Transcripts For ALJAZAM Consider This 20140312

Relatives of the victims. And well get an iranian response to the allegations about the countrys involvement. Hello, im antonio mora, welcome to a special edition of consider this. 20 years ago, a bomb destroyed pan am flight 103. Only one man was found guilty. We are confident this day that al magrahi was responsible. Aljazeera tornado exclusive information that points to another party. The intelligence we got indicates iran, libya. If they didnt retaliate against the United States, we would consider to shoot down them. As long as the relatives are alive, questions will continue to be asked. Its supposed to be a closed case. The pan am 103 bombing on september 21st in 1988 killed 270 people. 189 of them americans returning home for christmas. It remains the deadlyist terrorist attack in the history of the united kingdom. But despite a three year investigation, and agreement by libya to pay 2. 7 billion for the families of the victims, for many, the questions still remain. Questions in a provocative documentary on the bombing that just aired on aljazeera. Lockerby, what really happened . Did libya order a attack in a series of exchanges with the u. S. Or did iran plot to blow up the plane during the iran iraq war. And did the fbi and the cia split on the investigations direction, leaving Washington Open to charges of a coverup . Were going to spend the next hour looking at all of the issues raised by the film. First, im joined from berkeley, california, from the documentarys director, and from edenboro scott land, an investigator of the defense team. Its good to have you both with us, and bill, ill start with you, this is the third film on lockerby that you have done on aljazeera. What is new . Theres a lot of evidence around, and everything is new, but this film wouldnt have happened if it be hadnt been for jessica degrazzia. We spent about two years trying to get her to talk. And with out that, there would have been no film. She used to be a very highly thought of manhattan da. And she married an englishman and moved to london. And after her children grew up, she started a highly investigative agency, for the canadian government. And corporations and banks, and so on. So shes a high flyer. She was hired by the mcgrawhi to investigation, the defense lawyer continue just pick apart the prosecution case. They can say, not only is my client innocent. But i can point to the person who really did it. So the way the defense team worked, there was a team up in scotland, which George Thompson was part of, and they were trying to pick holes in the prosecution case, and there were plenty of holes, while jessica, down in london, mounted an investigation into who really did it. What did she find that is new. Well, what she found, i have to be very careful because its very confidential. But she was able to trace two sources who live in a mediterranean country, one of whom went to a meeting, which took place in malt a. And the meeting was a coordinating meeting between various radical groups. Hezbollah was one of them. And the popular front for the liberation of palestine, syria and iran, and there may have been one or two others too. Now, this person described the meeting, which is essentially these groups trying to they wanted to coordinate better and share resources better. This was a group that got together terrorist groups, and some of these were strange bed fellows, and you have people working together that wouldnt seem to normally be people that work together. They were rejectionists, and they were bitterly opposed to Yasir Arafats attempts to make peace with the u. S. , and so that was the common cause. They were all opposed to that. So what was in jessicas files was a memorandum. I should just backtrack. So they told her about the meeting and what was discussed at the meeting, and the obvious question, what was the proof . How do we know thats true . She was able to get the source and the memorandum, and she had written to the group, a memorandum on the meeting, and he asked his group should he participate in this or not . And the answer was, you can participate as an individual, but we as an organization are not going to be part of any of the attacks on the west. And its not in our interest at this time. And so then the obvious question became, how come he didnt type up the document himself and invent the whole thing . Well then jessica was able to find a lot of krobtive detail. And his brotherinlaw. And the person who wrote the memo noted that he had a slight speech imped met, a thick tongue. Theres a lot of small detail on that. Im not sure that you can run the film like that alone considering the sours. I met them, once in london andan once in the mediterranean. So then we had to find evidence from the cia, from the dia and others. And you believe that all points at iran and the Popular Liberation front for palestine. And george, you also worked on ma grahis defense team and you went to visit him in libya, after he was convicted of 270 downs of murder, one for every person who died in scotland. And to the time he died, he kept insist on his innocence. Yes, i used to get him alone in his place, and he would sometimes be reduced to tears at the very thought that people have treated him so well in scotland, would think for a moment that he was a murderer, especially of children. And ive seen him very very wants at stuff like that. Bill, the film also talks to an iranian defector, and he was a key source supporting the claim that iran ordered the lockerbie bombing as revenge for the attack that brought down the passenger iranian plane. And heres what he had to say. The iranians decided to retaliate as soon as possible. The decision was made by iran, and then confirmed by atolla khomeini. The target was to copy exactly what happened to the iranian airways. Everything saying, 290 people dead. Now, who is misbahi and what should we believe what he says. He is the iranian defector sheltered by the iranian government in the 1990s. He was known as witness c. He gave key evidence that led to six convictions, and the reason to believe him is he has proved truthful in a series of law cases. George knows a lot about him too. And you declared totes in the lockerbie bombing, the Splinter Group working for the iranians, and it included jabril, the leader of the group, he may have facilitated the plot. And another bomb maker who lives in syria, and the other, jabril, is in syria, and Mohammed Abu Talb is living in sweden, and if iran was involved, why would it turn to this group . Because iran wanted to deniability and didnt want to send its people out to do it. He had expertise in bombs, and thats what they specialized in. They bombed two or three planes, i think, one fatally. And fact, they had received a stipend from gadhafi for a long time. And they had fallen out with gadhafi. That was a division between them. And when the lockerbie plane went down, they were pitching their services to the iranians. And thats how they came together. Now, al magrahi, he was tied to the plot by clothes that he bought in the island of malta, in the suitcase better the bomb blew up. And the tore owner identified him, first with a police sketch. And if you look at it, it looks a lot like al magrahi. And he identified him in a police lineup. And your investigation showed that there may have been that identification. You have to remember that before he identified magrahi, he had already identified abu talb. And the evidence against abu talb was quite a bit. There was plenty of evidence to show that they were involved, but when it dame to the trial of magrahi, much of that evidence was dropped and buried away and never disclosed to the defense. And the identification evidence is quite scandalous. Consistently, he described the man who came into the shop is tall, in his 50s, and dark skipped. And magrahi is not tall, light skinned and 37. He was there was an identity parade, just when the main trial began, there was an identity parade, where the main witness attended. And he had cut a photograph of magrahi out of a news magazine and he had the photo in his pocket. And the i. D. Was a complete scandal. That alone should have had the whole case thrown out. It was a real problem. George, do you have any idea in your mind that al magrahi was not the bomber . Based on the evidence that i have seen and examined, i can see categorically, he was not the bomber. Ive been asked that question before and drawn back, and i can be possibly say that he was the bomber, and ive gone this whole length, based on the evidence that ive seen. The evidence is flawed. And it can not convict him. However, having gotten to know the man quite well, and the last time i saw him on his deathbed, im 100 sure that he had nothing to do with the lockerbie bombing. Now, bill, while youve of course raised the issues of the evidence that we have discussed, the american and the British Government switched the investigations focus from iran to libya, because the men were suspected early on and looked at by the courts, and they allowed the courts to convict an in the man. I want to play something from fbi director, Robert Muller last year and get your reaction. I will tell you im confident to this day that al magrahi was one of those responsible for this terrorist attack. Hes confident, after 25 years, a question comes to my mind, if a government conspiracy had really been in effect, would somebody have spoken out by now . And to be a devils advocate, what kind of government would have done Something Like this . A huge fraud, and victims families, just for a geo political gain it would be a considerable geo political gain. But here, were in the realm of theory. There was an executive order by the Regan Administration in 1996, which was essentially, get libbia the time was on the eve of the gulf war, and the distinct possibility that the u. S. Didnt want to make syria an enemy because they were out of the coalition of thing will, and it was one thing to beat up on libya, which is small and weak, and altogether much more formidable opponent would be to take on iran. So its not something to be done lightly. All right, George Thompson, good to have you on the show, and bill, you hang out with us and well be hearing from you later in the broadcast. Coming up, we heard the documentary side. And next, the chief investigator for the fbis lockerbie task force will join us. Well, the cia and the fbi investigated the pan am 103 bombing, the subject of the aljazeera documentary, lockerbie, what really happened, which were exploring throughout the program. But the fbi believes that they got at least one of the participants in the bombing and libya was responsible. Would be behr, involved in the investigation, and hes currently a columnist for cnn, he disagrees. Im not giving you a controversial opinion here. I kept up with all of the cia intelligence side, and to a man, they said it was iran. For more, im joined by a retired fbi agent, not a controversial opinion, and how do you react . Well, let me say at first, that watching all three films in the last two days, the cinematography was outstanding, but i wish that i had three hours for investigators working three years on that case. Bob behr didnt get it right. First of all, he didnt work on the lockerbie investigation, and if anything, h he was a fringe player, and i believe he was in paris, and he saw parts of the investigation, but he certainly never played an active role in investigating the case. Not to say that i disagree with everything that he says, but i disagree that we didnt share information with the cia, and the fact that an intelligence assessment, done by an analyst on one day, has to be corroborated with evidence to make it in the court of law. The cia, at the end of the day, and the fbi, were joined at the hip. And they agreed totally with the indictment by the justice department. Lets talk about the evidence by magrahi and libya, that you just heard the defense talk about. Do you think that the identification of magrahi was not correct by the store owner in malt a. Saying that magrahi was the guy who bought the clothes and the suitcase that blew up . Eyewitness identification is a flawed prospect. You dont always get it perfectly right. And in fact, in a year and a half or so, two years after the bombing, he said that of all of pictures that he looked at, when he saw the picture of magrahi, he said this is the person that i think bought the clothes, and i want to say that he never picked out a picture of abu talb and said that he bought the clothes. The only person was magrahi. What about the intelligence in it. Out of all of the proceedings being finished, he never got anything, was never promised anything, and was never paid anything, and this would not have been an hue coming to court. So he was never promised anything prior to his testimony. And you heard bill talking about the Circuit Board that supposedly connected the bomb to libya. What would you see as the strongest evidence that connected almegrahi and iran to the timer . Its signify, only 20 of them were ever made. The comparison was done, and it was the tracking. When a technician makes the Circuit Board, he has to sit down by hand and craft the Circuit Board. And every one after that are stamped out based on that one prototype. Only 20 of these were ever made. And i cannot account for the codes, but this is an argument for experts, because if i was a defendant, i would hire the best witness i could find. And the prosecution would have the witness, and they would come up with the exact opposite judgments ant the end of the day. This is something that should have been hashed out at trial. And for whatever reason, it not wasnt. But i could bring in other experts that would testify that this was an identical timer to the 20 made by libya. Lets listen to another comment made by bob ber. Internship, the investigations converged like this. Because the case was being run by the bet of justice, in complete disregard to the intelligence. As far as i can tell, someone said, look, libya is vulnerable to prosecution. Small country, gadhafi is hated. And lets go for it. It was an executive decision, and once that happened, everybody lined up. You just heard bill tran make that argument. And you said that you think there was a complete disagreement between the fbi and the cia . That statement is complete hogwash. From the beginning, the cia and the fbi working together was problematic. We got ourselves together in a year and a half into the investigation. And once we did, there was total it agreement on both sides on who did the lockerbie bombing. We didnt say lets go after libya because theyre vulnerable and we dont like them, but we followed the evidence, plain and simple. Lets talk about following the he had, and an alleged pay off from iran to the palestinian group. The point s. You have bc handling in paris, 11 million after lockerbie. Look, heres Mohammed Abu Talb, and he refused to look into this, which missed me off. They had his bank account in frankfort, on the 25th of april, 1989, he received 500,000. And this group, and 24 guy, talb, were making bombs in germany, and one of them went missing, and doesnt the money possibly lead back to iran . Theres no indication that talb was in germany. He was in malta and cyprus and swede , but in terms of the money, baer makes a comment about the bank, and i have no reclation of that, and maybe we checked it out and it was a dry hole. Because i agree, following the money is a significant part of the investigation. I do not recall tha that bank account and it could have gone away. They had money all over the globe, funneled by various governments, and money went to them. But no money transfers at or around the time of lockerbie. It was like a cd that matured that they had in the account. But im not aware of any, and i certainly dont recall, because it would have been a big issue, any specific money trails going from any trail to the fabgc, and libya paid them as well. I want to ask you the flip question of what i asked to the investigator, George Thompson. Has any money surfaced in the 25 years since the bombing that makes you doubt that magrahi and libya are guilty . No, because in the United States, these meetings that took place, that is all speculation. I havent seen any evidence that ties any of those people having some meeting in march of 1988, and later in october. Ive never seen anything that tells me that any of those people were directly connected to putting the bomb on the plane. All of the evidence, as far as im concerned, magrah concerneda false passport, with the bomb technician. All of those people with all of the intelligence, thats all speculation, and you cant take speculation to court. Richard, thank you for hanging out with us, and i know youll be back with us. Straight ahead, whats the iranian reaction to the allegations . That after the break. At the supervise tonights documentary, lockerbie, what really happened, is claiming that iran, and not libya, was responsible for the 1988 jetliner bombing that killed 278 in the air and on the ground in scotland. We received a comment from Irans Foreign Ministry on the film. And that Statement Reads in part. On all terrorist issues, our stance is clear. Iran is renting all terrorist issues for more on the iranian perspective on lockerbie, im joined by an adviser for irans negotiating team. And he has been a professor at Tehran University and visiting scholar at harvard. And remains in contact with iranian officials. And good to have you with us. Their position is very clear, that they were not involved in all of this. But there was certainly, back then, a desire for revenge on the United States after the United States had knocked that iranian passenger jet out of the sky and killed almost 300 people. Well, of course there were passionate feelings of what happened, which was, from the iranian point of view, coldblooded shut he slaughter of iranian passengers, which was on a commercial corridor sandying, and unfortunately the program that is airing today is not bothering to mention these important facts, saying that the plane was coming toward the u. S. Naval ship that fired on it, and its just one of so many flaws that one can drive a truck through in this program. You dont get very specific about what happened. Its rubbish and completely biased. But the americans would argue that they felt that something was coming at them and they needed to take action, and its hard to believe that anybody would have intentionally knocked a passenger jet out of the sky. Were not here to discuss that. Lets move on. Whats your response to the former Iranian Intelligence officer, who said that after iran had decided to attack the United States . Theres nothing new about these allegations coming from him. And its a long discredited story. This person has changed his story several times. This particular documentary completely dispenses with the libyan scenario, whereas if you go to the initial statements by magrahi, he says that the libya general command that he worked for them. And anyone who is familiar with irans relation with history and the intentions with libya over the missing shiite saint, assad, knows that theres no operational activity with libya, because of that particular issue. And in fact, many people celebrated his downfall because of that. So this is incredibly farfetched so the meetings in malta that supposedly happened, involving iran and libya, you disagree that that happened in syria too. Im a political scientist, but i have several years of experience, and so i know a bit about law and evidence and so forth. And i poured over the transcript of the show today, the document with a couple of iranian lawyers, and theres serious ground for aljazeera acting irresponsibly for bringing the highly dubious program to the attention of the entire world. In the front pages of newspapers that iran blew up a jet. Everybody involved in this has said very clearly that there are very significant sources and strong evidence that indicates everything that this documentary put out. So i will argue with you on that, but lets move on and listen to something that bob baer had to say. Six days after taking down the airbus, there was a meeting in beirut and we know where it occurred. The iranians went to them and said you know how to bring down airliners. This is a former security analyst in this country saying that, and theres a history of iran supporting palestinian groups and other terrorist groups. First of all, what is the source of this always by mr. Baer . We have seen from the pops and the fbi agents involved in this investigation saying that the only physical evidence points to libya, and richard marke marques one of those. Iran did not retaliate. But that doesnt have anything to do with whether they have been involved in terrorist groups or palestinian violence. The founding of the Islamic Revolution under ayatollah khomeini, the dubious informant who alleges that khomeini, though 13,000 chemical bombs were used against the soldiers. I understand, but are you arguing that iran has not supported hezbollah and other little bit groups in the past . Iran has supported the palestinian cause gins the israeli suppression, and hezbollah with dominant shiite group with members in the partly. And part of the government. So to label them as terrorists is reductionistic, and overlooking conflicts in the middle east. What is important about this documentary is that its nothing but a Smear Campaign against iran, by relying on two paid agents of the defense team. One former lawyer from new york, and another one, a professional investigator, hired by the defense team, both of them using aljazeera for free pr. I dont think it has anything to do with pr, but lets move on, and bob baer also offered this explanation as to why iran may have ordered the attack. Its crucial, they argued that if they didnt attack the United States, we would continue to shoot down their civilian airliners. You said that there was tremendous anger in iran over the attack, and was there really a belief that the United States would try to take passenger jets out of the sky . What mr. Baer just said is absolutely ridiculous, because the iranians why convinced that there wouldnt be another attack on their civilian airplanes, and i myself spent a lot of time on the front lines in those days, and i can tell you firsthand that there was no such fear because of the enormous International Backlash against the United States after that unprovoked attack on the civilian commercial airplane. Now, let me add to this. I have an excerpt from the course judgment from poland on this particular case. Just one of the many flaws in this documentary is that it fails to mention that one. So called, you know, suspects, mr. Assad, was according to, and im reading from the court transcript, was working on behalf of the jordanian intelligence service, and the instruction was that any bomb he made must not be primed. Are you prepared to detonate, right . Now, i ask you, sir, why is this very Important Information is not reflected in this program, and instead, he and his unnamed sources are quoted, pointing the finger toward iraq. Obviously, you can only have so much in the short tv show, you cant put in a whole transcript. Its not course. No, but im pointing out serious bias to smear iran. At a time when Nuclear Negotiations are progressing. This all came about because of the 25th anniversary of the pam am flight. So connect it to i believe that this was vetted very carefully. And the sources i promise you that there will be a very very powerful lawsuit coming to aljazeera. It will be more important than what did to 60 minutes, and im a former consultant to 60 minutes, and unfortunately, the impartialityiality of aljazeera has been irrevocable marked. Thank you for joining us. My pleasure. Still ahead, the relatives are decidedly split on the films finds. Well talk to two fathers who lost their daughters, next. We have heard from all angles of the story so far, except those directly affected. The families. Flora was one of the 279 victims, and she died the night before her 24th birthday, and she was set to be i kneweologist. And Marina Hudson was a 16yearold Exchange Student flying home to see her parents. She would be 41 today. And one of the victims of pan am, and he does not believe the events. He joins us, and Pauline Hudson joins us from florida. Its good to have you on the show, and were all so sorry for the loss of your daughters, and im sure that the pain never goes away. If you dont mind, doctor, would you tell us about flora . I want to thank you for coming to the program. Because its important that the world doesnt forget that people like this were murdered, and in the same vein, i dont think that we should forget the people from iran killed on the airbus. But passing over that, and passing onto flora, flora was an incredibly beautiful girl, my firstborn, and she was, as you said, killed on the eve of her 24th birthday. And as you know, as she walked down the corridor at heathrow to join the fatal flight, she had some reason to expect that some degree of security would be applied to her flight noting extraordinary. And what she didnt know, and what megrahi didnt know, is that 16 hours before the flight, air side had been broken into, and the fact that it had been broken into was kept and concealed from the court which tried megrahi until he had been found guilty. And for that reason, im the father of flora, and i want to see the truth come out. Come out and we have, in britain, accepted human rights legislation, which absolutely, we must tell the truth and rights and responsibility for events like this, and i dont believe that it happened yet. And i think that the death of the investigation by al the depth of the investigation by aljazeera is highly commendable and it so fits with what happened we have learned in the last 25 years. If paul is listening to this, i dont want to irritate paul. We have both lost daughters, and lets not irritate and lets have commonality in the grief. I was there in the trial. And what convinced me that the trial was going wrong was to hear from sophisticated german forensic officers about how the technology that was being used actually worked. And it was claimed that the bomb came from malta, and they could do that all the way around to lockerbie because it had a longrunning timer. Its true, and ive seen the evidence, that as in marquis said earlier, the tiny fragment of the bomb found in the wreckage doesnt match the technology, and the metalgy that the libyans had. And the libyans did indeed buy 20 of those boards. I dont want to interrupt, but how long is this going to go on . Youre trying to take all of the time here, and they just i would like to say a few words, if its my turn here. Before we run out of time. I did want to hear about melina before we talk about the substance of this. Okay. Melina was my only daughter. She was 16yearold, First American girl in the school in england, coming home for the christmas holidays. And we assumed that the security would be good. Obviously it was very seriously flawed. Theres a profound disagreement between jim swire and not only myself, but the vast majority of victim families as to megrahis innocence. But we can get into that, but i would agree with jim that we do share grief, and im wearing one of the first things that the relative organizations made as their motto, which is the truth must be known. This goes back to 1989. Its getting a little rusty on the other side here, but we still feel very strongly that that is the case. I agree with jim, that the truth is not fully known. The aljazeera program is the defense version, which comes with millions of dollars from libya, which has very strong reasons for coming out with this. I dont trust the u. S. , and i dont trust the uk. And i certainly dont trust the megrahi defense team or iran, and i would say that we need a Defense Commission to move forward. And i hope that the u. N. Would take this up. In the sanction settlement, which happened in 2004, it was promised by libya that they would fully cooperate with the criminal investigations, and not only have they not cooperated, but both the u. S. And the uk, until very recently, have essentially dropped their investigation, and they have not done many of the things that most investigators feel would be normal in investigating a serious conspiracy. I should say that i dont know of any millions of dollars from libya connected to this documentary, but lets move on. There are strong allegations throughout this film. And there seems to be a very strong split between the british families and the American Families in the way they look at the case. Many in the u. S. Believe that libya was alone behind the bombing and are adamantly discussing the bombing, and we have nothing to say to you now or ever, and theres not a shred of evidence that iran was involved, nothing. And dr. Swire, why the division across the atlantic with the families . To even things up a little bit, if i may continue a little bit about flora because i was unable to complete that, because he quite rightfully stopped me. But flora was going down the corridor to join that flight because she had been so brilliant in her first three years of medical school, that she had broken off her medical training in order to do a Research Project in london. And unbeknownst to us, she had just been accepted to complete her medical training at Cambridge University. And when we had the gruesome task of clearing out her room, after she had been murdered, on her desk, we found a letter from Cambridge University inviting her to go there for the rest of her medical training, and she knew that, and i know that have she would have been dying to wait for Christmas Day to ring us up from her boyfriends house in boston, and she met him of course because he was also a brilliant medical researcher, and tell us then that she got into the same university where i did my first training. Its a terrible moment. And that cant be replaced. Paul, why do you think that the divisions between the british families and the American Families . Well, you know, its not british versus americans. There are differing opinions on this side of the atlantic too. There are Many American relatives that feel that iran was behind it, and i personally feel that they certainly had a motive. And there was this saying what happened with the popular front of the liberation of palestine, which was a foiled attempt at aviation bombing, which happened a month before. I personally have no inside evidence, but i feel though that the most plausible scenario is that iran contracted first to this palestinian group, and when that failed, they switched it to libya, but other people have other theories. But the point is, were 25 years past the event. This is the second worst mass murder, terrorist murder in american history, after 911. Its the numberone terrorist attack in the uk. And i would hope that the parties could come together and try to find the truth here. And i suggest that the Truth Commission may be the way forward, because i frankly think the National Critical Justice System has had its chance, and it hasnt been successful. 25 years later, so many questions, and i appreciate that you joined us to talk about this topic and about your girls. Thank you very much. Straight ahead, some final thoughts and the big question, what happens next . Were going to wrap up our look at lockerbie, what happened, aljazeeras investigation into the 1988 pam am terrorist bomb attack, and ar that, im joined by bill cran. And bill, you heard what richard said earlier regarding the libyan involvement in lockerbie, and about the trial of the man who was convicted of all of this. And what is your response to what he had to say . Well, one thing i would say is that we be that far apart. At the end of my second film we made, i would have said, there was not a shred of evidence to connect libya to the case, all of the credible evidence had been destroyed. But in the course of making this third program, particularly going through the evidence that jessica degrazy collected and people i met, i would say that theres a strong, not more than possibility, but a probability that theres some kind of libyan involvement in the case. I still think that iran was the prime mover, but i think theres persuasive and circumstantial evidence that libya must have been involved. That having been said, i have no idea exactly what they did or who did it. Its possible that that comes to light. I went to libya in the spring, and i talked to people about the case, and tried to see if we could get a breakthrough and got nowhere. Most said that it was gadhafi because he was a murderous maniac and why with would he not have done it . I certainly agree with that last point that gadhafi was not a good person, but i agree with dr. Swire that security in 1988 was not very good, and people like his daughter on that paper deserved more than they got. But theres a big disconnect between intelligence and evidence. Evidence is something that you can corroborate and prove. And thats what has to go to court. You can not take speculation, or hypothesis, or reports written by an investigator, saying i have these sources and i cant tell you who they are. That was to me, a lot of the report written for pan am, written back in 1989 that said some of the same things about this group of terrorists getting together. Miss degrazy did say that. She was correcting tense, and not evidence. Her intelligence seemed fresh to us, and the significant thing, its corroborated by Intelligence Agency reports, and its corroborated by robert baer, and the thing about robert baer, youre right, he was not central to the investigation, but he was in the paris office, and they were involved in the investigation, admittedly on the edges, but what he was seeing every day was the telex chatter going through his office. And he said to me what when i met him for the first time about a year ago, he said i dont have a very good memory, and i write everything down. He would write on 5by7 index cards, and when we did the interview, he kept referring to those cards, and i found it persuasive. As a journalist. While baers notes may raise all sorts of questions, one thing brought up by the documentary, it pretty much implies, some of the people on the documentary say there was a political decision made to go after libya and focus on libya and not iran, and richard, i say to you, do you think that its likely or possible that we have had a series of administrations since then, george w. Bush, and bill clinton, and now barack obama, all of these administrations, all of these people at the fbi and the cia for so many years, somehow contributed to covering up the real suspects in this bombing . There was no cover up, no order from the white house, from whitehall, from anybody telling us what to find. Evidence is the evidence, what we presented to the grand jury and to the sheriff in scotland, and thats what made the case in 2001. It had nothing to do with someone in any administration telling us what we should find. There was absolutely no political interference, and again, i never say never about anything. But nothing has ever been brought to my attention that would show me that would change anything to what we did, and the results that we got. I only have a minute left, and i would like to give you season 30 seconds. Is this case closed, bill, or there there been a Truth Commission, and Something Else to keep this case moving forward. Well, you know, the Scottish Police regard it as an open case, and they have sent detectives to libya to garner information, and the relatives who dont believe that the official line are skill backing us, official documents of George Thompson and people like that, and i feel like a lot of cabses where there has been a miscarriage of justice, the case never closes, and i think we still have a little way to go here. Richard, the final word . Well, as bill said, there is the case is open, fbi agents are working the case, along with scottish detectives that have been in libya to investigate the case, and you like to hope that nothing like this ever happens again ever, and i just pray for victim families every day. In particularly many of those people that i have met. So many young people, and so many people just destroyed by that day. Bill cran, richard marquise. Thank you. The decision continues, you can find us on twitter aj consider this. See you next time. Good evening, everyone, welcome to al jazeera america. Im John Seigenthaler in new york. The mystery of flight 370 tonight authorities expand the search for the missing jetliner. What could have happened. We talk an an ntsv investigator live. Video from ukraine. A sab tur arrested. Reports from kiev. Spy games a surprising turn with highranking senators