Subverted justice questioned?

Editorial by Parveez Syed, Shanti News, Monday 3 August 1998

LONDON-UK (SC-SRTV)—In February 1998 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague, The Netherlands, ruled that it has jurisdiction to hear Libya’s complaints against Britain in connection with the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988. Then in March 1998 ICJ ruled against US and British objections to the court’s involvement in the case.

This editorial poses a number of legitimate, thought-provoking questions to help assess if the accused can expect a fair trial; would the verdict be acceptable to the US-UK politicians, and what about appeal court?

Pan American flight 103 exploded above the village of Lockerbie, Scotland on Wednesday 21 December 1988 enroute to New York, killing 259 people on board and 11 on the ground. According to intelligence sources and whistleblowers a briefcase full of CIA approved and protected drug-run was switched enroute stopovers with an identical briefcase containing a bomb. A few years before that British woman police constable Yvonne Fletcher was fatally gunned down by CIA agents in front of Libyan embassy in London to help engineer a pretext to bomb and kill 37 civilians in Libya in April 1986. US agents and their assets hope that with the passing of time the world will forget their crimes.

US-UK arrogance is growing beyond all bounds. They show contempt even for their own tools, the UN and ICJ. London and Washington repeatedly moved the goal posts; they initially blamed Iranians, Syrians, Palestinians, and then accused two Libyans for the attack; then they engineered the UN resolution demanding the extradition of two accused to be tried in Britain or the US. They have repeatedly refused to countenance a trial in Libya or a third country beyond their sphere of control and influence. They have todate failed to provide irrefutable, credible evidence that could implicate the two Libyan suspects who are being used as scapegoats. ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN), ruled that UK and the US acted unlawfully in insisting on the extradition of the suspects. ICJ found that it has jurisdiction to deal with the merits of the case brought by Libya against the UK.

Would more than ten years of trial by mass media in the case lead to an fair ’trial’? Could the accused get a fair trial in the in the US and the EU? Under the 1971 Montreal Convention—which sets out guidelines for bringing to justice ’suspects’ in terrorist attacks on civil aircraft—Libya still has the right to try the suspects in Libya and refuse to surrender them. But some British and US lawyers claim the UN-SC resolutions ordering Libya to surrender the suspects for trial in an American or Scottish court over-ride the convention.

Why is the ICJ’s full jurisdiction was not good enough for the US-UK governments? Why is it necessary to strip and undermine ICJ’s jurisdiction, integrity and sovereignty, and replace it by extending Scottish or UK laws? Is ICJ’s integrity now compromised and undermined? Would some convincing pretexts help adjourn or transfer the trial to the UK or US before reaching the verdict? y There is no provision in Scottish law for a Scottish court to sit outside Scottish jurisdiction. Nor could we possibly take a Scottish jury to sit in a third country, British foreign secretary Robin Cook said on Tuesday 23 September 1997. But Scots law expert professor Robert Black of Edinburgh University has now drawn up a protocol which would permit a Scottish Court to sit overseas to try the two accused. Is it a game to be played, for the great kudos of politicians or the enhancement of global bullies’ pride? Is the trial about finding out if the accused are guilty or innocent? Why not transplant Libyan laws and install Libyan judge and jury at ICJ for the trial? US-UK laws, the UN-SC Resolutions and vetos are often subject to political subversion.

Those in possession of absolute power—can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true, US philosopher Eric Hoffer (1902-83), noted in ’The Passionate State of Mind’ in 1955. Today the public portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, Iraqis, Libyans, Iranians and Islam is coherently, effectively and routinely distorted by US, UK and Israeli politicians, their agents, their assets and their mainstream mass media groups. They protray Muslims are terrorists, criminals, uncivilised or inhumane. Why is there so much distortion, coverup and lying?

For every measure of social, economic, political and mass media dysfunction, Muslim rates are often more than twice the US-EU natives. Muslims in the US and EU are denied access to and excluded from mainstream mass media groups. The systematic denial of basic human rights and exclusion, simply can not be dismissed as irrelevant in any civilised country. Civilised justice system have rules. Those rules don’t allow politicians to be the accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.

Why is it necessary to transplant Scottish, British, UK or US laws and procedures in the Hague? Why is it necessary to try the accused without an impartial, unbiased, balanced jury? Why is it necessary to replace the jury by an international panel of highly selctive judges presided over by a senior Scottish judge? Why is it necessary to fix the judicial system, evidence, jury or judges? Are the judges lined up to secure the verdict US and the UK require? Would there be a right of appeal? Where would the appeal court sit, under which country’s laws, who will be the appeal cout judge(s) or jury?

Is the law transplanted to operate in a discriminatory or prejudicial manner or to secure conviction? Would the transplant and the trial without a balanced jury make The Hague venue a kangaroo court farce? What is the US-UK-EU record on race, colour or religious discrimination? Is there a covert, subtle, intentional, historical or widespread form of religious or racial discrimination or prejudice in the UK-EU-US?

Is race, colour or religion a factor in disproportionally high number of fishing expeditions or raids; stop, search, arrest, convict and sentence? Why move the goal-posts endlessly? Why shift blame to suit political needs of the day before and after the Gulf assault in 1991? Can the accused Libyans really expect justice from the transplanted laws and judicial system from the country which has repeatedly supported and encouraged US bombing and killing of Libyan and Iraqi civilians?

Is there a systematic, insightful or critical link between law enforcement and the colour, race and religion of the accused or the convicted? So, who would guarantee a fair trial and justice?

Aren’t the accused already tried and convicted by the US-UK politicians and their mass media outfits? Would a verdict, other than guilty, be acceptable to them, their allies, agents and assets? The perpetrators of all evil deeds, genocide and crimes against humanity should be brought to civilised justice.

Would the US government now send their Navy Admiral, who ordered the downing of Iranian Airbus 655 during tensions in the Persian Gulf, to be tried in Libya under Iranian laws? The brave admiral bombed and killed more than 300 Muslims civilians traveling from Iran to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Michael Sheinbaum, who is alleged to have murdered of a young man in the US, for eaxmple, reported to have fled in 1998 to Israel where officials claimed that they will not allow a Jew to be tried in a Gentile court. Let us not forget Alex Odeh who was killed in LA, California and the FBI and the CIA never did much to apprehend the Jewish terrorist who is at large in Israel. Is Israel being embargoed for harbouring the terrorists and other killers of Americans? Justice for all or some?

Double standards; highly selective rough justice; rule of the jungle; kangaroo courts in civilised world? Is the US and its allies subverting justice? Is this the ’New World Order’? Or is it the New World DisOrder? Is the world being led by decree from London and Washington high offices of crooks able to abuse power, commit perjury, subvert the courts, the justice, the mass media outlets and billions of hearts, minds and souls? Is the world heading toward a virtual, global dictatorship where US, UK and Israeli leaders are above the laws? Is this a good example for the rest of the world to follow?