, warning of a bomb on a Pan Am aircraft departing Frankfurt for the US; none of the staff at the Moscow embassy took the flight, despite it being a popular route for them over Christmas. The allegation prompted a strong statement in November 1994 from the private secretary of Pik Botha, then South African Foreign Minister, stating that "Had he known of the bomb, no force on earth would have stopped him from seeing to it that flight 103, with its deadly cargo, would not have left the airport."

Review by American RadioWorks

In a special pre-trial report by American RadioWorks, the strengths and weaknesses of the case against Libya were explored. The report also examined in detail the evidence for and against the other main suspects in the first five alternative theories of this article. No evidence was offered in the report against either the radio detonation or the South-West Africa (Namibia) theory.