You said — “Why lie about a murder unless you’re involved? Consciousness of guilt is reliable legal evidence.”
Well, I’ve repeated several false reports about Bhutto’s assassination, simply because I was relating what was reported by other witnesses. Now, I suppose someone could accuse me of lying and acting guilty because I was not relaying the truth — except for the fact that it was reported one way and then another way and then another way — with apparently a bunch of different witnesses saying different things.
What I’ve found out with all these big breaking stories and big events that are being reported “live” and when they are actually “developing” too — is that many of the initial reports are invariably wrong. But, you go with them, anyway and remain cautious as to believing them 100%. And eventually you find out that some of the initial reports are found to be unreliable and you discard them. Now, that doesn’t mean that one was lying when they repeated those false and unreliable stories, but simply that this was all they had at first.
How those witnesses, themselves, came up with these false accounts may be quite another matter — as they (individually) may have had some reasons for relaying false information, or they may have simply been mistaken or seen things wrong. I know a lot of people that I wouldn’t rely on their testimony without questioning them thoroughly first, because they would mix in some conclusions that they had made, along with what they think they had seen. And their conclusions would be wrong.
But, for the people who heard some of these eyewitness testimonies (and also government officials who are trying to sort out the conflicting accounts) — one doesn’t know who is lying, who is mistaken and who is simply incapable or giving an accurate account (and there are people like that).
Eventually, and by further information coming forth, one is able to discard certain things and hold to others. It’s the same thing with the government, if they speak too soon or rely too heavily on one account over another account. They risk being wrong — just as wrong as all those readers (of the news accounts) who believed contradictory stories that we heard, too.
And so, would I be “conscious of guilt” if I heard a wrong account, or listened to the “direct testimony” of someone who said they “saw Bhutto hit her head” (or something like that)? No, I wouldn’t have any consciousness of guilt from that. And neither would government investigators, in sorting out the conflicting accounts. They would simply be trying to find the right one to account for what happened.
It’s actually more wise for the government to sit on things for a while and take their time in sorting it out, rather than make statements too quickly, because more times than not, those quick statements come back as wrong and then it gives people who are inclined to be “conspiracy minded” to make false claims that a conspiracy is in the works.
But, instead of waiting and making “solid pronouncements” later, most of the time governments and people rush to make pronouncements before knowing all the facts. We all do it and correct things as we go along. That’s what is happening here...
Regards,
Star Traveler
Well innocent mistakes do happen, but it’s extremely difficult to believe that the government official who held the press conference and said categorically that Bhutto died from hitting her head on the sunroof lever, didn’t know that she had actually been shot. Perhaps he should now hold another press conference to explain where the misinformation he provided came from. That would be acting innocent.