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Charles Norrie |
Lockerbie relatives’ fight for the truthHEADLINES will keep on returning to the mystery of the Lockerbie bombing, I’m sure.
One significant key to the mystery still requires a full judicial investigation.
It touches on a break-in that occurred near to where the baggage was stored at Heathrow for the ill-fated Pan Am Flight 103 flight that killed nearly 270 people.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie disaster, believes there’s a link between the break-in and the bombing of the plane. Over the years, Dr Swire, who has, with great scrutiny, investigated the bombing, has been exchanging notes with a local man, Charles Norrie, a computer engineer, whose brother Tony was killed in a terrorist attack on a French airliner in Africa.
The Libyans were found guilty of the crime more than 20 years ago and Mr Norrie received a million euros in compensation from the country.
Mr Norrie, who was naturally drawn to his own investigation of the Lockerbie bombing, has concluded after years of research that the CIA itself is partly responsible for the disaster – that, in fact, their operatives helped to plant the bomb on the airliner.
This conspiracy theory began to take flight shortly after the Lockerbie affair began, and one or two investigative journalists uncovered trails that led to the CIA.
All this may sound outlandish, but in the recent splurge of media coverage of the release of Al Megrahi, little space has been given to a significant weight of legal opinion that feels that if his case had gone to appeal before Scottish judges, as planned, a case of miscarriage of justice may have been found.
And this, to some extent, would have turned on the mystery of the burgled baggage at Heathrow airport.
Mr Norrie, a member of the King’s Cross Conservation Area Advisory Committee, meanwhile, has written a 140,000-word book accusing the CIA of the crime.
I met Dr Swire, a Scottish medical man, several times after Lockerbie and admired his shrewd mind. He struck me as the sort of man who would never reach a conclusion until he had tested all conceivable possibilities.
He has pursued the baggage angle for years and is convinced therein lies a key to a mystery that the Scottish hearing into the bombing never resolved.
He told me this week that the very fact that Mr Norrie, who lost his brother in a proven Libyan attack, believes Megrahi was not guilty over Lockerbie is remarkable to the point that it should make one doubt the accepted version of the crime.
Heart-warming story?
IT has produced 20 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, discovered DNA and cites Gandhi as a former alumni.
Yes, the University College of London (UCL) does have some considerable bragging rights. On Tuesday evening it called those rights into effect in the opulent setting of Mansion House for a celebration of all things UCL.
With statues of Greek gods looking on, illustrious alumni spoke on the staggeringly diverse interests of the university – now apparently the largest employer in Camden.
YouGov chief executive Nadhim Zahawi told the audience he had no interest in politics before UCL, and in a brief paean to the power of education at UCL, Lib Dem leader in the House of Lords Lord McNally remembered how he had been approached by a young man in the Houses of Parliament after the 2005 general election.
“He said, ‘I heard a speech you gave which inspired me to go into politics. I’m now an MP.’ My heart rose. It would have risen a little higher if he hadn’t been a Conservative MP,” he said.
Music be the love of food for couple
WHY hadn’t I been there before? Oozing with charm and atmosphere, I dropped into the new restaurant and venue in Delancey Street in Camden Town on Friday afternoon.
It stands on the site of my old haunt, the Delancey Café. Now, its new look is seductively modernist.
Straight up my street, it’s run by a husband and wife duo, Adam and Charlotte, both accomplished musicians, pianist and saxophonist respectively, and somehow, apart from music, they provide tempting Sicilian food.
Both met at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and perform, from time to time at the Forge and Caponata. Adam has just brought out a CD I recommend – an eclectic mix of Argentine tango and fragments, all piano, sax and keyboard.
Three days a week there’s a musical happening at the restaurant – this Sunday, an Italian jazz singer, Irene Serra, Wednesday, Angela Brownridge, piano, Thursday, Japanese pianist Yiusuke Osada.
For more information ring 0207 383 7808 or visit www.forgevenue.org.
Celebrating Trevor
FRIENDS of a quite extraordinary man, Trevor Carter, will wind their way tomorrow (Friday) morning at 11am to a bench set down in his honour in Waterlow Park, Highgate, near the Swains Lane entrance.
Trevor, who died last year, was a much-loved teacher and, among other things, as a Trinidadian, a proud organiser of the Notting Hill Carnival.
Among those who will celebrate his life will be Islington MP Jeremy Corbyn and, of course, his wife, Corinne.
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