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In search of a culprit ?

Having concluded the technical investigation with the assumption that a bomb caused the crash of Pan Am 103, the next question to ask is: How was the bomb brought aboard the aircraft, and why ?
We should look away from the idea, that the bomb aboard Pan Am 103 maybe could have been an accident. That maybe someone carried a bomb or even just some explosive material, and it went off by accident. That DOES happen sometimes, since the world is full of careless idiots. But it is most possible, the bomb was put on Pan Am 103 and timed to blast by purpose and evil intention.



Cry wolf or was it for real ?


A warning had been issued by the American embassy in Finland and Russia a few days before the crash. American civil airliners could be the target of terrorist attacks - but did the US government bother to tell the passengers at Pan Am ?

Read the warning!

Did the US government do anything in regard to that warning ? YES - they made sure no important personell of their own stayed on that plane. Many people believe the US government knew Pan Am 103 was a dangerous plane to be on - and that perhaps the passengers of Pan Am 103 became sacrified on the altar of hostage politics with ... Iran.

What happened in the US State Department between July and December 1988 ?

Sister of PA 103-victim angry over neglected warning
The hunt for the culprits has begun




Criminal investigation

One year after the crash 21.12.1989 Scottish detectives had visited 13 countries, collected more than 35000 photographs, compiled 12700 name cards and taken more than 15000 statements.

Scottish police stood for the immediate criminal investigation with the help of the American FBI, German Police, Maltese Police and others. Scottish police spent months searching 845 square miles of fields, forests, lakes and towns for pieces of the aircraft and its cargo.
103 days after the crash: any clues ?
Lockerbie Police Sergeant Ian McDowall remembers

The Scottish criminal investigation was headed by Chief Inspector Watson McAteer from Scottish Police. Superintendent JOHN ORR from Strathclyde Police was the senior investigating Officer for the first 8 months or so of the enquiry.He then went on to become the Deputy Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Police and is now the Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police

The head of the American FBI-team was Lawrence G. Whittaker. The American Justice Department used Robert Muller as head for their investigation into Lockerbie. The American CIA mingled into the investigations because CIA-people had been travelling with Pan Am 103. The CIA-team was headed by Vincent Cannistraro. Pan Am had their lawyers doing investigations, too, among them James M.Shaugnessy.

There was another investigations brach, with less legal accuracy and less technical approach: the mass media. The crash of Pan Am 103 was and is still a good story for the mass media. In the aftermath of the Lockerbie Incident, the mass media almost every day had a new suspect to blame. Few countries in the Middle East escaped this media circus. The accusations of the mass mediaare what people remember best. The hard evidence and facts play only a little role.

Most evidence in the case is not available for the public....and don't put up your hopes on the upcoming Lockerbie bombing trial in the Netherlands! This page will discuss some of the criminal investigation, the evidence and the many theories of the perhaps worst criminal act in aviation history ever.



Surprise, surprise!

Right after the crash of Pan Am 103 in 1988, several "islamic" organizations took responsibility, claiming by anonymous phonecalls and messages, that they were the ones behind the attack on Pan Am 103.
The public and the investigators did actually for a long time believe the downing of the plane was an act of revenge for the shooting down of a civil Iranian airplane by the US army a few months before. And as Sherlock Holmes might have said:
the first and the most obvious explenation of a crime is probably also the real and the most possible explenation as well.....

But then came the 14th of November 1991 - the world was struck by surprise as Iran suddenly and with no appearant reason was pushed back and Libya dragged into the spotlight of the investigation. 2 days after the US federal attorney made his public statement that Libya was to blame for the downing of Pan Am 103 and that neither Syria nor Iran had any involvment.....two important American hostages were released from their captivity in Lebanon by shiamuslim resistance fighters!

Evidence and witnesses

Calculating

all the hours and hours of work done in the Lockerbie investigation, and calculating the seriousness of the case, it is shocking to see such scamped and contradicious outcome. Accusations changed from country to country, persons to persons, and then suddenly two Libyan citizens are pulled into the culprit's bar. Did the investigators have a hard time making up their final minds ???

Abdelbasset Megrahi and Lameen "The Egg" Fhima became FBI's most wanted men - and it seems they already are judged by the media circus as the culprits behind the crash of Pan Am 103.
Read the official American indictment from the District Court of Columbia (14/11/1991)
NB! For more information, a copy of the official Scottish petition on the upcoming trial, please go to the Lockerbie bombing trial website.

The two Libyans were named as possible suspects at a joint press conference in the UK and USA at the same time.

Let's take a look at the alleged evidence against the two Libyans:

Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhima



4 million reasons not to leave the home


The two Libyans are wanted by the FBI and the reward to catch them is 4 million US-dollars. The dead-or-alive-posters were printed in several languages, including in arabic to be published in Libya's neighbouring countries.
American tax payers money was used to make copies of the FBI poster and print it on the roof of matchboxes in neighbouring Tunisia 1992-3. The empty matchboxes are today worth a fortune for matchbox collectors all over the world. An American proposal to publish FBI posters of Fhima and Megrahi on milk jugs in Tunisia was abandoned...

"We'll follow them (Megrahi and Fhimah) to the ends of the world to bring them to court," said deputy FBI director Robert Bryant. Hear his statement regarding the two Libyans in a 255K/22 sec. WAV sound- file.



Fhima and Megrahi speaking out


It is a very peculiar experience to be the most wanted men of the century!
Fhima and Megrahi are of course innocent until proven guilty....but more than 6 years of living like 4-million-dollar-fugitives has certainly made their life living hell. In the medias they are already guilty. What has life become for them recently ?
The two Libyans have given several personal TV-interviews, talking about their experience as the worlds 2 most wanted and most hunted men...
TV-interview with Megrahi and Fhima, September 1997
TV-interview with Megrahi and Fhima, October 1998



The electronic timer - vital evidence or technical perjury?

A tiny fragment of an electronic circuit board was found in the contents of the explosion-struck baggage container of Pan Am 103. Experts do believe it to be a piece of a MST-13 timing device used for military engeneering operations. The board was allegedly manufactured by the Swiss firm Meister et Bollier of Zurich, MeBo AG. The firm had sold such timing devices to Libya in 1985.

However, MeBo AG had sold the same timer-devices to other countries at that time, too. In fact it is a good piece of equipment, used by many military services in the world. Edwin Bollier, co-owner of the manufacturing firm told Swiss Police about some of the pre-manufactured timer circuit boards beeing missing from his stock, during a series of break-inns during 1985-87.

After microscope examinations of the fragment - and the official forensic photographs - Mr Bollier insisted that the circuit board evidence had never been "connected electrically". He is understood to be adamant that the fragment was not from a timer supplied to Libya and can no longer be connected to the Pan Am bombing. Mr Bollier was questiond by the Scottish police in September 1999, and he personally got to see, for the first time, the fragment from the circuit board. After careful examination he found these had not even been connected electrically. So, how can it be used as evidence?
Mr Bollier was accompanied by a personal adviser, Anthony Meli, during a visit to police headquarters in Dumfries to examine the fragment. Mr Meli said yesterday: "The actual viewing of the fragment and the many photographs did prove that this forensic piece of evidence was actually not from any timers sold to Libya. "You can now judge for yourself if such facts will be able to put the entire Lockerbie trial in doubt."

What did Ed Bollier actually tell the Scottish police ? Read and view the official witness statements from the Lockerbie police below!

Documents:
All documents are scanned from photocopies and available in jpg-format only as for now. Working on a text based edition for better reading - stay tuned.

Official document from Mebo regarding the Swiss timer reference to Lockerbie/Libya (updated 19/8/99)
Link: MST-13 Mebo Timer Analysis Report

Letter from Scottish Crown office summons Edwin Bollier to Scotland (8/9/99) and Ed Bolliers witness statement from Dumfries Galloway Police (16+17/9/99). Link: Letter >>>

Read more about Meister et Bollier - and you'd be surprised to know.... read >>>

Actually, it is hard to believe the electronic timer device-story. It is most fascinating, how incredible lucky the USA was, finding the tiny piece of plastic, and even the piece that luckily had the timer-registration number printed on it ! And imagine finding it almost 2 years after the crash and not in the weeks after...!

In fact, the USA seems to be so incredibly lucky, that one might ask the question, if it could have been possible, that the fragment of the MST-13 timer could have been planted on the spot by the CIA or anyone else. It is funny they even say it was at the crash scene - because Scottish police hasn't any list of evidence-on-crime-secene with that timer device fragment listed!

And remember: there are no traces of the bomb found! Only an electronic circuit, some blast exposure and less than 0,5 mg chemicals. The bomb itself is not there. In a court the evidence found on place will never be enough to actually proove a bomb has been aboard.... and even more important: there is no concrte evidence linking the electronic board to either ones of the suspects.

The circuit board was allegedly found inside the remains of another electronical device which later was identified as the remains of a Toshiba Cassette Recorder model 8016 - exactly the same brand as found in Frankfurt, when the German police raided terrorist hideouts and found 3 such devices together with timers, explosive chemicals and other tools of evil.

Transcript from radiostation-interview with Francis Boyle about the Maltese connection and the alleged suitcase not being loaded from Malta

MEBO report brings new theories:


19/11/99 In the light of the recent Scottish investigation reports in the media, the chairman of MEBO Ag. has sent following comments:
MEBO criticism regarding the Scottish research results dated November 14,1999, and
MEBO research into the Lockerbie disaster brings new theories and results, dated November 5, 1999

The latter report contains new evidence of the alleged Toshiba Bombeat radio-recorder that was said to contain the bomb on PA 103, as well as thoughts around the identity mismatch of a passenger aboard the plane. And why is the crash of Pan Am 103 still classified with the military security level "National Security" in the US, although being a civil airline crash ???



Thomas Thurman: the crook inside FBI
Where did the tiny circuit board fragment come from ? Someone might say "it came out of the blue", but the first person to "discover" the fragment was FBI's forensic "expert" Thomas James Thurman. Why are we putting around the words expert and discover ?

Already while Thurman was working on another case, along side with the Lockerbie Case, his collegue at the FBI's Scientific Analysis Section (SAS), Frederic Whitehurst, wrote a memo to his chief:
"SSA Tom Thurman, the principle examiner of evidence in this matter, circumvented established procedures and protocols in the assignment of evidence to examiners in the SAS, testified to areas of expertise that he had no qualifications in therefore fabricating evidence in his testimony, in order to prove the guilt of Walter Leroy Moody instead of establishing the true significance and weight of the scientific data. Thurman was fully aware of the fact that he was in violation of procedures and protocols of the FBI laboratory and did knowingly and purposely commit perjury and obstruction of justice in this matter."

...and that was one case, Thurman was working with. More perjury and obstructance of justice followed after the Leroy Moody case. And since the indictment, Thurman has been suspended from the FBI after his laboratory was suspected of falsifying evidence.

Later on Whitehurst testified to these points in a court of law:
"Thurman is simply fabricating evidence as he sits on the stand to make evidence fit."
"Mr. Thurman is not an explosives residue expert. He is not a chemist. His opinion is not an experts opinion but personal conjecture."

"During a recent investigation while conducting tests at Quantico, Virginia, both I and SSA Steven Burmeister had to explain to Thurman in the most elementary terms the significance of the presence of nitrate oxidizers in explosives. Thurman had no idea what an explosive material was composed of or how the different components functioned in the chemical reaction of the explosion. He expressed his belief that the "nitrogen content" of the explosive was the factor which controlled its power."

..... and much more of the same stuff. It quicly became clear that Thomas Thurman had no idea of what he has been working with. Furthermore, Thurman went to Germany to interview Pan Am 103-suspect and bomb-wizard Marwan Khreesat - but he completely forgot to tell Scottish police about that. They never got any report...

If there ever will be a trial against Fhima or Megrahi or any other suspect in the Lockerbie Case - pray that the FBI is not using Thurmans testimony and "evidence"! Thurman today does not work at the FBI as forensic "expert" anymore.

+++

Importantly:
The first Polaroidfoto with the MST-13 timer fragment, which Mr. Meister & Bollier (MEBO Ltd) showed in April 1990, came according to officials of the federal police (BUPO) from the FBI.



The found piece of t-shirt
The alleged circuit board was claimed found wrapped inside a child's t-shirt. Taggings indicated the t-shirt to be of Maltese origin, and supposedly only sold in one single shop in Malta, Marys House, Tower Road in Valetta.

The shop-owner was shown a series of photographs of arab men, mostly involved in terrorism, among these pictures, the two Libyans. His descrotion of the man buying the clothes was "6 foot tall, Arab looking, about 50 years of age and heavy body." Megrahi was at the time of PA 103 less than 6 foot tall, Arab looking, about 34 of age and had a thin, small body....

The shop owner then, according to FBI, identified Megrahi as the man, that had bought the t-shirt.
Later on, he changed his mind, and went to identify a palestinian terrorist arrested in Sweden. He withdrew his identification of Megrahi, but this was not accepted by American investigators.
However, the description given by the shopowner resembled a bomb expert from the PFLP, currently serving a verdict for life in a Swedish prison under maximum security: Mohammed Abu Talb.

NB! Abu Talb - in 1999 he suddenly re-appears into the investigation into the Lockerboe bombing.

And again: in a court of law, the circuit alone is not enough evidence to actually state, that the circuit was responsible for setting of a bomb. There are no traces of a bomb, and the circuit may very well just be a piece of an electronic board, that someone was carrying with him in his luggage. A court needs the indoubtable link between the circuit and an explosive device. And there is none...



The travelling suitcase

By carefully matching 400 bags with their murdered owners, the investigators discovered that there was only one bag unaccounted for among the luggage that was loaded on to Pan Am 103A at Frankfurt for Heathrow, where they were transferred into the jumbo designated as Pan Am 103 for the flight to New York.

The investigators also discovered that the bag in question was put into the Frankfurt baggage system at the same point, and at about the same time, as baggage was coming off Air Malta's incoming flight 180 from Luqa. But, as the defence will no doubt show, this does not conclusively prove that the bag actually came from Malta, since there appears to be no direct computer record of its origin.

Both Libyans were at the time of the crime working as airline officials in the office of Libyan Arab Airlines at Luqa International Airport in Malta. It is the opinion of the prosecution, that only they could have smuggled a bomb through the luggage transferring system. How the bomb then came aboard Pan Am 103 in Frankfurt Airport remains unanswered by the prosecution. How did the suitcase, as claimed by the prosecution, enter Pan Am 103 in Frankfurt, and from where ?

It is claimed, the suitcase came to Frankfurt from Malta with Air Malta flight KM 180. The German company of FAG, operating the highly sophisticated luggage transfer-system, found in its printouts, that a suitcase was logged in at Coding Station 206 at 1:07 p.m. and then routed to gate 44 in terminal B, where it was to be put aboard the Pan Am 103. However the printout does not clearly show, what actually happened to the suitcase, only what was supposed to happen, and not what the suitcase looked like.

Both C.I.Watson McAteer and FBI special agent Lawrence Whittaker later proved, that it was possible for any employee at Frankfurt Airport to subsitute the suitcase, or even put a new suitcase on the luggage transfer-system. And furtheromore, it was proved that two American suitcases were logged into the computer as beeing put aboard Pan Am 103 in Frankfurt, but only one of them was ever found at Lockerbie. The FBI has a report about these two points - and published it in TIME magazine 1992.

>Air Malta denial of transferred suitcase - 1989

So - as they say in court - the guilt of the two Libyans is far from being proved beyond any doubt...in fact their guilt has not been proved at all. Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA-investigation of the crash, told New York Times, that it "was outrageous to pin the whole thing on Libya." Later he changed his mind.



Looting of Pan Am 103: what is missing ?

Aviation disasters can bring out the worst in people. In Lockerbie it seems like the crash of Pan Am 103 brought out only the best in people. Helping hands and comforting words...relatives received the belongings of their dead family almost without anything missing. The Lockerbie washed the clothes and ironed them and packed the belongings of the victims in the battered suitcase for shipment home to the US or elsewhere.

But a few individuals did not have the same sincere kindness and compassion regarding the crash of Pan Am 103. They were caught looting by the Lockerbie Police. (Looting = stealing from the dead). Several Lockerbi'ers and other people having come to the crash site to view the disaster as if it was a TV-programme did steal parts of the plane, including victim's possesions. It is logical to assume that some of them weren't taken in or discovered by the police. How many people have "souvenirs" of Pan Am 103 in their homes today ?

Is looting important to the criminal investigation at all ? Yes, because it shows that parts of the plane could easily be removed without notice, and that could very well mean that "planting" of "evidence" without someone noticing could have happened as well. Could evidence have been removed or put on the spot by someone. Yes...



Motives

Did Libya have a motive to make Pan Am 103 crash and kill all aboard. Well, they might have. We mean, knowing who was aboard that plane heading home to the USA, who wouldn't have ?!?

Many people, movements, governments and secret services would have had a motive to blast Pan Am 103 right into the history of modern aircraft terrorism. But only few have some degree of possibility. Here are just a few - within reasonable power of divination - that could be the ones behind the Lockerbie incident:

Mullah pay-back-time
Summer 1988 the US military stationed in the Arab Gulf, under the command of USS Vincennes, shot down an Iranian civil aircraft, killing more than 200 people on their way to one of Islams most joyful celebrations: the end of the annual pilgrimage.. The captain later was awarded a medal for his action. The American government did not even pay adequate compensation, nor gave any formal excuse as to the happened. Iran swore in public to avenge this act of terrorism.

More about Pan Am 103 and the Iranian Airliner. Evidence of mullah-involvment ? Read what Iranian Resistance reveals...

And why not ? There are many similarities between Pan Am 103 and the Iranian Airbus. For instance, the Iranians were going to perform the pilgrimage in Mekka, Saudi Arabia, the most joyful times of all in the islamic year. The passengers of Pan Am 103 prepared to go home celebrating Christmas, the most joyful time of year in the Christian world...it seems both logical and possible, that the downing of Pan Am 103 was an answer to the downing of the Iranian airbus.

Many other evidence point towards the Iranians. Well, not real evidence, just a lot of roads all beginning and ending in Iran. Charles McKee from the CIA was aboard. He and his team had just finished the latest US government-attempts to conclude a hostage-release-deal, in return delivering vast military equipment to Iran. If the Reagan-gate white-wash hadn't took place in the USA just few months later, nobody would believe such a story.

The Chuck Mc Kee story: controversial TIME MAGAZINE article 1992

Iran 'paid £6.5m for Lockerbie ?

IRAN was possibly behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people died, according to a document released in America under the Freedom of Information Act. The document, a report compiled by a United States Air Force signals intelligence unit during the Gulf War, accuses a former Iranian minister of paying the bombers £6.5 million to carry out the attack.

The former minister, a leading hardliner opposed to the more moderate policies of President Rafsanjani, ordered the bombing in retaliation for the shooting down by the US Navy of an Iranian airliner, it alleged. Both the US-Foreign Office and the US-State Department have always insisted there is no evidence to show any other country or terrorist organisation was involved.

But the document, dated March 4, 1991, and released by the National Security Agency, America's equivalent of GCHQ, alleges that the Iranian paid for the operation. He is "closely connected" to the Palestinian Liberation Front of Abu Abbas, which carried out the hijacking of the Achille Lauro passenger liner, and to the PFLP-GC led by Abu Nidal, the document says."He is actually a long-time friend of Abu Nidal," it says. "He recently paid $10 million (£6.5 million) in cash and gold to these two organisations to carry out terrorist activities and was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am 103 in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus."

The document was obtained through the US Department of the Air Force by the makers of a controversial film about the Lockerbie bomb attack, The Maltese Double-Cross. But the report didn't change the mind of USA...



The Lester Coleman affair

A few months into the criminal investigation another BOMB went off: the Lester Coleman-story. Coleman was a former DEA-agent, who claimed the bomb was smuggled aboard Pan Am 103 camouflaged as a drug-luggage, cleared to enter the USA by the very DEA itself in payment for arms and hostage deals made by the American government and a Syrian armsbroker, Monzar Kassar.

The story of Lester Coleman is quite complicated - and American relatives of victims of Pan Am 103 never believed the man and his tale. His story is a terrible lesson of international criminal law, conspiracy theories and is probably soon ready to be a major motion picture! If his story is true, then Libya is definitly innocent - after all!



The Iranians and their Syrian arms-broker Monzer al-Kassar have often been related to the Lockerbie Incident, right from the day after the crash.

- Read some off the speculations regarding the Iranian involvment in the crash of Pan Am 103:
- Why USA protects Iran and Syria
- The theories of a former DEA-agent
- Australian MP defends Libya: Hands off!

Was the bombing of Pan Am 103 indeed a "Contract Deal"?
Only a country can pay to blow up another countries airplane. But countries mostly don't do such an act themselves. They need a bomb-for-hire. There are always people in this world more than ready to carry out such bad deeds, including even American citizens. The only hindrance is the prize of such a contract. If a country would spare some millions on next year's budget, the road to airline-terror is open for everybody who wants to take on the task.

As mentioned before, major Charles McKee and his team could be targets for a bomb-contract. Other people on the aircraft are competent targets. Pan Am 103 didn't exactly carry Gods Own Children ! A far out theory is, that someone planned to whack Pan Am Company out of Wall Street. The company went bankrupt because of the crash. Pan Am 103 was used to smuggle drugs. One suitcase found on the ground of Lockerbie consisted of 500.000 USD in cash. Hardly from a lottery-prize or charity-fund....The suitcase was property of the CIA. So many mysteries and thoughts...is the truth hiding somewhere among them ?
The Long Arm of the Stateless People The worlds most well known guys to use airline-terror as means of living are the Palestinians, some of them that is. Other states have their share of airline-terror, too, but for some reasons Palestine is on top of the user list. Well, sometimes you cannot really blame them for doing it....
Right from the beginning of the case, the General Command of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP-GC) has been suspect number one. There is also some evidence, pointing its finger against PFLP-GC. If they truely did it, we can't blame them...but let's take a look at the evidence:
The Leader of PFLP-GC is Ahmed Jibril. You might not know this, but throughout the Middle East Ahmed Jibril is known as MR.BOMB. This is no joke of ours ! No other man can build an explosive device, like Jibril. His fingers never shake. He smokes, but never coughes. He knows explosive formulars, like others know pop-melodies. He can make a bomb in any shape, hide it in any place, make it go off with precise timing. And what is most important: he is a formidable and generous teacher. He still gives regular engeneering courses in the Syrian Army.

When someone at a regular level builds a bomb, it's just like a fingerprint.
Alas, the full explosive device was never recovered at Lockerbie, just a tiny shrapnel of a timer decice circuit board. But when German police raided the PFLP-GC's hideouts in Dusseldorf and Frankfurt few days before the Lockerbie-crash, they found PFLP-GC-member, faithful student of Jibril and bomb-wizard Marwan Khreesat. They also found explosive material, semtex...and 3 Toshiba Cassette Recorder's, similar to the one in the crashed cargo remains of Pan Am 103.

What motives had the PFLP-GC to blow up Pan Am 103 ?
We should rather ask: what motive didn't they have ? An opportunity to pay back Amerika, the biggest bully and protector of the Zionist State in the Midle East. A long-needed cash surplus from Iran, Syria or any other country to make the party go on. A direct order, or rather an offer, they neither could nor would refuse. Whatever the reasons may be. The role of the PFLP-GC is still not crystal clear in this case. But should they be guilty, it is a poor victory to the USA or UK. Because since Palestine, alas, still not is a sovereign state and member of the UN, they cannot use any sanctions to punish the Palestinians. What a relief !



Other criminal/political theories regarding the crash of Pan Am 103

In 1995 Palestinian Yussef Shaaban claimed he did it
The True Aims of the Lockerbie and UTA-cases
Some even blame the USA itself!
Lies of Our Times by Noam Chomsky
The American Mystery Man..
Justice is in the eye of the beholder
Former Pan Am 103 pilot blames Mossad and jewish conspiraty for the crash
Lockerbie conspiracies from A to Z
Based on a 1995 Guardian investigation by Paul Foot and John Ashton

NEW:Conspiracy Heaven: Cliff Kincaid´s Pan Am 103 report, April 2000 (pdf-format)
American journalist convinced Clinton and Gadhafi hide a secret deal on Pan Am 103



When an airplane crashes - it is bad. When it crashes due to terrorist actions - it is even more bad.
But the worst part of all airplane disasters is the fate of the victims. 270 people were killed in the crash of Pan Am 103. Let's take a look at the human tragedy that happened the darkest of all days in the tiny town of Lockerbie in 1988.




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