Edwin Bollier
Edwin Bollier and his partner, Erwin Meister, founded MEBO Telecommunications AG in Zürich, Switzerland in 1969.
MEBO's sophisticated MST-13 timing device was claimed at the Lockerbie bombing trial in 2000 to have been the trigger for the bomb that brought the aircraft down over Lockerbie in Scotland on 21 December 1988.[1]
Contents
Radio North Sea International
In 1969-70, the partners Meister and Bollier established the pirate radio station Radio North Sea International (RNI) aboard the radio ship MEBO II, anchored off Scheveningen, Netherlands. Transmissions began in January 1970. By 1971, the station was highly popular, especially in the Netherlands, but also Western Europe, its programmes beamed by powerful medium and dual shortwave transmitters. After transmissions ceased in 1974, and following a lengthy legal battle with the Dutch government over its impounding of the vessel, MEBO II sailed for Tripoli, Libya, in 1977 where it was initially leased to the Libyan government for use as a radio station; then later sunk during military target practice in the Gulf of Sidra.[2] The deal marked the beginning of a long business relationship with Libya.
Pan Am Flight 103 bombing
MST-13
MEBO's sophisticated MST-13 timing device was claimed at the Lockerbie bombing trial in 2000 to have been the trigger for the bomb that brought the aircraft down over Lockerbie in Scotland on 21 December 1988.[3]
In the early stages of the Lockerbie investigation, the Scottish police showed Edwin Bollier a photograph of what he said was a brown 8-ply timer fragment, from a prototype timer that was never supplied to Libya. At the Lockerbie trial, Bollier was asked to identify a green 9-ply timer fragment from an MST-13 timer, 20 of which had been delivered to Libya. He wanted to dispute the evidence but trial Judge, Lord Sutherland, did not permit him to do so.[4]
Co-conspirator charge
Edwin Bollier had rented office space to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan who was convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103.[5]
During Bollier's testimony at the trial, it was revealed that the prosecution had been considering charging him with the same conspiracy to murder charge as the two Libyans, Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, faced. When the defence protested that they had not been given notice of that position, prosecuting counsel Alan Turnbull QC told the court:
- "If we were going to libel him we would have done so, these issues have been considered. The decision not to include him as a co-conspirator is not a recognition that he has nothing to do with the matter. The extent of his involvement is yet to be developed in evidence. It may be he has involvement in what occurred, but unless the Crown is able to adduce evidence that places him in the conspiracy, it is not appropriate to libel him as a co-conspirator."[6]
As a discouragement to the prosecution, Bollier is alleged to have let it be known before the start of the trial that if he were to be charged for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing he would call some high-ranking and controversial witnesses to appear, for example: former United States President George H W Bush, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Gerrit Pretorius, private secretary to South Africa's former foreign minister Pik Botha.[7]
"$4 million offer" to Bollier
In October 2007, Bollier told UN-observer Dr Hans Köchler that he was offered $4 million – plus a new identity in the United States – if he would agree to "write in a police statement" that the timer fragment allegedly found at the Pan Am Flight 103 crash site was actually part of a MEBO MST-13 timer that his firm had supplied to Libya. He apparently turned down the offer.[8]
In a BBC documentary screened on 31 August 2008, Bollier claimed that he had been offered $200 million by Colonel Gaddafi if he could ... "get Al Megrahi out of prison".[9]
Following Megrahi's compassionate release from prison on 20 August 2009, Bollier stated that he was hoping that the Gaddafi government might still pay him the $200 million.[10]
References
- ↑ "Meister and Bollier testify at the Lockerbie trial". Archived from the original on 5 November 2002. Retrieved 16 May 2011.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ Dr. Martin van der Ven. "Target practice in the Mediterranean". Offshore-radio.de. Retrieved 16 May 2011.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ "How MI6 was told of Stasi spy who supplied the timer". Icce.rug.nl. Retrieved 16 May 2011.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ "Meister & Bollier and the Lockerbie crash". Mebocom-defilee.ch. Retrieved 16 May 2011.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ "Shadow Over Lockerbie". Americanradioworks.publicradio.org. Retrieved 16 May 2011.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑
{{URL|example.com|optional display text}} - ↑ Lockerbie +Pan +Am +103. "Calling high-ranking/controversial witnesses". Mebocom-defilee.ch. Retrieved 16 May 2011.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ "Lockerbie trial: an intelligence operation?". I-p-o.org. 5 October 2007. Retrieved 16 May 2011.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ "Gaddafi's son attacks "greedy" Lockerbie relatives in BBC Two documentary". bbc.co.uk. 29 August 2008. Retrieved 16 May 2011.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ "Lockerbie: was Libya really behind it?" Beobachter magazine (with John Ashton)]
External links
This page imported content from Wikipedia on 6 June 2013.Wikipedia is not affiliated with Wikispooks. Original page source here
