Ed's Blog City

The Lockerbie Divide

2010-02-15T10:59:00.005Z

May I direct everyone to a new blog created by Caustic Logic entitled "The Lockerbie Divide". This exceptional site is meticulous in it's examination of the Lockerbie trial conducted at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, the evidence that was presented and the subsequent conviction of Libyan Al-Megrahi.

Those with little or no knowledge of the investigation and trial can take those first tentative steps into the the quagmire of whole Lockerbie case, while those with a more intimate knowledge, are presented and indeed invited, to dig deeper into the investigation and examine the conclusions that followed.

The Lockerbie Divide and it's author Caustic Logic provide an opprtunity to address the gulf which exists between many observers, and sadly also between many of the families of those who were so brutally murdered on Pan Am 103, and their opinions on Megrahi and how the court reached it's verdict at Camp Zeist.

The Maltese Double Cross (1994) - Lockerbie

2009-10-14T15:29:00.008+01:00

The Maltese Double Cross was written, directed and produced by the late Allan Francovich.

Faced with threats of legal action, it has been given scant exposure in the UK and the US. It was shown on Channel 4 in the UK in 1995 and was followed by a discussion on the issues the film raised. This was chaired by Sheena McDonald and included Allan Francovich, Jim Swire, Sir Teddy Taylor, Jim Duggan, David Leppard and Oliver 'Buck' Revel. Sadly, the discussion subsequent to the film is not included below.

This is however the best version of the 1994 film available.

Call for UN Enquiry into Lockerbie Disaster.

2009-09-14T15:13:00.005+01:00

“Justice must prevail beyond all other considerations. Beyond politics, convictions, religion, even compassion (and certainly expedience), regardless of one's sympathies, JUSTICE must be the banner that unites us. This is more than pity for a dying man, this is a demand for justice.” (Danton de Vouvray)

Leading figures from politics, law, journalism and relatives of those who died over Lockerbie have today issued an open letter to the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations calling for an extensive and thorough public enquiry into all aspects of the Lockerbie disaster.

The published letter:

In light of the abandonment of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s second appeal against conviction for the bombing of Pan American flight 103 over Lockerbie with the loss of 270 people, both passengers and citizens of Lockerbie, on the twenty-first of December nineteen eighty-eight, we, the undersigned, hereby formally submit that the General Assembly of the United Nations Organisation institute a full public inquiry, under the provisions of Article 22 of its Charter, into:

• the investigation of the destruction of the aircraft,

• the Fatal Accident Inquiry into the event conducted in 1991,

• the subsequent trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa at Camp van Zeist

• both of Mr al-Megrahi’s appeals and the circumstances surrounding the dropping of his second appeal.

We believe that a United Nations public inquiry into the above should call witnesses who have been both directly and indirectly involved to give testimony and account for their actions, decisions and opinions relating to these events.

Amongst others, such an inquiry ought ideally to draw on individuals from:

• Dumfries and Galloway Police and other UK police forces involved in the investigation,

• the security services and other governmental agencies of nations involved either at first hand or tangentially in the investigation,

• members of the legislatures of nations involved either at first hand or tangentially in the investigation,

• the Scottish Judiciary,

• the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission,

• legal counsel involved in the Zeist trial and subsequent appeals, to the extent permitted by legal professional privilege,

• witnesses from the original Zeist trial list, both those who testified and those who were on the list but not called to testify,

• forensic scientists involved in the investigation (particularly from the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment, UK),

• and informed experts whose independent research has led them to develop alternative theories concerning the destruction of the aircraft.

Whilst we are aware that, under the terms of Article 22 of the Charter, a United Nations General Assembly inquiry does not possess within its gift the power to subpoena witnesses to testify, we nevertheless feel that such an initiative could make a valuable and highly significant contribution towards removing many of the deep misgivings which persist in lingering over this tragedy.

Now that Mr al-Megrahi has dropped his second appeal and been repatriated to Libya to spend what time is left to him with his family, one of the last best hopes that existed to establish the facts of this disputed and sorry event once and for all has evaporated.

Whether or not he is guilty, the alleged abuse of Maltese sovereignty by foreign investigators employing illegal wire-taps, the question mark over the reputation of Luqa airport, the break-in to Heathrow airside shortly prior to Pan Am 103’s fateful departure, in addition to allegations of:

• tampering with material evidence,

• financial and other inducements in order to secure desired testimony,

• harassment of potential witnesses to dissuade them from coming forward at the Zeist trial,

• the with-holding of evidence from the defence counsel at Zeist,

• political obfuscation and serious economies with the truth have dogged this affair from the very outset and cast considerable doubt over the safety of the Zeist verdict.

We now appeal to the General Assembly of the United Nations, which we consider to be an eminently suitable platform under the circumstances given the international nature of events, to take the appropriate steps to set the record straight.

Although we are also fully cognisant that further investigation of this tragic occurrence over twenty years ago will yet again bring pain to the victims’ families and friends, we are confident that they too will wish to see matters concluded beyond reasonable doubt.

We do this in the hope of restoring the stature of justice following what has been described as being: ‘a spectacular miscarriage of justice’ (Professor Hans Köchler, International Observer appointed by the United Nations for the trail at Camp van Zeist).

Our faith in justice ultimately prevailing now lies in the hands of the United Nations.

Signed:

Mr John Ashton(Co-author of Cover-up of Convenience: The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie).

Mrs Jean Berkley(Co-ordinator UK Families Flight 103 and mother of Alistair Berkley: PA103 victim).

Professor Robert Black QC(Commonly referred to as the Architect of the Camp van Zeist Trial).

Professor Noam Chomsky(Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Mr Tam Dalyell (Member of Parliament: 1962 – 2005, Father of the House: 2001 – 2005).

Mr Ian Ferguson(Co-author of Cover-up of Convenience: The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie).Mr

Robert Forrester(Justice for Megrahi Campaign committee member).

Mr Ian Hislop(Editor of Private Eye: one of the UK’s most highly regarded journals of political comment).

Father Pat Keegans(Lockerbie Parish Priest at the time of the bombing of Pan Am 103).

Mr Iain McKie(Retired Police Superintendent and justice campaigner).

Heather Mills(Reporter for Private Eye specialising in matters relating to Pan Am flight 103).

Denis Phipps(Aviation security expert).

Mr Steven Raeburn(Editor of The Firm, one of Scotland’s foremost legal journals).

Doctor Jim Swire(Justice campaigner. Dr Swire’s daughter, Flora, was killed in the Pan Am 103 incident).

Mr Abdullah Swissy(Former President of the Libyan Students’ Union in Scotland and Libyan Student Affairs of the Libyan Students’ Union, UK Branch).

Sir Teddy Taylor(Former Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and Member of Parliament from 1964 to 2005).

Mr Bob Watts(Businessman and Justice for Megrahi committee member).

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2009/09/open-letter-to-president-of-general.html

http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1706/Firm_joins_Chomsky%2C_Dalyell_and_others_to_petition_UN_General_Assembly_to_open_Pan_Am_103_inquiry.html

Lockerbie letter to all 129 MSP's

2009-08-26T16:54:00.003+01:00

A letter, sent to all 129 MSP's from solicitor Anthony Robson, has been published on the website of The Firm Magazine.

Dear all

This email is being sent to every MSP simply to express my disquiet at the reaction amongst many of you to the decision to release Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

What troubles me most is the censure of Kenny MacAskill. I am not an SNP supporter, but the vitriol poured Mr MacAskill's way seems somewhat misdirected. The simple fact of the matter is that the focus seems to have been placed on the release itself, of a man which we hear referred to often as 'a man CONVICTED of a terrible crime', rather than a man who IS guilty.

I'm well aware that a small number of you may know the real truth and are clearly therefore quite happy to lie to the general public.

But the questions being asked seem couched in nothing other than self- interest, appeasement of political alignment, and a strange feeling that you're trying to keep the Americans happy. What you're not asking (and this is directed towards Mr MacAskill as well who avoided the issue entirely) is this, "Was al-Megrahi actually guilty?" How many of you have read the report from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission? I would recommend you also acquaint yourself with writing on the matter by Dr Jim Swire (whose daughter died on the Pan Am flight).

I'm sure each and every one of you went into politics thinking you could help people and make a difference (at least, I certainly hope you did). When the Scottish parliament came into being we were promised a new sort of politics, but I hate to have to tell you, all too often Holyrood descends into mini-Westminster. The unthinking way in which many of you have responded to the release of Mr al-Megrahi; the willingness to condemn an act of compassion, something sadly lacking in our world today; the political interference in what is, after all, a legal situation (separation of the judiciary and legislature anyone?); the rote repetition of words coming from across the water and from the head of the FBI (now if ever there was someone who would know the actual truth).

Not one of you appears to have asked the question. And if the television pictures or newspaper columnists didn't pick you up asking the question then you have not been asking loudly enough and I would urge you not just to ask, but to shout. Regain some integrity, show us that you are actually endowed with the intelligence that we like to think those in power actually have. As Joe Public we have little chance to get the message across, or ask the questions in ways in which they might be answered, or cause the truth to leak out. YOU DO.

So stop being a simpering coward (for, I am afraid, this IS simple cowardice). Forget about the safety of your seat or the disapproval of your peers, and remember why you got involved in politics in the first place.

I implore you to search your conscience, and to apply some rational thought, read the information which is out there, and instead of indulging in childish playground name-calling breathe some fresh air into the Scottish political scene and be HONEST, to us and to yourselves.

I have no idea if any of you will read this far, or if you will be happy for your staff filtering this out for you. If you have read this far then I can credit you with independent thought. Back that up now by looking at the facts, the evidence which was placed before the court which should not have been (having already been wholly discredited), the evidence that was NOT placed before the court that was made available but ignored, and wake up to the fact that covering up is simply papering over the cracks.

It does no credit to Scotland as a country; no credit to the judicial system; and no credit to you as a body. At present the hatred of many of the families MAY be directed at an innocent man (only a thorough, and open, investigation of the facts could show that either way), and I have no pride in being part of a system that effectively colludes to mask the reality from those who are still grieving. Whatever reason you have for either hiding the truth, or ignoring the holes in the case that stare up so clearly, that reason can never be as strong as the reason the relatives of those who died have for wanting, and deserving, the truth.

YOU are stopping that happening. Do something about it instead of grandstanding. Because at the moment you are complicit, and I for one could not look at myself in the mirror if I knew I was capable of raising merry hell about this in the way you can, but appear to be content not to.

STOP asking the wrong questions; STOP clouding the issue by diverting attention to Mr MacAskill; START acting like grown-up, intelligent, querying, adults.

Yours sincerely
Anthony Robson

http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/597/Take_that,_Parliament!_.html

Libyan Takeaway

2009-08-22T11:22:00.005+01:00

This weeks Private Eye magazine, who have long followed the Lockerbie case and Megrahi's conviction, carries a report on this weeks events.

Earlier this year the Eye predicted that the Scottish courts would hear only a small part of the appeal of Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi before it would be abandoned and he would return to Libya to die with his family. Meghari’s release was on the cards for some time.

That was ensured by Jack Straw, the justice minister, sticking up two fingers at parliament’s human rights committee and rushing through the prisoner transfer deal with our new best friend, Muammar Gaddafi.

After all, the deal suited all the main players, cementing relations with Libya as well as halting an appeal that threatened to prove a major embarrassment to both the UK and US governments.

News last week that Megrahi was to be returned on ‘compassionate grounds’, because he was dying of cancer, briefly raised hopes that his appeal could continue in his absence. But that was never going to be allowed to happen, and Megrahi, who had always said he would never return to Libya until his name was cleared, duly dropped his appeal.

The casualty is justice and the truth about the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, which claimed 270 victims. For as readers of the Eye’s special report by Paul Foot in 2001 are well aware, Megrahi’s trial was a travesty.

continued here - http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=in_the_back&

Lockerbie : Abandonment of Appeal Granted

2009-08-18T17:23:00.004+01:00

The only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, today had his application to drop his appeal granted by the Judges at Edinburgh's High Court.

It brings to an end a nineteen year claim of innocence by Megrahi. He is suffering from terminal cancer which his representative, Maggie Scott QC stated in court today, had deteriorated significantly recently and Mr Megrahi "has now reached the terminal stage and my client's condition has recently worsened very considerably." The court however, was astonished to learn that the Lord Advocate, despite being aware of the intention of abandonment since August 12th, is still to advise with regards to the Crowns appeal against sentence. A date was set for 3 weeks time to determine the decision. This is nothing short of scandalous, and in keeping with the whole judicial process and the crowns exploits during the appeal, does not surprise many observers.

After nearly 21 years, time and the truth, have finally ran out on justice for the Lockerbie victims.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/8205528.stm

Lockerbie and The Maltese Double Cross

2009-08-17T22:56:00.002+01:00

Lesley Riddoch recalls the first attempts to show THE MALTESE DOUBLE CROSS. The film, derided by many and wholly rejected by the governments involved, suggests what many feel is a more plausible sequence of events and lays the blame for the Pan Am bombing at the door of the PFLP-GC.

First public showing in the UK, the Glasgow Film Theatre, 17.11.94

In 1994 the London Film Festival dropped its planned screening of the Maltese Double Cross – a documentary blaming Iran not Libya. I wondered why. And as Assistant Editor of the 'Scotsman' (newspaper) at the time, I felt an obligation to DO something. After all, Lockerbie, still fresh in Scottish minds six years after the bombing -- was the biggest ever terrorist atrocity on British soil. And back then, there was still no agreement about who was to blame.

So I suggested to the then Scotsman editor Andrew Jaspan that we should arrange to show it instead – and he agreed. That was just the start of the hard work to make it legally possible!

I sat with a reporter for a full week checking claims made by the controversial American film-maker Allan Frankovich.

Scotsman lawyers needed sight of relevant documents and sworn affidavits from interviewees – including one that was finally faxed through by a witness living in hiding in Sweden. After three small edits, the film was "legalled" and ready but our booked venue in Edinburgh had suddenly discovered a double-booking. The Glasgow Film Theatre stepped in -- though they too received phone calls threatening legal action from men purporting to be lawyers for one of the American Drug Enforcement Agency officials named in the film.

Continued here - http://www.lesleyriddoch.co.uk/2009/08/the-maltese-double-cross.html

Recall of Scottish Parliament Over Lockerbie Rejected

2009-08-17T22:28:00.007+01:00

Today's Guardian newspaper in the UK reports that "opposition politicians round on justice minister Kenny MacAskill as he prepares to decide whether to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi".

Full story here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/17/lockerbie-bomber

It comes as little surprise that this demand for a parliament recall, has been rejected.

Scottish Justice and Reputation Lies in Tatters

2009-08-14T14:58:00.003+01:00

There are winners in this game of judicial manipulation, international power brokering, backroom deals and media management.

It is not the victims of Pan Am 103.

It's not the relatives of those who died, whom have persued the truth with integrity and honesty.

It is not Al-Megrahi who will forever be deemed the 'convicted Lockerbie bomber'.

And it is most certainly not the Scottish justice system, which, after being viewed by the outside world as weak and subservient, is now irreparably plunged into the shadows of corruption, devoid of all morals and functioning solely at the behest of realpolitik.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/almegrahi-pressured-into-abandoning-appeal-1772156.html

The Price Scotland Will Pay For Lockerbie

2009-08-14T12:34:00.003+01:00

If the rumours circulating that the only man convicted of the bombing of Pan Am 103 will eventually drop his appeal in return for his repatriation home under 'compassionate release', Scotland's judicial system will be stained forever. We have been assured by the Scottish Justice Department that Megrahi has not been pressured into making the decision to drop his appeal in exchange for 'compassionate release.' However, the rule of law has long been abandoned in this case.

History will judge the whole investigation, the court case and the resulting inexplicable judgement with disbelief and shame. Those empowered within the judicial and political system, will be for the most part, viewed as party to the most monumentally unjust criminal trials and one of the most disgraceful legal episodes in all of Scotland's history. When truth, justice for all the victims and the fundamental democratic structures in society were suppressed in favour of political expedience.

Over 20 years later, the truth, and hope that the true perpetrators will ever be held responsible, has been vanquished. From this forlorn position we can only hope future generations will ensure the police, political and judicial processes are reformed and strengthened to never again allow external influences, no matter how powerful or manipulative, to deviate the due process of law and social democracy.

A Public Enquiry, which may be the final bastion, and something that many have called for since the tragedy in 1988, would be the first small step to remedy Scotland's deficient political and justice system.

Those responsible, if not accountable, for the improper conduct in the initial investigation and court proceedings would be exposed, while pathing the way for what truths can still be discovered in who was responsible for ordering the bombing of Pan Am 103.

If this is not for the immediate benefit of all in Scotland, as is likely given the wrongdoing it will reveal, then at the very least for the victims and their tolerent families who have undergone the greatest of heartache and frustration throughout this whole debacle.

Non-Disclosure of Evidence.

2009-08-12T10:41:00.006+01:00

The Firm Magazine has recently carried reports indicating that Lothian and Borders Police Criminal Investigation Department are examining claims by MSP Christine Grahame relating to the conduct of Crown Agent Norman McFadyen in the Lockerbie case. Whether this relates to Mr McFadyen's conduct during the first trial at Zeist or specifically to the current long running appeal of the 'convicted' Lockerbie bomber Al-Megrahi, or indeed both, is unclear.

It has been reported by the Herald newspaper in Scotland that during the trial at Zeist one of the leading members of the prosecution team and now Crown Agent, Mr McFadyen, had viewed evidence in the possession of the US government and the CIA, and had signed a non-disclosure agreement on June 1, 2000, thus withholding known evidence from the court or the defence team. This was not the first occasion that the representative to the Crown had been accused of such impropriety.

In 2005, the political commentator and activist Mark Thomas wrote, "On 12 October 2005, a court began hearing the appeals of two Scottish men, Billy Allison and Steven Johnston, who were convicted of the murder of Andrew Forsyth in a frenzied attack in November 1995. During the trial the jury was told that "to bring home a conviction against Steven Johnston, the deceased would require to have died on Friday 3 November".

Forsyth's body was found on 9 November, and in 1996 Johnston was banged up for life for the killing. So was Allison.

However, evidence has come to light that Forsyth did not die on 3 November 1995. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found four witness statements by people who claimed they had seen Forsyth alive days after the date police said he had died. This is crucial. If Forsyth was alive after that date, why did the court convict Johnston of killing him?"

The eyewitnesses who gave statements included a newsagent, who claimed Forsyth came into his shop for a paper on 4 November. Another man saw Forsyth drinking in a bar on 8 November, five days after he is supposed to have died."

Crucially, the police did not disclose these statements to the defence team. Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, the former Lord Advocate, said that "at best this is unacceptable bumbling incompetence, and at its worst . . . it may be criminal".

Equally alarming is that the Scottish Crown Office knew the police had withheld the crucial witness statements back in February 1997.

Having previously claimed that "all statements taken by the police in this case" had been handed to the Procurator Fiscal, Deputy Crown Agent Norman McFadyen wrote on 3 February 1997: "It is now clear that the information which I had previously conveyed to you in my letter . . . was inaccurate and misleading in relation to the retention of the results of the enquiries of the police and the taking of statements."

If the authorities knew of the missing witness statements in 1997 why have these men waited until 2005 to get an appeal? This is not the first time police have withheld or "lost" evidence in criminal trials.

Perhaps the most notorious case was that of John Kamara, wrongly jailed for the murder of a Liverpool bookmaker. Kamara served 19 years in prison before being freed on appeal, when the police found a flabbergasting 201 witness statements proving that he could not have committed the murder. These 201 statements had not been released to the court."

It would seem that together with many of the prosecution teams discredited and contradictory witnesses presented at Zeist and Lord Frasers's comments regarding the previous conduct of the deputy crown agent were taken so seriously that promotion was the reward for such actions. It is little wonder that The Firm magazine now reports that a 'veil of secrecy' has been thrown over the current investigation into the allegation made by Ms Grahame's on the Crown agents conduct in the Lockerbie case.

http://www.markthomasinfo.com/section_writing/default.asp?id=13

http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/1633/Police_%22News_Managers%22_throw_veil_of_secrecy_over_McFadyen_C.I.D._investigation.html

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1730667.0.0.php

The Truth, Trust, Inconsistencies and Contradictions of Lockerbie.

2009-06-22T17:15:00.007+01:00

Since the release of the Dutch TV documentary, "Lockerbie:Revisted", a number of curious unexplained inconsistencies in the accounts given by many of those who led the investigation have remained unchallenged. Officially anyway. The documentary maker Gideon Levy asked a number of important questions, crucial to the investigation and pivotal to the whole case, which were quite clearly not satisfactorily answered. Even more astounding, given the position and power of those in the investigation, some of the answers given by those entrusted to find those guilty of the bombing in 1988 directly conflicted with one another.

Mr Levy's first unexplained question relates to the PFLP-GC cell which was exposed by the German BKA and who's members were arrested in Neuss, Germany in October 1988, two months before the Pan Am bombing. They had been discovered with an array of weapons including a radio cassette manipulated into a bomb designed specifically for targeting aircraft. The key member of this group Marwan Khreesat, seemingly known to be the bomb maker, and part of a group planning on attacking American targets, was inexplicably released without charge and was thought to have left Germany for Jordan. After the bombing over Lockerbie, and it was determined that the bomb had been concealed in a radio cassette player, naturally suspicion focussed on the cell that had been exposed in Germany.

Lord Fraser, the former Lord Advocate entrusted in leading the investigation into the bombing, claims that the Scottish authorities were never given the opportunity to question Khreesat at any point with regard to any connection or knowledge about the Lockerbie bombing. Mr Khresat's involvement with the PFLP group and yet subsequent release can only be explained by deducing he was involved with very powerful individuals with the capability of securing such a release, and we can only conclude that the chance to question him was denied due to Khreesat's complex and unclear association with various intelligence and government agencies.

Richard Marquise, head of the FBI investigative team, states that he does not know why Khreesat was released by the Germans, and it is a matter Mr Levy should take up with the German government to clarify. Mr Marquise considers an explanation may be that Khreesat was working for the Palestinian group, as a bomb maker targeting US trains, bases and aircraft, but was also involved with the Jordanian intelligence services who enabled his release from Germany. Lord Fraser however, suggests that the only plausible explanation was that Khreesat was working for the Palestinian group while also involved with US intelligence therefore facilitating his release from Germany and proving someone who the Scottish authorities could not gain access to interview.

This in itself seems a disturbing chain of events and assumptions by those investigating the bombing of 103, and even more inexplicable to those who expect honest endeavour when seeking truth and justice from the investigators, especially given the nature of Khreesat's activities in Germany and his apparent history of expertise in bomb making. This cynicism is merely strengthened when Mr Fraser had stated unequivocally that neither he nor the Scottish prosecutors had ever gained access, despite repeated attempts, "they (the PFLP-GC cell) had simply disappeared", to interview Khreesat, while Mr Marquise seems quite indifferent to the fact that the German authorities had simply released a man of extremely dubious background clearly engaged in activities to cause serious harm to American citizens and institutions.

Mr Marquise does however state that to his knowledge Scottish prosecutors did in fact interview Khreesat, as did the FBI in 1989, clearly contradicting Lord Fraser's position, and that Scottish investigators were happy to accept Khreesat's word during an interview that he knew nothing of the Lockerbie bombing. That a key figure such as Khreesat, the man that according to Mr Marquise was "building the bombs", with the motive, method and capability of attacking US targets, and whether investigators had interviewed him or not, is not conclusively known to either of the two people leading the investigation, is simply incomprehensible.

Mr Levy then enquires about the possibilty of financial payments made to witnesses before, during or subsequent to the trial at Zeist in Holland where Al-Megrahi was found guilty. Inducement had been made to the public by the US authorities to "Give up these terrorists, and we'll give you upto $4 million" by the way of posters with photographs of the two Libyans, and presumably, naturally, by those investigating while interviewing suspects or witnesses. Even if not explicitly offered to those potential witnesses by investigators, the witnesses would be well aware of the financial reward that was available for the successful conviction of the two Libyan's.

Both Lord Fraser and Mr Marquise deny any financial reward, as promised in the posters and adverts issued, was made before or during the trial. However, while Lord Fraser is unaware of any payment subsequent to the trial, Mr Marquise will not comment. The only implication that can be made from this is that the reward offered before the trial and during the investigation was indeed paid to some witnesses after the trial. Any financial reward or inducement to those providing statements would surely render any testimony or information as lacking credibility and does not enhance the supposed search for 'truth' when life changing amounts of money are used as enticement.

So concerned with the implication of rewards to witnesses that Lord Fraser is reluctant to even comment on the suggestion that money was paid to witnesses after the trial without his knowledge.

The focus of the documentary then turns to the most pivotal and crucial piece of evidence found during the investigation and presented at the trial in Zeist. The fragment of microchip discovered 6 months (although the exact period has been disputed) after the disaster, and determined to be the most significant piece of evidence linking the bomb to a Swiss timer manufacturer who had links to Megrahi and Libya.

This particular piece of evidence, the microchip fragment, already somewhat controversial given the unexplained altering of the labels on evidence bags containing the 'charred' fragments, was examined and concluded had originated with the Swiss company called 'Mebo'. They had supplied these timers, it was claimed, to Libya, and Megrahi with his connections and dealings with Mebo, had used this timer in constructing the bomb which he then placed on a flight in Malta, later finding it's way onto the Pan Am flight from Heathrow.

Now it seems, neither Lord Fraser or Mr Marquise can conclusively explain who exactly made this identification of the timer fragment, and where this identification was made. In the UK or in Washington? By Mr Thurman or Mr Feraday? The fragment itself, or as part of the larger circuit board from where the fragment came? By photograph or the actual fragment?

Mr Marquise is certain that this evidence was transported from the UK to the US, and taken to the FBI labs in Washington, by a member of RARDE, thought to be Alan Feraday were the identification was made. The photograph of the tiny piece of fragment of the microchip (evidence PT35b) on a persons finger is claimed to be that of Thomas Thurman of the FBI, who was also the scientist who uncovered the microchips origin and connection to the circuit board made by Mebo. He claims in Mr Levy's film that the microchip was "brought over by UK authorities" to the United States were identification was made, and was conclusively re-identified in the UK by RARDE (Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment).

However, once again there are contradictions in the accounts given. Lord Fraser is adamant that no evidence recovered from the Pan Am debris has ever left his authority or the UK mainland. This would have compromised the whole investigation and could have resulted in accusations of manipulation and, or, contamination of any evidence purity. Detective Chief Supt Mr Stuart Henderson, head of the UK police investigation, also states that the evidence relating to Pan Am 103, any evidence, but specifically the fragment of microchip, never left the UK mainland, but in actual fact the US investigators and the FBI had travelled to the UK to identify the fragment at RARDE with Mr Feraday.

When the public are asked to trust the integrity of those we commend with providing the truth and justice our democratic society demands, expectations can be, on occasion, somewhat unrealistic. Especially when dealing with highly complex issues of international politics, international crimes of nation states and multi-national business corporations. The public however, do expect a genuine and honest search for these truths, and those we charge with this responsibility to fulfil those simplest and most honourable tasks to have carried out their duty, with conscience and integrity.

Those who died over Lockerbie, and the families of the victims deserve at least this. With the pain of a lost loved one however, the relatives of those who died have also had to endure the persistent inaccuracies, the constant contradictions, and the inexplicable decisions taken with respect to those who carried out the atrocity and how their government failed in their loved ones protection. Not by those who wish to seek conspiracies were there are none, and not by those who have ulterior motives for continuing to ask questions. But by the very investigators, police, professionals, experts, lawyers and those in power entrusted with upholding their faith in human kind and seeking justice in the supposed democratic nation we live in today. For those fundamental expectations and hopes are diminished with every conflicting statement, every unexplained area of the investigation, and every inscrutable and unaccountable decision taken by those with power in relation to finding the true perpetrators who organised and carried out the crime over Lockerbie in 1988.

The Sunday Times newspaper of London, reports that Lord Fraser has no knowledge of evidence leaving the custody of UK police:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6544162.ece

Dutch Documentary:
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/41867169/media/41892895/?bw=bb&player=wmp&media=41892895&refernr=&hostname=www&portalid=programmasites&x=30&y=9

Lockerbie : First stage of Appeal Ends.

2009-05-20T09:25:00.005+01:00

According to reports on BBC radio yesterday, and now reported briefly in the Scotsman newspaper, the first stage of the appeal by convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Megrahi has been concluded by his legal team.

The Judges will now consider the submissions presented and decide whether further grounds of the appeal should be deliberated. It is thought that should the judges deem the appeal should proceed, the second stage of the appeal will concentrate on the original trials witness statements and identification by Tony Gauci.

Lord Hamilton, the Lord Justice-General, said ""We appreciate that having regard to, among other things, the appellant's state of health, there will be concern we deal with these matters as expeditiously as possible. But having regard to their importance to all concerned, we cannot and must not rush to judgment."

http://news.scotsman.com/world/Lockerbie-bomber39s-legal-team-puts.5282729.jp

Lockerbie Appeal Update

2009-05-13T17:03:00.006+01:00

Dr Ludwig De Braeckeleer of OhmyNews International website sheds light on the first stage of the 2nd appeal of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi.

Once again, he exposes the fundamental flaws in the testimony given, and the Judges at Zeist's vindication of crucial prosecution witnesses, Paul and Tony Gauci. Owners of the Maltese clothes shop where it was said the items of clothing used to conceal the bomb were purchased, their statements on what was bought, by whom and on what date, was essential in the conviction of Megrahi.

It is thought the defence team will also look to introduce a new witness, known about by the police and crown since 1989, who's statement is unequivocal that the date of purchase is not that as stated by Gauci, and agreed by the Judges in 2001. This new witness would not however be presented by defence lawyers until later in the appeal process.

Dr Braeckeleer also examines the other significant piece of evidence produced at the original trial: the MST13 timer, and the charred fragment discovered linking the bomb to Libya and Megrahi.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=437023&no=385213&rel_no=1

Article below:

In the first session of the appeal, which began April 28 and will run until May 22, the defense team is determined to thoroughly discredit the testimony of the main trial witness, Tony Gauci. Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper, is said to have identified Abdelbaset Megrahi as the Libyan man who bought, on Dec. 7, 1988, the clothes inside which the bomb that exploded on Pan Am 103 was hidden.

On the basis of old evidence, new evidence and evidence not heard at the trial because it had not been passed to the defense at the time, Maggie Scott, QC, will, in all likelihood, easily convince the five appeal judges that Megrahi is not the man who bought the clothes and that the purchase occurred on Nov. 23, 1988, when there is no evidence suggesting that Megrahi was on the island and when he has an alibi.

A Dubious Identification

On Nov. 18, 1991, the US Dept. of State issued a "fact sheet" regarding the indictment of Libyan citizens Megrahi and Fimah for their alleged role in the bombing of Pan Am 103 on Dec. 21, 1988.

The sheet reads: In February 1991, Megrahi was described "resembling the Libyan who purchased the clothing items... most likely on Dec. 7, 1988."

On Feb. 15, 1991, Gauci was shown some photographs and failed to identify Megrahi. When asked to concentrate on his picture - a leading procedure to say the least -- Gauci correctly pointed out that the man on the picture was in his 30s while maintaining that the man who had bought the clothing items was very much older.

Previously, on Sept. 13, 1989, during a photofit session, Gauci stated that the buyer was about 50 years old. Born on April 1, 1952, Megrahi was 36 in late 1988. The next day, Gauci again told Detective Chief Inspector Bell that Megrahi was too young to be the man who bought the clothing.

"If the man in the photograph was older by about 20 years, he would look like the man who bought the clothing," Gauci told DCI Bell.In his first interview held on Sept. 1, 1989, Gauci told DCI Bell that the mysterious buyer was 6 feet tall or more. Megrahi is 5 feet 8, a significant discrepancy considering that it comes from a man who sells clothes for a living.

The trial judges were well aware of this striking discrepancy but they failed to provide any explanation as to how it was resolved.A Fraudulent Line-UpDuring an identity parade held at Camp Zeist in 1999, Gauci pointed out that Megrahi resembles the man who bought the clothing items.

In the line up, Megrahi was the only Libyan and was surrounded by people in their 30s and 5 feet 3 tall, i.e. people who at the time of the event would have been about 30 years younger and at least 9 inches shorter than the person originally and repeatedly described by Gauci.

Wrong Date

Regarding the day of the purchase, Tony Gauci remembered that his brother Paul had gone home earlier to watch an evening football game (Rome vs. Dresden), that the man came just before closing time, around 7 p.m., and that there was some very light raining. (The man returned to the shop to buy an umbrella.)

The game allows for only two dates: Nov. 23 or Dec. 7, 1988.The game Rome-Dresden on Dec. 7 was played at 1 p.m., not in the evening. As a result, Paul Gauci thought that the purchases had occurred on Nov. 23, 1988.

And there is more. It did not rain on Sliema on Dec. 7, 1988. Mark Vella, the managing director of METEO-MALTA, told the author that their records - including satellite pictures -- unambiguously indicate that it did not rain on Sliema on Dec. 7. On the other hand, Vella could confirm that it was dripping during the evening of Nov. 23, 1988. (NB. Official copies of their records are available.) When asked to try to assess the most likely day of the purchase by DCI Bell, Tony Gauci stated: "I've been asked to again try and pinpoint the day and date that I sold the man the clothing. I can only say it was a weekday.

There were no Christmas decorations up, as I have already said, and I believe it was at the end of November." During a three years long investigation, the SCCRC has established that the Christmas lights are put up in Sliema on Dec. 6, ruling out Dec. 7 as the date of the purchase.

New Witness

The defense has identified a person, not heard at the trial, who witnessed the purchase of the clothing items. Although he has not been named by the defense, I understand that the witness is David Wright, a longtime friend of the Gauci family.Wright told the police in September and December 1989 that the purchase occurred Nov. 23 and that the buyer was not Megrahi.

His interview was not passed to the defense team at the time of the trial. During the first session of the appeal, which, there will be no new witnesses. "Any new witnesses, if the Appeal Court allows them to be heard -- and the rules about fresh evidence in appeals are very restrictive -- will only feature in later sessions," writes Pr. Black.

Last Pajamas

In a phone interview conducted on Jan. 25, 2008, Tony Gauci stated that the three pairs of pajamas he sold to the mysterious buyer were the last from the 16 delivered from the John Mallia Company on Oct. 31, 1988. On the following day, Tony Gauci called the Mallia Company to order an additional 8 pairs which were delivered 24 hours later.

In Malta, Dec. 8 is a public holiday as the mostly Catholic country celebrates Immaculate Conception Day. As a matter of fact, John Mallia Co. was closed on Dec. 8, again ruling out Dec. 7 as the day of the purchase.

Missing Statements

According to a well informed source, the defense will establish that contradictory statements made by Gauci were not passed to the defense team at the Zeist trial.

Payments

The defense will also establish that the Gauci brothers were paid a large amount of money in exchange for helping the conviction of Megrahi and that the defense had not been informed regarding the payments themselves or the promise of rewards.

The Slalom Shirts

Although it has not yet been announced, I understand that the defense will also question the origin of the Slalom shirts alleged to have been sold by Tony Gauci to the mysterious buyer. This issue is of paramount importance as forensic experts claimed to have discovered in the collar of one of these shirts the fragment of an electronic timer which provided the key link between the bombing and Libya. (NB. This writer has never quite understood how the size of the breast pocket did not match the size of the collar of the shirt recovered at Lockerbie, but that is another story.)

During his first interview with DCI Bell, Tony Gauci made a list of the items he had sold to the mysterious buyer. The list matched exactly the items that forensic experts at RARDE believed to have been in direct contact with the bomb, except for a black umbrella that they eventually "identify".

On that day - Sept. 1, 1989 -- Gauci made no mention of the Slalom shirts.On Jan. 30, 1990, Gauci was shown a SLALOM shirt and was asked if he had sold one to the mysterious buyer. "That man did not buy any shirt, I am sure," Gauci stated to the investigators. Then, on Sept. 10, 1990, Gauci suddenly recalled selling two Slalom shirts. It is not just odd, but contradicts a statement Gauci made on his first interview and repeated at the trial.

During his first interview, Gauci told DCI Bell that he remembered that the bill amounted to 76.5 Maltese pounds (LM). Gauci even clearly remembered that the man paid him with eight 10 LM bills, and that he returned 4 LM as he was not able to give a half pound in change.Quite logically, DCI Bell then asked him to check the price of all the items he had just mentioned. And, lo and behold, the sum added to 76.5 LM... without any Slalom shirt. Had Gauci sold two shirts to the mysterious buyer, the bill would have been 84.5 LM.

Obviously, if the SLALOM shirt is a fabrication, so must be the items discovered inside it, including the infamous fragment of the MST-13 timer.According to Richard Marquise who led the US investigation, without this key piece of evidence, there would have been no indictment. Let us now take a good look at this crucial piece of evidence.

The Third MST13 Prototype

In the summer of 1985, Ulrich Lumpert designed a timer at the request of his employers Bollier and Meister, founders and directors of Mebo, a Swiss electronic company located in Zurich.Lumpert built manually 3 prototypes on a brown, 8-ply board. Two were delivered to a front company of the STASI and the third one was allegedly destroyed.In 1988, at the request of Libyan Intelligence officials, MEBO delivered 20 MST13 timers. The electronic boards of these 20 timers were identical, machine-made on a green 9-ply board. (See LDB001) Although hey bear obvious resemblance with the three initial prototypes, they can easily be distinguished from them.In January 1989, the Lockerbie investigators found part of the collar of a SLALOM shirt, identical to one of the two shirts allegedly bought by Megrahi in Malta on Dec. 7, 1988. See LDB002. (NB. The discovery, made on Jan. 13, was not recorded until Jan. 17.)

The Discovery of PT35(b)

Initially, the evidence bag containing the collar of the SLALOM shirt was labeled "CLOTH" by Thomas Gilchrist. At a time unknown, the label was overwritten with the word "DEBRIS". The proper procedure would have been to cross the initial label and write the new one under it. Instead, DEBRIS was written over CLOTH in a way that makes the old label unnoticeable, unless the label is magnified.

The "DEBRIS" was then "discovered" on May 12, 1989 by Dr. Hayes and labeled PT35(b). The discovery is documented on a second page 51, a loose page stapled to his notebook. Items entered several months later have been given a lower evidence number. All pages from 51 to 55 were renumbered. When asked about these anomalies, Dr. Hayes simply answered that it was an "unfathomable mystery".

The Identification of MST13

On June 15, 1990, while studying a picture of PT35(b), FBI Thomas Thurman was able - thanks to the CIA - to identify it as part of the MEBO MST13 delivered prior to the Lockerbie bombing to Libyan intelligence. See LDB003

There is a small glitch... It is obvious that the fragment PT35(b) does not come from one of the 20 machine-made MST13 timer delivered to Libya. The location of the T shaped touch pad, its absolute and relative dimensions do not match. Moreover the curvature of the fragment round edge equally differs. Compare LDB003(a) and LDB003(b)!

Nevertheless, the design is very close and must have the same origin. And this brings us back to the Lumpert affidavit...

The Lumpert Affidavit

"I confirm today on July 18, 2007, that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 timer PC-board consisting of eight layers of fiber-glass from MEBO Ltd. and gave it without permission on June 22, 1989, to a person officially investigating in the Lockerbie case," Lumpert wrote. "It did not escape me that the MST-13 fragment shown [at the Lockerbie trial] on the police photograph No. PT/35(b) came from the nonoperational MST-13 prototype PC-board that I had stolen," Lumpert added.

On June 6, 2008, Lumpert told the author that he gave the third timer prototype Swiss Commissioner Peter Fluckiger who requested the device at the demand of a "friendly intelligence agency."

A BUPO [Swiss federal police] note concerning the second interview of Inspector Fluckiger with the MEBO company, Badenerstrasse 414, third floor, 8004 Zurich, on Tuesday Oct. 2 1990 states: "After greeting each other and carrying out a general discussion regarding the crisis in the Gulf and its potential consequences for MEBO business, there was a project to develop a new radio network in Kuwait. We then began to discuss business contacts with Libya with reference to the discussion of the 22nd of June 1989."

Commissioner Peter Fluckiger has admitted that he visited MEBO on June 22, 1989. Fluckiger was indeed alone with Lumpert on June 22 1989. Bollier confirmed to the author that neither himself nor Meister were at the office that day.

It would appear that the Crown was well aware that the June 1989 meeting at MEBO clearly contradicts the official version of the Lockerbie investigation, as the following exchange between Mr. Turnbull and Peter Fluckiger at the trial indicates.

Q: Thank you. Now, these photographs you had with you when you went to visit Mr. Bollier on the 2nd of October of 1990?

A: Yes. This photograph and the one we saw earlier. (NB. The photographs of PT35b and the MST13 board)

Q: Thank you. In your memo, which we looked at a moment ago -- and perhaps we should have it back on the screen, Production 1562, image 4. In your note here you speak, I think, in the first paragraph about a previous meeting; is that so?

A: That is correct. Yes.

Q: What was the date of the previous meeting?A: I don't remember this by heart, but I can read it here. I wrote down 22nd of June 1989. It would have been on that date.

Q: Thank you. Was that previous meeting in connection with MST-13 timers?

MR. BURNS: Don't answer that question.

The question the author wishes to put to Richard Marquise is this: If PT35(b) was identified as a fragment of a MEBO MST13 timer on June 15, 1990 by FBI Thurman, what was Commissioner Fluckiger doing at the MEBO offices on June 22, 1989?

CIA Interference

On Nov. 15, 1990, Scottish Detective William Williamson and his colleagues visited MEBO. Prior to his visit, the CIA requested MI6 to "deter or delay the members of the Lockerbie inquiry team from making the visit." As MI6 was unable to do so, CIA agents met with Swiss Intelligence and police services on Nov. 14, 1990.

Detective Williamson was never told about that meeting, let alone about its nature.Again, the Crown appears to be well aware of the significance of this secret meeting, as the following exchange between Keen and Williamson reveals very clearly.

Q: Now, Mr. Williamson, were you made aware of these steps to deter or delay the members of the Scottish Lockerbie inquiry team from making the visit to Switzerland?　　　

A: Absolutely not, sir.

Q: These were never disclosed to you?　　　

A: I have no knowledge of that information you've just read out whatsoever.

Q: Was it disclosed to you that the day before you met with the Swiss police and intelligence services on the first visit the CIA had already met with them?　　　

MR. TURNBULL: Don't answer that.

PS: Following the initial visit of DCI Harry Bell to Malta in September 1989, RARDE scientists looked for a black umbrella that would show traces of explosive residue. On Oct. 3, 1989, RARDE "scientist" Allen Feraday identified part of a black umbrella (evidence number PK/206) that had been in direct contact with the explosion. EUREKA! But again, there is a small problem. The log book indicates that PK/206 was at RARDE Laboratory only from Jan. 16 to Feb. 8, 1989. How did Allen Feraday conduct on Oct. 3, 1989, an experiment on an item which was not in his possession?

Lockerbie : Megrahi Begins Appeal

2009-04-27T09:34:00.008+01:00

It's nearly two years since the SCCRC gave it's recommendation that the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, be referred to appeal. Tomorrow, in Edinburgh, his second appeal finally begins. In the interim period, Megrahi 57, has been diagnosed with cancer which is believed to be in an advanced stage.

During the prolonged period since the SCCRC's determination that Megrahi may have "suffered a miscarriage of justice" at the original trial, the prosecution team have been successful in their methods to, what can only be termed, obstinate in the releasing of evidence known to them for many years but never revealed to the defence lawyers. The state and crown, represented by the Secretary of State, David Miliband, raised a PII in order to stop disclosure of these documents and evidence.

The Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) signed by the British and Libyan governments in 2007 has also cast an unnecessary cloud over the proceedings with respect to the appeal, while coming so soon after the SCCRC's decision merely added to the uncertainty and cynicism as to the true motives and intentions of the agreement. It is thought the appeal could take as long as a year to complete. How the actual appeal progresses, the speed and the manner with which the Scottish judiciary is seen to support fairness, truth and justice, from both legal teams, will surely determine if any attempt to enact the agreement is made. Clearly, notwithstanding Megrahi's health implications during the appeal.

Today's Guardian newspaper in London reports that the appeal lawyers for Megrahi will initially focus on the evidence provided by Tony Gauci at the original trial in Zeist, Holland in 2001. Despite the Judges admissions during the first trial that there were significant inconsistencies in Mr Gauci's detailing and recollection of the events surrounding a purchaser of clothes (claimed to be Megrahi) from his shop in Malta, his testimony proved a crucial factor in the determination that Megrahi was guilty of the bombing of flight 103.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/27/lockerbie-bombing-appeal-trial-libyan

21st December 2008.

2008-12-21T13:12:00.004Z

We remember.

The Crew:
Captain James Bruce MacQuarrie, 55, from Kensington, New Hampshire, USA
First Officer (co-pilot) Raymond Ronald Wagner, 52, from Pennington, New Jersey, USA
Flight engineer Jerry Don Avritt, 46, from Westminster, California, USA
Mary Geraldine Murphy, 51, Twickenham, UK
Milutin Velimirovich, 35, Hounslow, UK (US citizen)
Elisabeth Nichole Avoyne, 44, Croissy-sur-Seine, France, French
Noelle Lydie Berti, 41, Paris, France, French
Siv Ulla Engstrom, 51, Windsor, UK, Swedish
Stacie Denise Franklin, 20, San Diego, USA
Paul Isaac Garret, 41, Napa, USA
Elke Etha Kuhne, 43, Hannover, BRD, German
Maria Nieves Larracoechea, 39, Madrid, Spain
Lilibeth Tobila Macalolooy, 27, Kelsterbach, BRD, Phillipino
Jocelyn Reina, 26, Isleworth, UK, American
Myra Josephine Royal, 30, Hanwell, UK, Dominican Republic
Irja Syhnove Skabo, 38, Oslo, Norway, Finnish
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Passengers of Flight 103
Ahern, John Michael Gerard, bond broker, 26 years, Rockville Center, New York, American
Aicher, Sarah Margaret, playwright, 29 years, American
Akerstrom, John David, 34 years, Medina, Ohio, American
Alexander, Ronald Ely, businessman, 46 years, New York, New York, Swiss
Ammerman, Thomas Joseph, marketing manager, 36 years, Old Tappan, New Jersey, American
Apfelbaum, Martin Lewis, stamp dealer, 59 years, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, American
Asrelsky, Rachel Marie, student, 21 years, New York, New York, American
Atkinson, William Garretson III, engineer, 33 years, American
Atkinson, Judith Ellen, art historian and consultant, 37 years, American
Bacciochi, Clare Louise, hair stylist, 19 years, Warwickshire, England, British
Bainbridge, Harry Michael, attorney, 34 years, Montrose, New York, American
Barclay, Stuart Murray, businessman, 29 years, Canadian
Bell, Jean Mary, 44 years, Berkshire, England, British
Benello, Julian MacBain, student, 25 years, Brookline, Massachusetts, American
Bennett, Lawrence Ray, pharmaceutical chemist, 41 years, Chelsea, Michigan, American
Bergstrom, Philip Vernon, army sergeant, 22 years, Forest Lake, Minnesota, American
Berkley, Alistair David, professor of law, 29 years, American
Bernstein, Michael Stuart,lawyer, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Special Investigation, 36 years, Bethesda, Maryland, American
Berrell, Steven Russell, student, 2O years, Fargo, North Dakota, American
Bhatia, Surinder Mohan, businessman, 51 years, Los Angeles, California, American
Bissett, Kenneth John, student, 21 years, Hartsdale, New York, American
Boatman-Fuller, Diane Anne, playwright, 37 years, American
Boland, Stephen John, student, 20 years, Nashua, New Hampshire, American
Bouckley, Glen John, sales, 27 years, British
Bouckley, Paula Marie, sales, 29 years, New York, American
Boulanger, Nicole Elise, student, 21 years, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, American
Boyer, Francis, 43 years, Toulosane, France, French
Bright, Nicholas, businessman, 32 years, Brookline, Massachusetts, American
Browner (Bier), Daniel Solomon, 23 years, Parod, Israel, Israeli
Brunner, Colleen Renee, student, 20 years, Hamburg, New York, American
Burman, Timothy Guy, banker, 24 years, London, England, British
Buser, Michael Warren, advertising executive, 34 years, Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, American
Buser, Warren Max, civil engineer, 62 years, Glen Rock, New Jersey, American
Butler, Steven Lee, teacher, 35 years, Denver, Colorado, American
Cadman, William Martin, musician, 32 years, London, England, British
Caffarone, Fabiana, 28 years, London, England, British
Caffarone, Hernan, 28 years, Argentinean
Canady, Valerie, auditor, 25 years, Morgantown, West Virginia, American
Capasso, Gregory, student, 21 years, Brooklyn, New York, American
Cardwell, Timothy Michael, student, 21 years, Cresco, Pennsylvania, American
Carlsson, Bernt Wilson, Swedish UN-diplomat, 50 years, Swedish
Cawley, Richard Anthony, businessman, 43 years, New York, New York, American
Ciulla, Frank, banker, 45 years, Park Ridge, New Jersey, American
Cohen, Theodora Eugenia, student, 20 years, Port Jervis, New York, American
Coker, Eric Michael, student, 20 years, Mendham, New Jersey, American.
Coker,Jason Michael, student, 20 years, Mendham, New Jersey, American
Colasanti, Gary Leonard, student, 20 years, Melrose, Massachusetts, American
Concannon, Bridget, 53 years, Oxfordshire, England, Irish
Concannon, Sean, 16 years, Oxfordshire, England, British
Concannon, Thomas, 51 years, Oxfordshire, England, Irish
Corner, Tracey Jane, 17 years, Sheffield, England, British
Cory, Scott, student, 20 years, Old Lyme Court, Connecticut, American
Coursey, Willis Larry, military, 40 years, San Antonio, Texas, American
Coyle, Patricia Mary, student, 20 years, Wallingford, Connecticut, American
Cummock, John Binning, 38 years, Coral Gables, Florida, American
Curry, Joseph Patrick, army captain, 31 years, bFort Devens, Massachusetts, American
Daniels, William, Allen, research chemist, 40 years, Belle Mead, New Jersey, American
Dater, Gretchen Joyce, student, 20 years, Ramsey, New Jersey, American
Davis, Shannon, student, 19 years, Shelton, Connecticut, American
Della-Ripa, Gabriel, Pan Am Airlines employee, 46 years, Floral Park, New York, Italian
DiMauro, Joyce Christine, marketing director, 32 years, New York, New York, American
DiNardo, Gianfranca, 26 years, Italian
Dix, Peter Thomas Stanley, management consultant, 35 years, London, England, Irish
Dixit, Om, college professor, 54 years, Fairborn, Ohio, Indian
Dixit, Shanti, 54 years, Fairborn, Ohio, American
Dornstein, David Scott, student, 25 years, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, American
Doyle, Michael Joseph, accountant, 30 years, Voorhees, New Jersey, American
Eggleston, Edgar Howard III, air force sergeant, 24 years, Glens Falls, New York, American
Ergin, Turhan, student, 22 years, West Hartford, Connecticut, American
Fisher, Charles Thomas IV, banker, 34 years, American
Flick, Clayton Lee, businessman, 25 years, Coventry, England, British
Flynn, John Patrick, student, 21 years, Montville, New Jersey, American
Fondiler, Arthur, attorney, 33 years, West Armonk, New York, American
Fortune, Robert Gerard, insurance executive, 40 years, Jackson Heights, NY, American
Freeman, Paul Matthew Stephen, 25 years, Canadian
Fuller, James Ralph, corporate vice president, 50 years, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, America
Gabor, Ibolya Robertine, 79 years, Budapest, Hungary, Hungarian
Gallagher, Amy Beth, student, 22 years, American
Gannon, Matthew Kevin, foreign service officer, 34 years, Los Angeles, Ca., American
Garczynski, Kenneth Raymond, industrial engineer, 37 years, North Brunswick, NJ, American
Gibson, Kenneth James, army specialist four, 20 years, Romulus, Michigan, American
Giebler, William David, bond broker, 29 years, London, England, American
Gordon, Olive Leonora, 25 years, London, England, British
Gordon-Gorgacz, Linda Susan, 39 years, London, England, American
Gorgacz, Anne Madelene, 76 years, Newcastle, Pennsylvania, American
Gorgacz, Loretta Anne, 47 years, Newcastle, Pennsylvania, American
Gould, David, college professor, 45 years, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, American
Guevorgian, Andre Nikolai, businessman, 32 years, Sea Cliff, New York, American
Hall, Nicola Jane, 23 years, Sandton, South Africa, South African
Halsch, Lorraine Frances, special education teacher, 31 years, Fairport, NY, American
Hartunian, Lynne Carol, student, 21 years, Schenectady, New York, American
Hawkins, Anthony Lacey, businessman, 57 years, Brooklyn, New York, British
Herbert, Pamela Elaine, student, 19 years, Battle Creek, Michigan, American
Hilbert, Rodney Peter, 40 years, Newton, Pennsylvania, American
Hill, Alfred, 29 years, Sonthofen, Germany, German
Hollister, Katherine Augusta, student, 20 years, Rego Park, New York
Hudson, Josephine Lisa, nurse, 22 years, London, England, British
Hudson, Melina Kristina, student, 16 years, Albany, New York, American
Hudson, Sophie Ailette Miriam, 26 years, Paris, France, French
Hunt, Karen Lee, student, 20 years, Webster, New York, American
Hurst, Roger Elwood, marketing manager, 38 years, Ringwood, New Jersey, American
Ivell, Elizabeth Sophie, dog handler, 19 years, East Sussex, England, British
Jaafar, Khalid Nazir, student, 20 years, Dearborn, Michigan, American
Jeck, Robert van Houten, 57 years, Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, American
Jeffreys, Paul Avron, musician, 36 years, Surrey, England, British
Jeffreys, Rachel, advertising executive, 23, years, Surrey, England, British
Jermyn, Kathleen Mary, student, 20 years, Staten Island, New York, American
Johnson, Beth Ann, student, 21 years, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, American
Johnson, Mary Alice Lincoln, student, 25 years, Wayland, Massachusetts, American
Johnson, Timothy Baron, student, 21 years, Neptune, New Jersey, American
Jones, Christopher Andrew, student, 20 years, Claverack, New York, American
Kelly, Julianne Frances, student, 20 years, Dedham, Massachusetts, American
Kingham, Jay Joseph, pharmaceuticals executive, 44 years, Potomac, Maryland, American,
Klein, Patricia Ann, social worker, 35 years, Trenton, New Jersey, American
Kosmowski, Gregory, marketing executive, 40 years, MiIford, Michigan, American
Kulukundis, Minas Christopher, ship brokerage director, 38 years, London, England, British
LaRiviere, Ronald Albert, 33 years, Alexandria, Virginia, American
Leckburg, Robert Milton, engineer, 30 years, Piscataway, New Jersey, American
Leyrer, William Chase, businessman, 46 years, Bay Shore, New York, American
Lincoln, Wendy Anne, student, 23 years, North Adams, Massachusetts, American
Lowenstein, Alexander Silas, student, 21 years, Morristown, New Jersey, American
Ludlow, Lloyd David, army sergeant first class, 41 years, Macksville, Kansas, American
Lurbke, Maria Theresia, 25 years, Balve Beckum, Germany, German
Mack, William Edward, puppeteer, 30 years, New York, New York, American
Malicote, Douglas Eugene, army specialist four, 22 years, Lebanon, Ohio, American
Malicote, Wendy Gay, 21 years, Lebanon, Ohio, American
Marek, Elizabeth Lillian, actress and peace activist, 30 years, New York, American
Marengo, Louis Anthony, marketing director, 33 years, Rochester, Michigan, American
Martin, Noel George, 27 years, Clapton, England, Jamaican
Maslowski, Diane Marie, currency trader, 30 years, New York, American
McAllister, William John, 26 years, Middlesex, England, British
McCarthy, Daniel Emmet, banker, 31 years, Brooklyn, New York, American
McCollum, Robert Eugene, university professor, 61 years, Wayne, Pennsylvania, American
McKee, Charles Dennis, army major, head of a US Intelligence Team, 40 years, Arlington, Virginia, American
McLaughlin, Bernard Joseph, marketing manager, 30 years, Cranston, RI, American
Melber, Jane Susan, musician and teacher, 27 years, Middlesex, England, American
Merrill, John, seaman, 35 years, Hertfordshire, England, British
Miazga, Suzanne Marie, student, 22 years, Marcy, New York, American
Miller, Joseph Kenneth, accounting firm executive, 56 years, Woodmere, NY, American
Mitchell, Jewel Courtney, army second lieutenant, 32 years, Brooklyn, New York, American
Monetti, Richard Paul, student, 20 years, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, American
Morgan, Jane Ann, attorney, 37 years, London, England, American
Morson, Eva Ingeborg, 48 years, New, York, New York, American
Mosey, Helga Rachael, student, 19 years, West Midlands, England, British
Mulroy, Ingrid Elizabeth, 25 years, Lund, Sweden, Swedish
Mulroy, John, journalist, 59 years, East Northport, New York, American
Mulroy, Sean Kevin, 25 years, American
Noonan, Karen Elizabeth, student, 20 years, Potomac, Maryland, American
O'Connor, Daniel Emmett, U.S. diplomatic service, 31 years, Dorchester, Mass, American
O'Neil, Mary Denice, student, 2l years, Bronx, New York, American
Otenasek, Anne Lindsey, student, 21 years, Baltimore, Maryland, American
Owen, Bryony Elise, 1 year, Bristol, England, British
Owen, Gwyneth Yvonne Margaret, student, 29 years, Bristol, England, British
Owens, Laura Abigail, 8 years, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, American
Owens, Martha, 44 years, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, American
Owens, Robert Plack, 45 years, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, American
Owens, Sarah Rebecca, 14 years, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, American
Pagnucco, Robert Italo, attorney, 51 years, South Salem, New York, American
Papadopoulos, Christos Michael, 45 years, North Lawrence, New York, American
Peirce, Peter Raymond, architect and student, 40 years, Perrysburg, Ohio, American
Pescatore, Michael, businessman, 33 years, Solon, Ohio, American
Philipps, Sarah Susannah Buchanan, student, 20 years, Newtonville, Mass, American
Phillips, Frederick Sandford, student, 27 years, Little Rock, Arkansas, American
Pitt, James Andrew Campbell, student, 24 years, South Hadley, Massachusetts, American
Platt, David, architect, 33 years, Staten Island, New York, American
Porter, Walter Leonard, musician, 35 years, Brooklyn, New York, American
Posen, Pamela Lynn, student, 20 years, Harrison, New York, American
Pugh, William, businessman, 56 years, Margate, New Jersey, American
Quiguyan, Crisostomo Estrella, hotel cashier, 43 years, London, England, Filipino
Ramses, Rajesh Tarsis Priskel, 35 years, Leicester, England, Indian
Rattan, Anmol, 2 years, Warren, Michigan. American
Rattan, Garima, computer programmer, 29 years, Warren, Michigan, American
Rattan, Suruchi, 3 years, Warren, Michigan, American
Reeves, Anita Lynn, 24 years, Laurel, Maryland, American
Rein, Mark Alan, businessman, 44 years, New York, New York, American
Rencevicz, Diane Marie, student, 21 years, Burlington, New Jersey, American
Rogers, Louise Ann, student, 20 years, Olney, Maryland, American
Roller, Edina, 5 years, Hungary, Hungarian
Roller, Janos Gabor, 29 years, Hungary, Hungarian
Roller, Zsuzsana, 27 years, Hungary, Hungarian
Root, Hanne Maria, management consultant, 26 years, Toronto, Canada, Canadian
Rosen, Saul Mark, businessman, 35 years, Morris Plains, New Jersey, American
Rosenthal, Andrea Victoria, student, 22 years, New York, New York, American
Rosenthal, Daniel Peter, student, 20 years, Staten Island, New York, American
Rubin, Arnaud David, 28 years, Waterloo, Belgium, Belgian
Saraceni, Elyse Jeanne, student, 20 years, American
Saunders, Scott Christopher, student, 21 years, Macungie, Pennsylvania, American,
Saunders, Theresa Elizabeth Jane, marketing, 28 years, Sunbury-on-Thames, England, British
Schauble, Johannes Otto, 41 years, Kappellenweg, Germany, German
Schlageter, Robert Thomas, student, 20 years, Warwick, Rhode Island, American
Schultz, Thomas Britton, student, 20, years, Ridgefield, Connecticut, American
Scott, Sally Elizabeth, chef, 22 years, Huntington, New York, British
Shapiro, Amy Elizabeth, student, 21 years, Stamford, Connecticut, American
Shastri, Mridula, 24 years, Oxford, England, Indian
Sheanshang, Joan, 46 years, New York, New York, American
Sigal, Irving Stanley, research biologist, 35 years, Pennington, New Jersey, American
Simpson, Martin Bernard Christopher, financier, 52 years, Brooklyn, New York, American
Smith, Cynthia Joan, student, 21 years, Milton, Massachusetts, American
Smith, Ingrid Anita, chiropodist, 31 years, Berkshire, England, British
Smith, James Alvin, 55 years, New York, New York, American
Smith, Mary Edna, army sergeant, 34 years, Kalamazoo, Michigan, American
Stevenson, Geraldine Anne, 37 years, Surrey, England, British
Stevenson, Hannah Louise, 10 years, Surrey, England, British
Stevenson, John Charles, 38 years, Surrey, England, British
Stevenson, Rachael, 8 years, Surrey, England, British
Stinnett, Charlotte Ann, 36 years, Duncanville, Texas, American
Stinnett, Michael Gary, army specialist, 26 years, Duncanville, Texas, American
Stinnett, Stacey Leanne, 9 years, Duncanville, Texas, American
Stow, James Ralph, businessman, 49 years, New York, New York, American
Stratis, Elia G., accountant, 43 years, Montvale, New Jersey, American
Swan, Anthony Selwyn, 29 years, Trinidadian
Swire, Flora MacDonald Margaret, medical student and researcher, 24 years, London, England, British
Tager, Marc Alex, 22 years, London, England, British
Tanaka, Hidekazu, 26 years London, England, Japanese
Teran, Andrew Alexander, student, 20 years, New Haven, Connecticut, Bolivian
Thomas, Arva Anthony, student, 17 years, Detroit, Michigan, American
Thomas, Jonathan Ryan, 2 months, Southfield, Michigan, American
Thomas, Lawanda, air force sergeant, 21 years, Southfield, Michigan, American
Tobin, Mark Lawrence, student, 21 years, North Hempstead, New York, American
Trimmer-Smith, David William, publishing executive, 51 years, New York, NY, American,
Tsairis, Alexia Kathryn, student, 20 years, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, American
Valentino, Barry Joseph, exhibit designer, 28 years, San Francisco, California, American
Van-Tienhoven, Thomas Floro, 45 years, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Argentinean
Vejdany, Asaad Eidi, 46 years, South Great Neck, New York, American
Vrenios, Nicholas Andreas, student, 20 years, Washington, DC, American
Vulcu, Peter, stockbroker and student, 21 years, Alliance, Ohio, American
Waido, Janina Jozefa, 61 years, Chicago, Illinois, American
Walker, Thomas Edwin, electronics specialist, 47 years, Quincy, Massachusetts, American
Weedon, Kesha, student, 20 years, Bronx, New York, American
Weston, Jerome Lee, engineer, 45 years, Baldwin, New York, American
White, Jonathan, accountant, 33 years, North Hollywood, California, American
Williams, Bonnie Leigh, military, 21 years, Crown Point, New York, American
Williams, Brittany Leigh, 2 months, Crown Point, New York
Williams, Eric Jon, army sergeant, 24 years, Crown Point, New York, American
Williams, George Waterson, army first lieutenant, 24 years, Joppa, Maryland, American
Williams, Stephanie Leigh, 1 year, Crown Point, New York, American
Wolfe, Miriam Luby, student, 20 years, Severna Park, Maryland, American
Woods, Chelsea Marie, 10 months, Willingboro, New Jersey, American
Woods, Dedera Lynn, air force sergeant, 27 years, Willingboro, New Jersey, American
Woods, Joe Nathan, civilian military worker, 28 years, Willingboro, New Jersey, American
Woods, Joe Nathan, Jr., 2 years, Willingboro, New Jersey, American
Wright, Andrew Christopher Gillies, site agent, 24 years, Surrey, England, British
Zwynenburg, Mark James, investment banker, 29 years, West Nyack, New York, American

Lockerbie Residents.

Joanne Flanagan, 10, British
Kathleen Mary Flannigan, 41, British
Thomas Brown Flannigan, 44, British
Dora Henrietta Henry, 56, British
Maurice Peter Henry, 63, British
Mary Lancaster, 81 British
Jean Aitken Murray, 82, British
John Somerville, 40, British
Lynsey Ann Somerville, 10, British
Paul Somerville, 13, British
Rosalind Hanney Somerville, 40, British

Lockerbie Seeks To Turn Page on Pan Am Disaster

2008-12-18T15:20:00.001Z

Agence France-Presse 12/18/2008 8:20 PM

Lockerbie residents will never forget the terror of the night 20 years ago when a plane exploded over their small Scottish town -- but hope the anniversary Sunday will help them move on.

"I was watching television at home with my daughter and I thought we had thunder... but it became louder and louder," recalls Marjory McQueen, 62, who runs the visitor centre that caters to those coming to see the memorial here.

"So I ran out of the house and I saw what I now know to be part of the aircraft passing the house and landed in Sherwood Crescent and there was a huge fireball up into the air over 300 metres."

Retired police inspector George Stobbs was one of the first to arrive at the scene of the crash, and remembers "a great hole in the ground with boiling aviation fuel in it. From what I could see the houses were no longer there."

The 74-year-old initially believed a military airplane had crashed, but soon realised the scale of the catastrophe. Christmas that year was over.

A huge crater was formed by the plane's fuselage which had plummeted to the ground after a bomb onboard exploded less than an hour into the flight from London to New York. The houses that once stood there were left as shells.

Today the crater has been filled, replaced by a remembrance garden planted with rhododendrons and fir trees.

A line of new brick houses has been built, and only a plaque bears witness to the residents of Lockerbie whose lives were so brutally snatched away.

On Sunday, wreaths will be placed before the marble monument bearing the names of the victims which has been erected the Dryfesdale cemetery, at the entrance to this quiet town surrounded by green hills.

There will also be religious services, but no major ceremony as there was on the 10th anniversary. "We wanted it to be as low key as possible," said Sandy Stoddart, a minister of the Church of Scotland.

Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora was in the plane, said there were "differences of priorities between relatives of the persons who died in the plane and the city who would like the attention to go away."

The former doctor told AFP that he would attend a memorial service on Sunday with other Britain-based relatives and friends of the victims at London's Heathrow airport.

Other ceremonies are also planned in the United States for the 180 Americans who were killed.
But if the victims' loved ones remain in mourning, the town of Lockerbie is keen to move beyond what is the darkest day in their history.

Whatever the ongoing political and legal fall-out from the tragedy -- former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet Al-Megrahi was jailed over the bombing -- McQueen says: "This is not our fight."

"The town has moved on very quickly," she said, adding: "We were not meant to be any part of this. We're collateral damage I think."

Stobbs agreed. "I think that Lockerbie itself has recovered from the incident," he said. "Christmas is back in Lockerbie and has been for a number of years now."

Twenty years, still trying to move on.

2008-12-18T15:14:00.001Z

Last updated 11:24, Thursday, 18 December 2008

Even now – two decades on – there is no closure on the Lockerbie bombing. Debate persists about the guilt of the former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of blowing up Pan Am flight 103.Mrs McQueen, now 62, was at home watching television when parts of the aircraft began falling. As wife of the town’s then GP, Kenneth McQueen, she helped carry lifesaving resuscitation gear to the surgery – equipment sadly not needed.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, now 56 and serving a life sentence for mass murder, is due to have a second appeal against his conviction heard next year.
Yet despite the international manhunt and trial that centred on events in Lockerbie, few there have closely followed developments.

Residents have for a long time felt little connection with the legal and political debates that have raged around the world, most recently over cancer-stricken Megrahi’s failed bid for bail pending his appeal.

They want to – and have – moved on from the grief and devastation that rained down on them four days before Christmas 1988.

Most are understandably reluctant to talk about what happened on that dreadful night and some would rather the 20th anniversary was not publicly marked.

Of course, they will never forget the 270 people from 21 countries killed the night terror struck in rural Dumfriesshire.

In a garden of remembrance at Dryfesdale Cemetery, on the outskirts of the town, stand memorials naming all who died – a sombre reminder of the human cost of terrorism.
A stained glass window in the Town Hall features the flags of 21 nations – a symbol of the global grief focussed on this small town.

And in Sherwood Crescent, sits a small sandstone memorial – a dignified tribute to the 11 Lockerbie residents killed there.

But the town’s motto is “forward” and its people have lived up to that while retaining their compassion towards those who continue to visit to pay their respects.

Former Lockerbie councillor Marjory McQueen believes the community’s feelings towards the debate surrounding the disaster are not what many would expect.

She, like many others, did not follow the trial that convicted Megrahi, but cleared his co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima in 2001.

“When they announced the verdict the media thought the town would stop, but that was not the case,” Mrs McQueen said. “The political and legal machinations that have gone on since Lockerbie have gone over the heads of people here. The interest is not what the Press would expect. “This is because of the 11 people who died from here – who we have never forgotten – I know of only one lady who was a relative and she does not wish to become part of the media circus. There are maybe distant cousins of a couple of others around, but that’s it.”

In the months that followed she worked in the Procurator Fiscal’s office, where her duties included opening files on those who died.

Despite the devastation that struck during the disaster and the grief caused in its immediate aftermath, Mrs McQueen says Lockerbie moved on quickly.

She said: “Within a year, rebuild had occurred and people were back getting on with their lives.
“For some, there were psychological problems that probably lasted for a fair bit, but, in the main, the town was back and functioning in a year.”

Sunday’s 20th anniversary will be marked in Lockerbie – but in a low-key way, as townsfolk have requested. People, understandably, want to keep their thoughts personal.

The US ambassador will be among those who will lay wreaths at Dryfesdale Cemetery, while an ecumenical church service will be held at Dryfesdale Church and a vigil at Tundergarth Church, near where the plane’s nosecone landed.

On the community’s feelings about the anniversary, Mrs McQueen said: “I think people would rather not discuss or think about it.

“The vast majority would rather just let it go as another day. It was the same with the 10th anniversary.

“I know how they feel, but this was a major international incident. Twenty-one nationalities – 259 people – on board the plane and 11 Lockerbie people died.”

Victims’ relatives are undoubtedly grateful for what the people of Lockerbie did in the aftermath of the crash – comforting them and gathering and cleaning their loved ones’ belongings before they were returned.

Mrs McQueen added: “I am glad Lockerbie has the reputation it does for warmth towards those who come from other countries and this country to remember those who died.”

The community spokeswoman is now chairman of Dryfesdale Lodge Visitor centre, which remembers the tragedy and other aspects of Lockerbie’s rich history. It attracts up to 5,000 visitors a year.

Its exhibits include a quilt specially designed to commemorate the 20th anniversary, depicting a tree with 259 leaves representing those killed on Pan Am flight 103. Eleven pebbles represent the 11 Lockerbie people who died while the tree’s strong roots represent the community.

Money to convert Dryfesdale Lodge, a former cemetery worker’s cottage, into a visitor centre, came from the Lockerbie Trust, which was established in the aftermath of the disaster to manage money that was donated to the town and to ensure it benefited the community.

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/1.286231

Libya Completes Lockerbie Payment

2008-11-21T08:57:00.007Z

Libya has completed it's transfer of payment of compensation for families of the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Earlier this week US president George Bush said a "painful chapter" between America and Libya was closing. The completion of payment comes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam discussed ways to improve US-Libyan ties.

Most of the US victim's families of the tragedy welcomed the news and claimed it to be a "victory in their quest for justice in the case." The payment includes final compensation payments to families of Americans killed on Pan Am 103, those killed and wounded in a 1986 attack on a Berlin disco, and resolve other claims for property and personal damages.

The agreement struck between the US and Libya also calls for $300 million in compensation to be paid for the Libyan victims of U.S. airstrikes that were ordered by former President Reagan in retaliation for the Berlin bombing. The Bush administration says no taxpayer money will be used for those payments but has not said where the money is coming from.

The question of whether the payment has any relevance in terms of justice for the Lockerbie victims or has more to do with international deals to explore Libya oil rich resources is one which casts a cloud over the agreement. This cloud of uncertainty and doubt is further compounded while the current on-going appeal by the one man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing continues through the Scottish courts after the review body in Scotland indicated there may have been a 'miscarriage of justice' at the original trial.

Various sources:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7741017.stm

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioldoglB9NS7sO2LOY6qQtqgztTgD94ISDM00

http://www.woi-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9388170&nav=1LFX

Lockerbie Reflections

2008-11-08T23:55:00.006Z

Oh East is East and West is West
And never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently
At God’s great Judgment Seat.

The Ballad of East and West
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear : “a Fool lies here
Who tried to hustle the East”.

Though I had landed at Teheran airport a few times, and helped administer FAO projects in Iran I did not have an opportunity to visit that great country. The nearest I got to the Iranian border was when travelling to the mountains south of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan.

I had known Iraninan students at workshops and seminars, and once met with diplomatic officers from the government of the late Shah. This was on a tour boat on Moscow river. Their monarch, Mohammed Resa Shah Pahlavi, was visiting the Soviet Premier at the time. His entourage of diplomats and aides exhibited culture, learning and sophistication, and made stimulating conversation with me during the afternoon river cruise.

The Shah ruled Iran from 1941 to 1979. He was briefly ousted in 1953 by the Prime Minister, Dr Mossadegh, but was reinstated with CIA help shortly after. I recall our press making a fool of Dr Mossadegh at the time because he wept in public.

The Shah then abolished the multi-party system and made the country a one-party state. He established and supervised a ruthless organisation, the SAVAK secret police. He was eventually deposed in 1979 despite having a powerful army and an immense arsenal of weapons, and control shifted from the monarchy to the ayatollahs.

There followed a period of difficult relations with the USA, and conflict with Iraq which the USA supported. In fact the United States had armed both of the belligerants in the Iran – Iraq war, and had turned a blind eye to illegal arms to Iran sales engineered by Colonel North. He and his boss, National Security Adviser John Poindexter, ignored the law and lied to Congress over dealings with Iran and support to Contras in Nicaragua. They destroyed evidence in the form of e-mail records but back-up tapes were recovered by the FBI and the Tower Commission.

A dreadful incident occurred on July 3 1988, when an Iranian air liner on a regular flight (IA 655) from Bander Abbas to Dubai, was shot down by a US cruiser, the Vicennes. It was an ordinary civilian flight which our project officers often took, although some of President Reagan’s apologists claimed otherwise. Ultimately the American government paid $ 61 million as an ex gratia compensation, but it never admitted any fault. Vice President George Bush (senior) stated at the time that he would “never apologise for the United States, no matter what the facts were”.

290 passengers and crew perished in the shooting down of the Airbus 300, including over 60 children and 38 non-Iranians. The Captain of the Vicennes, and his commanding officer were both decorated with Legion of Merit medals in 1990 for their part in the attack on the civilian airliner.

Some observers believe that the bombing of the Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, 5½ months later, on December 21, 1988, was a retaliation by Middle Eastern groups, for the shooting down of the Iranian flight IA 655, and that Libya had little to do with it. A telephone warning had been received on December 5th, stating that an American airliner flying from Frankfurt to the USA would be destroyed by a bomb in two weeks time. The caller stated that the bombing would be the work of the Abu Nidal organisation. The warning was distributed to airlines in Frankfurt, but was ignored by the Pan Am office.

President Bush appointed a President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, PCAST, to review and report on aviation security in the light of the downing of PA 103. At a meeting with victims’ relatives in the U.S. Embassy in London on 12 February 1990, a PCAST member told relative Martin Cadman, “Your government and ours know exactly what happened. But they are never going to tell”. Veteran British Member of Parliament, Tam Dalyell, reminded the House of Commons of this statement on 11th July 1990, - a statement that he claimed had never been refuted.

Suspicions over the Pan Am bombing and the subsequent trial and conviction of a single Libyan for the crime, Abdel Besset Al Megrahi, have intensified since the discovery of a strange link with a fingerprint case in Scotland.

Policewoman Shirley McKie was accused by the SCRO (Scottish Criminal Records Office) of leaving a print at a murder scene in Glasgow in 1999 and was subsequently tried for perjury.

She was acquitted, and her father, a former police officer himself, pursued the matter doggedly. Fingerprint experts in England, the USA and Australia testified that the supposed print could not possibly have been hers, and some averred after seeing the subsequent copies, that the original print had been doctored to make it appear to belong to the officer in question.

There was puzzlement in Scotland over the Scottish Executive’s harassment of Miss McKie and its refusal to permit an independent public enquiry to take place. Then the Scotsman newspaper obtained copies of official documents that showed that the head of Police in Tayside who had looked into the matter, concluded that criminal charges should be brought to bear on some officers of the SCRO Scotland’s main fingerprint unit.

It was further disclosed that the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd, who had refused to mount a prosecution but who had decided instead to charge McKie with perjury was the official in charge of the Libyan Lockerbie bombing trial. It was also later revealed that the FBI had put considerable pressure on British and Scottish authorities to prevent any public enquiry into the McKie case, which might cast doubts on SCRO competence, and by implication, on the Lockerbie trial.

The father of one of the Pan Am flight victims, Dr Swire, wrote to the press pointing out some parallels between Solicitor General / Lord Advocate Boyd’s handling of both cases. Both the Lockerbie trial and the fingerprint case rested on slender evidence – in the one the charred remains of pieces of a supposed timer, and in the other a much-disputed fingerprint.

In neither case would Boyd allow anyone to view the original piece of evidence. In both cases the SCRO and related investigation offices were involved.

Some concluded that the United States was determined to obtain a conviction for the Lockerbie bombing, both to abate public outcry, and to direct attention away from the true story of the Pan Am bombing.

The real suspects of that bombing could have exposed the dealings of Colonel North, and the hypocrisy of the USA which had armed despots and Bin Laden-type Arabs. Any shadow of doubt thrown against the Scottish SCRO would automatically put the Lockerbie verdict in doubt.

Therefore, the Scottish Executive, including its First Minister and its Minister of Justice, absolutely refused to permit a public enquiry, and the now suspect Attorney General threw his weight behind their decision.

Colonel Oliver North, who was deeply involved in selling arms to Iran to finance Contra mercenaries in Central America, contrary to official US government policy. He went on to play a nefarious role in the Middle East, and may have been partly responsible for setting up Terry Waite for abduction by Arab militants, which may explain Waite’s public expression of forgiveness to North at a televised meeting.

Pan Am 103 / Lockerbie questions
The father of Flora Swire, one of the 270 innocent victims of the Pan Am bombing, Dr Jim Swire, and other concerned persons have raised numerous questions about the downing of flight Pan Am 103 and related incidents, in an endeavour to uncover the truth of the whole matter. They have met largely with a wall of official silence and non-response. One of their conclusions was that the Lockerbie trial failed several basic principles of justice and evidence. Among the many queries were concerns on the involvement of one Vincent Cannistraro who was put in charge of the CIA investigation but who was not required to appear as a witness.

Cannistraro was one of the leaders of the brutal CIA Nicaragua campaign, financed partly by the “arms for Iran” Contra scandal. He was also involved in secretly helping to arm Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban in the 1980’s but none of these matters were revealed at the trial. During 1986 – 88 he was responsible for White House disinformation and lies against Libya. During the Lockerbie investigation, his agents removed evidence illegally and reinserted at least one piece after it had been tampered with. The forensic scientists Lockerbie notebook contained a page recording the only fragment of bomb found at the scene. The page had been manually inserted, and all pages subsequently renumbered by hand.

The Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, who provided conflicting identification evidence, had been promised $ 4 million by the USA if Al Megrahi was convicted, but none of that was revealed at the trial. Palestinian terrorist Marwan Khreesat was employed by Ahmed Jibril, Jordanian intelligence and possibly also the CIA to make barometrically triggered bombs for Jibril’s group, targeting Pan Am flights. Why was one stolen just a day before Khreesat’s arrest ? Could it have been the fatal bomb on flight 103 ?

More alarmingly, the UK Government issued two telex warnings days before the bombing. One carried a picture of the Khreesat bomb with instructions to the airline that if such a device was found, it should be “consigned to the hold of the plane”.

Two days after the bombing, Iran admitted paying the Jibril group $ 11 million, and some months later, paying $ 0.5 million to Abu Talb. These allegations all point to the generally believed explanation of the destruction of the Pan Am flight, - that it was a pledged response to the downing of a civilian Iranian jet (flight IA 655 from Bandar Abbas to Dubai) by the USS Vicennes earlier that year, with the loss of 290 innocent passengers. (Though denied at the time, the Vicennes was later admitted to have been inside Iranian territorial waters, and firing on Iranian boats when it shot the airliner).

The US government never admitted liability, but under President Clinton, on 26 February 1966, it agreed to to pay an ex gratia sum of $ 61.8 million to Iran and the flight victims families.

The IA 655 shooting and its aftermath brought out some shameful propaganda and ‘spin’ by American politicians and reporters. Ronald Reagan claimed that the civilian jet was diving towards the U.S. Navy ship, and increasing speed. Larry King demanded to know from the Iranian Ambassador, “why a predominately business flight was carrying so many women and children” !!! This was rubbish. I knew the flight which my FAO colleagues often took.

Captain William C Rogers III of the guided missile cruiser, and his air warfare coordinator, Lt. Com. Lustig, were awarded the Legion of Merit medal by President George H W Bush in 1990, for “excellent meritorious conduct” on the day in question.

But back to Pan Am flight 103, -
Behind or around the Pan Am / Lockerbie crash, and other sinister events like the illegal sale of arms to Iran, the involvement of the CIA in the drug trade, the financing of brutal Contras in Nicaragua, and the abduction and imprisonment of Terry Waite, - lurks the shadow of one Colonel Oliver North. An Australian banker who studied the Lockerbie case in great detail claimed to me that though most American personnel were warned off flight 103, it contained some CIA agents en route the USA to testify against Oliver North over “arms for Iran” and other matters. But this belief and much of the information above has not been endorsed or admitted by U.S. or UK authorities.

http://www.electricscotland.com/thomson/reflections13.htm

20 years on and Lockerbie victim's father still searches for the truth

2008-11-08T23:37:00.002Z

WHEN Jim Swire discovered the devastating news that his daughter Flora had died in the Lockerbie air disaster he had one burning aim - to bring her terrorist killers to justice.

But on the 20th anniversary of the outrage the former Midlands GP now finds himself in the extraordinary position of DEFENDING the man convicted of her murder.

Medical student Flora, 23, had been flying out to see her boyfriend in the US when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.

All 259 passengers and crew on board died on that cold winter night. A further 11 people on the ground also perished.

For the next 13 years Jim battled to bring chief suspect Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to trial, even risking his life by holding secret meetings with Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi.
Yet the dad-of-two became convinced the wrong man was in the dock after the Libyan was eventually convicted in 2001.

Since then he has fought a campaign to clear al-Megrahi - who is now suffering from prostrate cancer - and find the real killers of his daughter.

“I think a lot about whether Flora would have approved of what I am doing but I believe she would have,’’ said Jim, who lives in Chipping Camden, Gloucestershire.

‘‘The campaign has grown beyond anything I had ever expected. Twenty years of my life have been concentrated on it and I have had to try to balance it out with living a normal life.’’

The retired GP met al-Megrahi, 56, after he was jailed for life and says he still feels guilt over his part in bringing him to trial.

“I do feel responsible for al-Megrahi as I believe he was ultimately handed over by Gaddafi because of my meetings with him,’’ said Jim, 72.
‘‘But after hearing the evidence at the trial, I believe he isn’t guilty.”

Jim and wife Jane, a retired teacher, have endless fond memories of their beautiful and talented daughter who had wanted to follow her father into the medical profession.

Jane, 69, recalled: “Flora was a very gifted and confident individual. She was lively and creative and was always making something off Blue Peter.
“She began to shine in the sciences as a teenager and wanted to become a doctor.

‘‘Yet she’d seen the downside of a doctor’s life as my husband was a GP. She knew about the late call outs and how it was a tough profession. But she was a strong-minded woman and followed her dream.

“Flora was such a lovely child. I felt privileged to have her.’’

Her proud dad added: ‘‘Flora was a brilliant student and I have no doubt in mind that if she were alive today she would have been at the top of her profession.’’

But those dreams were shattered 20 years ago next month.

Flora had been desperately trying to find a flight to the US to celebrate Christmas with her boyfriend, Hart Lidov, when a late seat became available on the fateful Pan Am plane.

Jane recalled: “She had been trying to book a flight to the US but had no luck. She’d spent the weekend with us and we went to the theatre.

‘‘Two days later she called to tell us she had found a flight and asked if it was OK if she went. I told her we didn’t mind.”

Hours later Jane stumbled upon a terrifying news bulletin.
“Jim and I had just come home from a shopping trip and I turned on the TV and there was a newsflash about a plane crash in Scotland,’’ she recalled.

‘‘I was worried that it was the flight Flora was on, so I alerted Jim.
“We waited for the next news programme which told us that the plane had crashed at 7.05pm. I was praying it wasn’t Flora’s flight as it had taken off at 6pm and I was convinced it would have been way past Scotland by the time of the crash.

‘‘We were desperately trying to get through to the relatives’ hotline but it was constantly engaged.

“And then we realised that it was her plane - and that Flora was dead. We just sat and watched the devastating pictures of the plane. We were horrified yet mesmerised and terrified by it all.
‘‘We were completely beside ourselves.”

Soon afterwards Jim pledged to win justice for his daughter and all those killed on Pan Am Flight 103. Yet over the years he has become convinced the Libyans were not involved.
He said: “The evidence points to the involvement of Iran and Syria, not Libya.

“The case against al-Megrahi, I believe is invalid.”

Jim believes the Lockerbie bombing was a revenge attack against the Americans who had ordered an Iranian Airbus to be shot down months before Lockerbie killing 290 innocent people.

He also believes a Syrian terror group had amassed a cache of bombs designed for infiltration into European airports, explosives would sense the drop of pressure as an aircraft climbed into the skies - and would explode about 40 minutes after take-off.

And the Lockerbie bomb, he claims, may have been handed to and planted by an insider at Heathrow during a break-in the night before the disaster.

But with al-Megrahi serving a life sentence, he fears the true story will never be known unless the conviction is overturned.

Jim added: “I believe that the truth will never come out while I am alive. Justice will not be done in my lifetime.”

Soon after Lockerbie Jim and Jane planted young trees in the grounds of their family home in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, which they named Flora’s Wood.

The trees are mature now and still stand there today, despite the couple selling the house in 2002. They were planted in the shape of an F for Flora, a poignant outline that can still be seen from satellite pictures on Google Earth.

http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/midlands-news/2008/11/08/20-years-on-and-lockerbie-victim-s-father-still-searches-for-the-truth-93633-22211467/

Lockerbie : What Price Justice?

2008-09-21T11:28:00.007+01:00

This headline comes from this weeks Private Eye magazine in the UK, which carries an article examining the claims in a recent BBC documentary regarding financial rewards made to witnesses who gave evidence at the original Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in 2001.

In BBC2's recent 'Conspiracy Files' about the blowing up of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Richard Marquise, the FBI agent who headed the US side of the investigation 20 years ago, emphatically denied that any reward money had been paid to witnesses.

In reply to a claim by Edwin Bollier, the boss of a Swiss company said to have manufactured the timing device used in the bomb, that he had been offered money by the FBI, Marquise said: "I can promise you we offered everyone who was involved in the case the exact same - nothing. They were never offered anything for their testimony, for their information concerning the case."

Clearly this was a case of the left hand of American Law enforcement not knowing what the right was up to because Majid Giaka, the "star" witness at the trial of the two Libyans originally accused of the bombing, was handsomely rewarded by the CIA.

Readers of Paul Foot's special report on the atrocity may remember that a series of internal CIA cables about Giaka - a proven liar and cheat who claimed he was in the Libyan Intelligence when in fact he merely repaired their cars - showed that agents themselves thought he was a man of little credibility. But these were originally withheld from the 2001 trial of Al-Megrahi and his co-accused, Fhimah (who was acquitted by the Scottish Judges). Those same judges agreed that Giaka's evidence - that he saw the pair with a large brown case at Luqa, the Maltese airport - was "at best grossly exaggerated and at worst untrue", and "largely motivated by financial considerations".

Curiously in convicting Megrahi, however, they never questioned why the prosecution should rely on such a corrupt and desperate liar and overlooked the fact that the names of both defendants had come from Giaka in the first place. Instead they relied on the only other evidence that incriminated Megrahi : his identification 11 years after the event by Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who said he sold him the 13 items of clothing that were packed around the bomb. But Gauci had seen a picture of Megrahi only a few days before he made the crucial identification. This too was withheld from the original trial.

Inconsistencies and doubts surrounding Gauci's identification now form one of the six grounds outlined by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) for concluding Megrahi may be the victim of a miscarriage of justice. There were unconfirmed reports that part of the concerns outlined in the confidential 80-page SCCRC submission were that Gauci too was paid a large amount of CIA "compensation".

And for final confirmation that the Americans paid out money, the 'Reward for Justice' website of the US state department outlines the Lockerbie case. It says it has "paid more than $72m to over 50 people who have provided information that prevented international terrorist attacks or brought to justice those involved in prior acts."

(c) Private Eye 2008

Appeal Court in Lockerbie Move

2008-09-18T00:56:00.006+01:00

The BBC is reporting that the High Court in Edinburgh will appoint a security-vetted defender, in a closed court session, to view the confidential documents that the SCCRC referred to last year as one area in their recommendation for a 2nd appeal for convicted Pan Am 103 bomber Al-Megrahi. This will be held with the exclusion of Al-Megrahi's own defence team.

"So far the court has not published its decision, but in a letter seen by BBC Scotland, the Foreign Office minister Kim Howells says it has decided to appoint a special defender."

As I stated ealier this year : Quite how the integrity and sincerity of the discussions and any decisions made during this court session on the subject of the withheld document(s), can be guaranteed to the victims families and the public when the intended body of Advocates in place of Megrahi's defence team is determined and vetted by the very ones who are raising the PII while refusing to disclose the document, is unclear.

BBC article here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7622223.stm

What now, Scotland?

2008-09-17T17:11:00.004+01:00

Lockerbie Accord Sets out Framework for Future Justice.

'The Firm' website carries this headline regarding Tuesday's meeting on the island of Skye, off the North West coast of Scotland. The meeting included Dr Hans Kochler, the UN appointed special observer to Zeist, and Professor Robert Black who was integral to the formation of the original Lockerbie trial.

http://www.thefirmmagazine.com/news/1055/Lockerbie_accord_sets_out_framework_for_future_justice.html

A unique accord settled on Skye yesterday (Tuesday) has set out a philosphical and practical way forward for Scots law in an effort to restore credibility after the Lockerbie debacle.

Dr Hans Kochler, the UN appointed special observer, and Professor Robert Black promulgated their conclusions at a special conference convened by veteran campaigner Robbie the Pict of the Lockerbie Justice Group collective.

Entitled Quid Nunc, Scotia? (What now, Scotland) the two academics called for a fresh investigation of the Lockerbie event, and pointed out evidence of corruption and bribery that had occurred during and after the trial.

Professor Black also articulated amendements to the criminal law to ensure fairness in future proceedings.

The accord concluded that there were fundamental defects with the implementationand execution of the Zeist trial, and highlighted the need for either a fresh Fatal Accident Inquiry or a full public inquiry.

The full text of the agreement can be read below.

Greshornish House Accord
Isle of Skye, 16 September 2008

Invited Consultants –
Dr. Hans Koechler, President of the International Progress Organisation (IPO), Vienna.
Prof. Robert Black QC, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law, University of Edinburgh.

Convener – Robbie the Pict, Lockerbie Justice Group.

The participants were invited to reply to four questions put by the Convener in the hope of guidance in the pursuit of proper justice for all in relation to the destruction of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988.

The questions asked were answered as follows:

QUESTION 1. Did the Foreign and Commonwealth Office arrangements for a trial at Kamp Zeist deliver an independent and impartial tribunal?

A.1. No. We draw attention to five principal defects:

a) It would have enhanced the appearance of independence and impartiality if the Judicial Bench had been composed of Judges from countries other than the United Kingdom with a Scottish Judge in the Chair. This is principally because the case involves the interests of more than one state and the appointment of all the Judges from only one of the concerned states does not meet the required standards of independence and impartiality. The Consultants present today would both have preferred a tribunal wherein a Scottish Judge chaired a panel of Judges from other countries but this was rejected by the relevant UK authorities. It should be kept in mind that there was an ongoing political dispute between the UK and Libya at this time which had led to the severing of diplomatic relations.

b) The presence of American advisers in the well of the Court, later identified to the IPO as FBI agents, having frequent discourse and consultation with the Crown prosecution team contributed to the appearance of outside influence on the conduct of the prosecution. These persons were not identified at any point and their names did not appear on the official brochure which, amongst other things, named the prosecution and defence teams. Concerns were raised in the course of the trial that these persons appeared to be guiding witness responses by facial gestures.

c) We are of the view that if, in an adversarial system, the defence does not properly play its antagonistic role, the interplay of forces is set off-balance. This demands both equality of arms procedurally, and a determined and dedicated wielding of these arms.

We draw attention to the new burden placed upon all Judges under Section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) to ensure that there is indeed an equality of arms in their Court.

d) Whilst we accept that circumstantial evidence alone can be sufficient to convict, we are not satisfied that the Court, in its written judgment, adequately explained its reasons for accepting incriminating inferences from that evidence and rejecting or dismissing evidence that supported non-incriminating inferences.

e) We have good reason to suspect that rewards and benefits of a direct or indirect nature have been paid to prosecution witnesses.

QUESTION 2. What should happen now?

A.2
a) In the event that the Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificate is upheld by the Court and evidence is withheld from the Defence, we consider that this would render the conduct of a fair appeal impossible. We believe that, in actuality and in the public perception, such a denial compromises the principles of a fair hearing, which depends significantly upon equality of arms.
In this context we would like to draw attention to the position adopted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on this matter, as contained in a letter written to the IPO on 27 August 2008. It reads:

“Under the Human Rights Act 1998 the Court has a duty to act in compliance with Convention rights in terms of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, including the right to a fair trial. The UK Government has made clear its commitment to work closely with the Court to ensure that Mr Megrahi receives a fair trial and that sensitive material is handled appropriately.”

b) In the event that the present appeal proceeds, we recommend the following:
i) That the pending decision by the Appeal Court, regarding the scope of the appeal, be delivered with urgency. Preparation by both the appellant and the Crown is impeded whilst the precise parameters of the appeal remain unsettled. It is clearly desirable that any decision defining those parameters should give reasons for the rejection of any grounds submitted by the appellant.
ii) The phrase ‘the trial and any appeal’ in the Agreement between the Governments of the UK and the Netherlands concerning a Scottish Trial in the Netherlands permits the view that this further appeal should also take place in an international framework; however we consider that unlikely. We urge that the relevant Scottish and UK authorities take such steps as are necessary to secure the presence of international observers at any further appeal hearing.

c) Irrespective of the outcome of the current appeal, there should be a re-investigation of the incident by the Scottish authorities. A further Fatal Accident Inquiry would not be inappropriate given the amount of material that has become available since the original FAI took place. When the restricted scope of an FAI is considered perhaps it would be more appropriate to have a wider-ranging public inquiry.

d) Allegations have been made in the Press and elsewhere of incidences of tampering with evidence material to the case. The Lord Advocate should instruct that these allegations be investigated.

QUESTION 3. If Scotland was charged with managing such an international event in the future, what model is recommended?

A3.
a) Although this is a hypothetical question it offers the opportunity to advise the Scottish public of developments since the Lockerbie incident. The UK is a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). This would mean that such matters could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

b) Where, for whatever reason, the ICC cannot be resorted to, the possibility exists of inviting non-Scottish Judges to participate in a Scottish trial. The following are illustrative precedents for such an approach:

i) The Special Court for Sierra Leone, established by agreement between the UN and the Government of Sierra Leone.
ii) The Special Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

QUESTION 4. What changes should be considered for the better administration of justice in Scotland?

A4.
1. Whilst Scotland retains an adversarial system as opposed to an inquisitorial system, the existence of a real equality of arms is crucial to the delivery of justice. Following the coming into force of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) the responsibility for ensuring a fair trial, which includes equality of arms, lies with the Court itself. Although this judicial obligation is already enshrined in the law, it could usefully be spelled out in an amendment to the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

2. It is inappropriate that the Chief Legal Adviser to the Government is also head of all criminal prosecutions. Whilst the Lord Advocate and Solicitor General continue as public prosecutors the principle of separation of powers seems compromised. The potential for a conflict of interest always exists. Resolution of these circumstances would entail an amendment of the provisions contained within the Scotland Act 1998.

3. The Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 should be amended to oblige the Crown to disclose all prosecution witness statements. The current system, whereby the Crown’s disclosure obligation is met by simply supplying a list of possible Crown witnesses, encourages the fruitless expenditure of defence time, money and effort.

4. The absence of a particular and dedicated Criminal Appeal Court, especially when, unlike in civil matters, there is no further appeal available to a higher Court, renders the appeal system vulnerable to serious criticism.

Another 20 Year Anniversary.

2008-08-06T13:56:00.005+01:00

( A boy casts flowers into the Persian Gulf)

In the midst of the continuing appeal by the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing and the approaching Pan Am 103 Lockerbie 20 year anniversary, there was another painful anniversary marked last month. July 3rd marked two decades since Iran Airbus 655, carrying 290 civilians was downed over the Persian Gulf by an American warship and relatives of those killed gathered at Bandar Abbas to commemorate them.

Many believe, contrary to the official line taken by the US and UK government's, that this particular event in July 1988 led directly to the attack on the Pan Am flight just before Christmas in1988.

The US, despite paying compsenation to the Iranian victims families, has never apoligised for the incident and in fact still to this day seems reluctant to show any remorse for the attack, wiping all recollection of the atrocity from memory.

In a daily press briefing on July 2, 2008, the following set of questions and answers took place between an unidentified reporter and Department of State Spokesman Sean McCormack:

QUESTION: Tomorrow marks the 20 years since the U.S. Navy warship Vincennes gunned down the IR655 civilian airliner, killing all 300 people on board, 71 of whom were children. And while the United States Government settled the incident in the International Court of Justice in 1996 at $61.1 million in compensation to the families, they, till this day, refuse to apologize –

MR. MCCORMACK: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: – as requested by the Iranian Government. And actually, officials in the Iranian Government said today that they’re planning on a commemoration tomorrow and it would, you know, show a sign of diplomatic reconciliation if the United States apologized for this incident.

MR. MCCORMACK: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Do you think it sends a positive message if, on the 20th anniversary of this incident, the United States Government apologize?

MR. MCCORMACK: You know, to be honest with you, I’ll have to look back and see the history of what we have said about this – about the issue. I honestly don’t know. Look, nobody wants to see – everybody mourns innocent life lost. But in terms of our official U.S. Government response to it, I can’t – I have to confess to you, I don’t know the history of it. I’d be happy to post you an answer over to your question.

Some 300 relatives of victims as well as artists and officials sailed from the southern port city of Bandar Abbas to the spot where the Iran Air Airbus A300 crashed into the water on July 3, 1988, killing all on board.

The USS Vincennes shot down the airliner shortly after it took off from Bandar Abbas for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Washington said the Vincennes mistook the airliner for a hostile Iranian fighter jet. Iran maintains it was a deliberate attack.

In recent years, as tensions with the U.S. have increased, the anniversary has become an annual outpouring of anger at America, and it has drawn wider coverage in state media.

Participants shouted "Death to America" and "We condemn U.S. state terrorism" as helicopters showered flowers on the crash site.

"This crime will remain a disgraceful blot on the forehead of the United States (government). We are here today to say we will never forget the horrendous crime Americans committed against civilians," said Roya Teimourian, an Iranian actress.

The participants released 66 white pigeons into the air in remembrance of the 66 children killed in the attack. Relatives of the victims tossed flowers into the water while a navy band played the Iranian national anthem and the song "Death to America."

"How could a sophisticated warship like the USS Vincennes have mistaken a passenger plane for a fighter jet, which is two-thirds smaller?" said Mehdi Amini-Joz, who lost his father in the attack.

Ali Reza Tangsiri, a military official, said the incident was a deliberate attack.

"The airliner was increasing its altitude and was flying a commercial route. The Airbus has a general frequency which shows it is a nonmilitary plane. ... It was deliberately targeted by two missiles from the Vincennes," he said.

Iran has called for the commander of USS Vincennes at the time, William C. Rogers III, to be brought to trial. In 1990, then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush awarded Rogers the Legion of Merit for his service as a commanding officer.

Iran has said it received $130 million from a 1996 settlement that included compensation for families of the victims.

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=236378

Lockerbie Appeal Drags On.....

2008-07-17T14:14:00.000+01:00

Professor Robert Black QC has today voiced his dissatisfaction at the length of time the appeal of Megrahi is taking through the Scottish court, and the obstructive and hindering tactics employed by the crown throughout the appeal since the recommendations made by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission a year ago.

It would appear that there are in what we term our 'democratic' and 'free' society, groups and individuals who are accountable to no-one. We are surrounded by liars, hypocrites and those who say they follow the rule of law, while doing whatever they damn well like if the desired result is the conclusion they would seek.

It is absolutely clear, to even the most docile, that we have an innocent man languishing in a Scottish Prison, put there by individuals who have performed every deceitful illegal manoeuvre available, manipulated the due course of Law, suppressed vital and legitimate evidence and capitulated to the subterfuge of international Politics and Governments - all paid for by the UK taxpayer.

The crown in the Megrahi appeal, under instruction of the UK government, have created a ‘National Security’ which only serves to prohibit ordinary people from the truth under the pretence that it is in the publics benefit not to know, and provides those with power, authority and those attuned sympathetically such as judges and lawyers ‘on the inside’ with the cloak of protection to carry out the very injustices and hidden agenda’s we have witnessed.

Professor Black's Blog - http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/07/justice-delayed.html

Lockerbie Document Identified?

2008-05-30T10:15:00.002+01:00

Dr Ludwig De Braeckeleer on the OhMyNews website has wriiten an article in which he is confident that the document that is currently being debated as to it's disclosure to the defence lawyers representing Lockerbie bomber Mr Megrahi, originates from the testimony of Iranian defector Abolghasem Mesbahi who alleged that Tehran, not Tripoli, had ordered the bombing of Pan Am 103.

OhMyNews article - http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=434410&no=382678&rel_no=1

Lockerbie Appeal Procedural Hearing - Day 3

2008-05-30T09:43:00.004+01:00

"Judges order bomb document handover."

This is today's headline in Scotland's The Herald newspaper.

Scotland's top Judge Lord Justice General Lord Hamilton has ordered Advocate General Lord Davidson QC, representing the UK government to present the documents in a private session in the court within the next 7 days. The three Judges sitting for the Megrahi appeal will then determine whether the documents and the PII certificate issued by UK's Foreign Secretary David Miliband is to be upheld or whether full disclosure of the document(s) should be made to Megrahi's defence team.

Non-disclosure, a partial disclosure of the document, or security vetted and UK government endorsed Advocates sitting in place of Megrahi's defence team as has been suggested, would render the continued appeal of Megrahi pointless. The document in question and it's full disclosure forms an integral part of the SCCRC judgement last year that a miscarriage of justice may have taken place during the original trial at Zeist in 2000.

It would appear that the document(s) in question, after being viewed by the investigating Police, the UK government, the Crown office and the SCCRC, has now achieved such sensitivity that the UK government claim it would cause "real harm" to national security and international relations.

The Herald Article - http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2306938.0.Judges_order_bomb_document_handover.php

Former Iranian President Blames Tehran for Lockerbie

2008-05-28T11:32:00.003+01:00

This headline is taken from an article on today's 'Oh my news' website. In it, Ludwig De Braeckeleer writes extensively on the political, security and terrorist activities in the months leading up to the Lockerbie disaster in 1988.

He has conducted a personal interview with Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in which he states unequivocally, "that Tehran, not Libya, had ordered the bombing of Pan Am 103 in revenge for the downing of an Iranian civilian airliner by the USS Vincennes a few months earlier."

Ohmynews article here - http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=10&no=382662&rel_no=1

Extraordinary Confidentiality Sought by UK Government

2008-05-28T10:07:00.005+01:00

As expected, the UK government represented at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday by the Advocate General, Lord Davidson, have proposed that discussions on the disclosure and relevance of documents relating to the appeal of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, be conducted in private sessions. Lord Davidson also stated that this closed meeting would require a security vetted representative advocate replacing Megrahi's own defence team.

The extraordinary lengths the UK government is taking, and the proposals made during yesterday's court hearing, are unprecedented in Scottish law.

Megrahi's defence team are expected to issue their response on these matters today.

The Herald article - http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2300548.0.Advocate_General_joins_calls_for_closed_hearing_in_Lockerbie_appeal_case.php

iafrica news - http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/425091.htm

Desperate Bid To Keep Lockerbie Evidence Secret

2008-05-22T09:45:00.013+01:00

The Herald newspaper in Scotland reports today that a further procedural hearing will take place next Tuesday 27th May. The Advocate General representing the UK government is requesting a proposed session, or possible future court sessions in which a document thought to relate to the timer device used in the Lockerbie explosion will be discussed, takes place in a closed door environment.

As I stated in a post on here last year:

"If the Crown have viewed the document(s) in question and the SCCRC have either viewed or clearly know the contents of the document, I fail to see any possible valid reason for it to be withheld from Megrahi's defence team. Even in a possible closed private meeting between the three parties : the Crown, the Defence and the Judge. Surely it is the very least to be expected in any society wishing to uphold truth, fairness and justice?"

http://edsblogcity.blogspot.com/2007/12/crown-refuses-to-reveal-secret-document.html

However, in a novel twist in keeping with the unusual procedures throughout the whole investigation and trial, the crown wish to exclude Megrahi's defence team from these discussions, and instead appoint their own Advocates on behalf of Mr Megrahi to evaluate whether the document in question, and the PII certificate issued relating to it's disclosure, should be upheld.

Quite how the integrity and sincerity of the discussions and any decisions made during this court session on the subject of the withheld document(s), can be guaranteed to the public when the intended body of Advocates in place of Megrahi's defence team is determined and vetted by the very ones who are raising the PII and refuse to disclose the document, is unclear.

The Herald article here : http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2288404.0.Bid_to_ban_Lockerbie_lawyers_in_secrets_hearing.php

BBC article here : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7414359.stm

No Justification

2008-03-10T12:12:00.003Z

Dr Jim Swire has written to The Herald newspaper in Scotland regarding the Judges decision last week to uphold the right of the UK government to block the release of documents to convicted Lockerbie bomber Megrahi's defence team in his current appeal.

Mr Swire, as many other observers, finds no justification for this stance taken by the UK government.

Article Here - http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.2105464.0.No_justification.php

Non-Disclosure Upheld By Court.

2008-03-07T13:07:00.011Z

Today the Appeal court in Edinburgh Scotland has ruled in favour of the UK government and the UK's Advocate General's intervention, including it's raising of the PII (Public Interest Immunity) on the matter of the withheld document(s) in the appeal of Mr Megrahi.

In short, the appeal court has ruled that the UK Advocate General, acting on behalf of the UK government, and it's claim of PII can take precedence over any decision taken by the Lord Advocate for Scotland, as they would have done, and would have instructed any Lord Advocate of Scotland to do on their behalf, before devolution in Scotland. The Scottish Lord Advocate had previously given no objection to the referred document being disclosed, which has now been viewed by the Crown Office, the UK government, the Dumfries and Galloway Police, the Scottish Lord Advocate herself and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, whom after viewing it determined it's non-disclosure and contents may have led to a miscarriage of justice in Megrahi's original trial.

The PII now claimed of a document (relating to other non-disclosed documents) from 1996, four years before the original trial began, after already being passed through numerous departments, is nothing more than a grotesque attempt by the UK government to suppress information of the case which clearly shows a deviation from the official facts as presented by the government and the investigators in the original trial.

David Milliband, the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has stated :

"The documents were provided in confidence to the United Kingdom Government by another State. Disclosure of the documents would harm the United Kingdom's international relations with that State. It would undermine the trust in the United Kingdom of the State whose confidences were disclosed. It would reduce the willingness of that State (i) to confide information to the United Kingdom, (ii) to co-operate with the United Kingdom in various fields, including counter-terrorism liaison. It would raise serious questions in the minds of other Governments around the world about the confidentiality of their communications with the United Kingdom Government and therefore their willingness to make such a commitment."

Miss Scott, representing Mr Megrahi stated :

"The subject-matter of that plea is or concerns international relations, defence of the realm, national security and counter-terrorism all of which are reserved matters under and in terms of the Scotland Act 1998 and hence matters for the UK Government. The Crown has an interest in the consideration and disposal of that plea, namely to make submissions on whether the Crown is under a duty to disclose the documents for the purposes of the appeal and to make submissions about the procedures to be followed to enable the plea to be dealt with in a manner which does not violate the petitioner's right to a fair trial (including his appeal). The Crown cannot set out the basis for or detail of these submissions in these Answers without reference to the content of the documents and their relevance to other evidence in the case. Averments about these matters would undermine the Advocate General's plea. The two protectively marked documents were provided by a foreign authority to the UK Government in confidence. The related material comprises inter alia communications between UK Government Departments in connection with the two protectively marked documents and correspondence between Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Police."

The court, having now ruled in favour of the UK taking precedence over Scottish judicial matters, will now have to consider the PII claim in respect of the public interest, and that of National Security against that of the citizens right to a fair trial. A ruling on this matter will be made at a later date after further discussions.

Full appeal court ruling here - http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2008HCJAC15.html

Guardian Report here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/07/lockerbie.uksecurity

BBC report here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7283139.stm

Prof. Robert Black's Blog - http://www.lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/

Lockerbie Interference Claim

2008-02-20T13:42:00.009Z

BBC report - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7254822.stm

The Scotsman - http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Lockerbie-bomber-accuses-Westminster-of.3798092.jp

Today's third procedural hearing in the Appeal by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi at the High Court in Edinburgh, continued with discussions on the matter of the foreign document which the Crown office, at the behest of the UK government at Westminster, have refused to disclose to the court, and more pertinently, to the defence lawyers representing Megrahi.

It would seem to the overwhelming consensus of independent and professional observers of the case, that, in order to fulfil a thorough appeal process and justice to be exhibited, the document must be disclosed. The Crown and the UK government are claiming a Public Interest Immunity (PII) in denying the document's disclosure and the foreign country from which the document originated do not want it's release. It is thought the document contains information relating to the timer device used in the bombing of Flight 103 over Lockerbie.

Is the Public Interest best served by seeing justice done for those who died at Lockerbie and in the court of law in the conviction of Megrahi, or best served in the court acceding to international politics and their efforts to preserve secret agreements and information?

How can there be a more important public interest than that, in our society, the defendant should have a fair trial and that documents which might assist him to establish his innocence should not be withheld from him?

The PII claim made by the UK government should not outweigh this right no matter what possible damage it may cause to government or relationships with foreign governments. Perhaps the only exception to this would be if documents not disclosed under a PII would, if disclosed, serve no purpose in showing a defendants guilt or innocence in a criminal case. However, after viewing by the SCCRC during their 4 year investigation, the document in question in this case clearly represents, or has significant information constituting a possible 'miscarriage of justice'. In order to show any proof of the defendant's innocence or avoid the possibility of miscarriage of justice, the balance must come down resoundingly in favour of disclosure.

Transfer of Prisoners

2008-02-15T02:21:00.006Z

Today's The Herald newspaper carries an editorial dealing with the implications of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement made between the UK government and Libya, and the consequences of it on Mr Megrahi's ongoing appeal. It would appear that if the Scottish Crown Prosecution team who have been withholding, at least one, pertinent document which casts doubt on the conviction of Megrahi, persist with their obfuscation and evasive tactics in the court, and the appeal process finally fails, Megrahi would be almost certain to be successful in an application for transfer under the agreement.

Yesterday's letter to The Herald newspaper by Jack Straw outlined his view that Scottish Ministers in the Scottish government would have final say on any possible transfer of Megrahi from Scotland back to Libya. However, Alex Salmond the Scottish First Minister has today in response claimed that in a secret letter sent just 4 days ago by Mr Straw he admitted that any decision made by Scottish Ministers could be overturned by a judicial court ruling.

It is clear that Libya, would not under any circumstances, have signed a recent agreement with BP plc (formerly British Petroleum) , and no doubt a number of other agreements which the British public are not privy to, had the assurance of Megrahi's transfer under the PTA not been made explicit by the British government.

It would seem the last hope of any kind of justice or truth for the families of those who died in 1988, lies firmly at the door of the Crown Office, and their disclosure to the court next week of the relevant documents that the Review Commission deemed last June so important that they considered it may constitute a 'miscarriage of justice'.

The Herald editorial here :
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/editorial/display.var.2046488.0.Transfer_of_prisoners.php

Other articles :
The Herald :
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2046568.0.Clash_over_Jack_Straws_secret_letter_on_Megrahi.php

The Scotsman :http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Straw-Lockerbie-bomber39s-fate-may.3781347.jp

Jack Straw Denies Deal For Megrahi

2008-02-14T15:27:00.006Z

Today, the Lord Chancellor and Minister of Justice in the United Kingdom Government, Jack Straw (left), has written a letter to the Herald newspaper in Scotland denying any deal with the Libyan government to repatriate the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

Responding to recent claims that Megrahi was a pivotal figure and perhaps the only consideration, in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Libya's Col. Gaddafi in May 2007 regrading prisoner tranfers, Mr Straw has reiterated that Scottish ministers will have final say as to the fate of Mr Megrahi. Additionally, Mr Straw has also stated that any prisoner transfer will only be considered after "all outstanding legal proceedings in the sentencing state have been completed. "

He continued, "The agreement will not provide for the transfer of any specific individual but will put in place a framework under which a prisoner may seek a transfer to serve his sentence in his own country. The overriding principle of prisoner transfer arrangements is that a prisoner does not have any automatic right to transfer." The BBC is reporting however that Mr Megrahi will not apply for any transfer under the agreement.

Jack Straw Letter to The Herald : http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.2042935.0.No_deal_done_with_Libya_over_alMegrahi.php

Herald Article:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2042957.0.Scottish_ministers_will_have_final_say_over_fate_of_Lockerbie_bomber.php
BBC Article : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7244033.stm

Assurance Call On Bomber Transfer.

2008-02-02T18:28:00.000Z

The BBC is reporting today that the Scottish Government, led by Alex Salmond, is seeking assurance from the UK parliament at Westminster that Al-Megrahi will not be part of any exchange deal agreed between the UK and Libyan government.

Yesterday, reports surfaced in the Financial Times of London, that completion of a deal for BP to expand it's oil exploration program in Libya had been suspended until certain conditions had been agreed. Crucial to the BP agreement, it appears, was the transfer of Megrahi under the prisoner agreement made between former UK prime minister Tony Blair and Libya's Col. Gaddafi.

With Libya's recent and slow re-integration back into the International market, the French have already concluded a massive arms deal, and there are those who wish to exploit Libya's huge oil possibilities. For the US, and more specfically the UK, they hold the ace card in developing these opportunities with Libya further. His name is Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.

Once again, political and financial imperitives for the UK government are afforded far more importance than the rule of law, justice and truth.

Financial Times Article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/703dc9e4-cfa0-11dc-854a-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

BBC Article - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7224194.stm

The Bombing of PanAm Flight 103 - Case Not Closed

2008-01-27T12:51:00.000Z

by William Blum.

The newspapers were filled with pictures of happy relatives of the victims of the December 21, 1988 bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. A Libyan, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi,had been found guilty of the crime the day before, January 31,2001, by a Scottish court in the Hague, though his co-defendant,Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted. At long last there was going to be some kind of closure for the families.

But what was wrong with this picture?

What was wrong was that the evidence against Megrahi was thin to the point of transparency. Coming the month after the(s)election of George W. Bush, the Hague verdict could have been dubbed Supreme Court II, another instance of non-judicial factors fatally clouding judicial reasoning. The three Scottish judges could not have relished returning to the United Kingdom after finding both defendants innocent of the murder of 270 people,largely from the U.K. and the United States. Not to mention having to face dozens of hysterical victims' family members in the courtroom. The three judges also well knew the fervent desires of the White House and Downing Street as to the outcome. If both men had been acquitted, the United States and Great Britain would have had to answer for a decade of sanctions and ill will directed toward Libya.

One has to read the entire 26,000-word "Opinion of the Court", as well as being very familiar with the history of the case going back to 1988, to appreciate how questionable was the judges' verdict.

The key charge against Megrahi -- the sine qua non -- was that he placed explosives in a suitcase and tagged it so it would lead the following charmed life: 1)loaded aboard an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt without an accompanying passenger;2)transferred in Frankfurt to the PanAm 103A flight to London without an accompanying passenger; 3)transferred in London to the PanAm 103 flight to New York without an accompanying passenger.

To the magic bullet of the JFK assassination, can we now add the magic suitcase?

This scenario by itself would have been a major feat and so unlikely to succeed that any terrorist with any common sense would have found a better way. But aside from anything else, we have this -- as to the first step, loading the suitcase at Malta:there was no witness, no video, no document, no fingerprints,nothing to tie Megrahi to the particular brown Samsonite suitcase, no past history of terrorism, no forensic evidence of any kind linking him or Fhimah to such an act.

And the court admitted it: "The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 [Air Malta] is a major difficulty for the Crown case."{1}

Moreover, under security requirements in 1988, unaccompanied baggage was subjected to special X-ray examinations, plus --because of recent arrests in Germany -- the security personnel in Frankfurt were on the lookout specifically for a bomb secreted in a radio, which turned out to indeed be the method used with the PanAm 103 bomb.

Requiring some sort of direct and credible testimony linking Megrahi to the bombing, the Hague court placed great -- nay,paramount -- weight upon the supposed identification of the Libyan by a shopkeeper in Malta, as the purchaser of the clothing found in the bomb suitcase. But this shopkeeper had earlier identified several other people as the culprit, including one who was a CIA agent.{1a} When he finally identified Megrahi from a photo, it was after Megrahi's photo had been in the world news for years. The court acknowledged the possible danger inherentin such a verification: "These identifications were criticised inter alia on the ground that photographs of the accused have featured many times over the years in the media and accordingly purported identifications more than 10 years after the event are of little if any value."{2}

There were also major discrepancies between the shopkeeper's original description of the clothes-buyer and Megrahi's actual appearance. The shopkeeper told police that the customer was"six feet or more in height" and "was about 50 years of age."Megrahi was 5'8" tall and was 36 in 1988. The judges again acknowledged the weakness of their argument by conceding that the initial description "would not in a number of respects fit the first accused [Megrahi]" and that "it has to be accepted that there was a substantial discrepancy."{3}

Nevertheless, the judges went ahead and accepted the identification as accurate. Before the indictment of the two Libyans in Washington in November 1991, the press had reported police findings that the clothing had been purchased on November 23, 1988.{4}

But the indictment of Megrahi states that he made the purchase on December 7. Can this be because the investigators were able to document Megrahi being in Malta (where he worked for Libya Airlines) on that date but cannot do so for November 23?{5}

There is also this to be considered -- If the bomber needed some clothing to wrap up an ultra-secret bomb in a suitcase,would he go to a clothing store in the city where he planned to carry out his dastardly deed, where he knew he'd likely be remembered as an obvious foreigner, and buy brand new, easily traceable items? Would an intelligence officer -- which Megrahiwas alleged to be -- do this? Or even a common boob? Wouldn't it make more sense to use any old clothing, from anywhere? Furthermore, after the world was repeatedly assured that these items of clothing were sold only on Malta, it was learned that at least one of the items was actually "sold at dozens of outlets throughout Europe, and it was impossible to trace the purchaser."{6}

The "Opinion of the Court" placed considerable weight on the suspicious behavior of Megrahi prior to the fatal day, making much of his comings and goings abroad, phone calls to unknown parties for unknown reasons, the use of a pseudonym, etc.The three judges tried to squeeze as much mileage out of these events as they could, as if they had no better case to make.But if Megrahi was indeed a member of Libyan intelligence, we must consider that intelligence agents have been known to act in mysterious ways, for whatever assignment they're on. The court,however, had no idea what assignment, if any, Megrahi was working on.

There is much more that is known about the case that makes the court verdict and written opinion questionable, although credit must be given the court for its frankness about what it was doing, even while it was doing it. "We are aware that in relation to certain aspects of the case there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications," the judges wrote. "We arealso aware that there is a danger that by selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of conflicting evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified."{7}

It is remarkable, given all that the judges conceded was questionable or uncertain in the trial -- not to mention all that was questionable or uncertain that they didn't concede -- that at the end of the day they could still declare to the world that"There is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of [Megrahi]".{8}

The Guardian of London later wrote that two days before the verdict, "senior Foreign Office officials briefed a group of journalists in London. They painted a picture of a bright new chapter in Britain's relations with Colonel Gadafy's regime. They made it quite clear they assumed both the Libyans in the dock would be acquitted. The Foreign Office officials were not alone. Most independent observers believed it was impossible for the court to find the prosecution had proved its case against Megrahi beyond reasonable doubt."{9}

There is, moreover, an alternative scenario, laying the blame on Palestinians, Iran and Syria, which is much better documented and makes a lot more sense, logistically and otherwise. Indeed, this was the Original Official Version, delivered with Olympian rectitude by the U.S. government -- guaranteed,sworn to, scout's honor, case closed -- until the buildup to the Gulf War came along in 1990 and the support of Iran and Syria was needed.

Washington was anxious as well to achieve the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by groups close to Iran. Thus it was that the scurrying sound of backtracking became audible in the corridors of the White House. Suddenly -- or so it seemed -- in October 1990, there was aNew Official Version:

It was Libya -- the Arab state least supportive of the U.S. build-up to the Gulf War and the sanctions imposed against Iraq -- that was behind the bombing after all,declared Washington.

The two Libyans were formally indicted in the U.S. and Scotland on Nov. 14, 1991. "This was a Libyan government operation from start to finish," declared the State Department spokesman.{10}

"The Syrians took a bum rap on this," said President GeorgeH.W. Bush.{11}

Within the next 20 days, the remaining four American hostages were released along with the most prominent British hostage, Terry Waite.

The Original Official Version accused the PFLP-GC, a 1968breakaway from a component of the Palestine Liberation Organization, of making the bomb and somehow placing it aboard the flight in Frankfurt.

The PFLP-GC was led by Ahmed Jabril, one of the world's leading terrorists, and was headquartered in, financed by, and closely supported by, Syria. The bombing was allegedly done at the behest of Iran as revenge for the U.S. shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988,which claimed 290 lives.

The support for this scenario was, and remains, impressive,as the following sample indicates: In April 1989, the FBI -- in response to criticism that it was bungling the investigation -- leaked to CBS the news that it had tentatively identified the person who unwittingly carried the bomb aboard.

His name was Khalid Jaafar, a 21-year-old Lebanese-American. The report said that the bomb had been planted in Jaafar's suitcase by a member of the PFLP-GC, whose name was not revealed.{12}

In May, the State Department stated that the CIA was"confident" of the Iran-Syria-PFLP-GC account of events.{13}

On Sept. 20, The Times of London reported that "security officials from Britain, the United States and West Germany are 'totally satisfied' that it was the PFLP-GC" behind the crime. In December 1989, Scottish investigators announced that theyhad "hard evidence" of the involvement of the PFLP-GC in the bombing.{14}

A National Security Agency electronic intercept disclosed that Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, Iranian interior minister, had paid Palestinian terrorists $10 million dollars to gain revenge for the downed Iranian airplane.(15)

The intercept appears to have occurred in July 1988, shortly after the downing of the Iranian plane. Israeli intelligence also intercepted a communication between Mohtashemi and the Iranian embassy in Beirut "indicating that Iran paid for the Lockerbie bombing."{16}

Even after the Libyans had been indicted, Israeli officials declared that their intelligence analysts remained convinced that the PFLP-GC bore primary responsibility for the bombing.{17}

In 1992, Abu Sharif, a political adviser to PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, stated that the PLO had compiled a secret report which concluded that the bombing of 103 was the work of a "MiddleEastern country" other than Libya.{18}

In February 1995, former Scottish Office minister, Alan Stewart, wrote to the British Foreign Secretary and the Lord Advocate, questioning the reliability of evidence which had led to the accusations against the two Libyans. This move, wrote The Guardian, reflected the concern of the Scottish legal profession,reaching into the Crown Office (Scotland's equivalent of the Attorney General's Office), that the bombing may not have been the work of Libya, but of Syrians, Palestinians and Iranians.{19}

We must also ask why Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,writing in her 1993 memoirs about the US bombing of Libya in1986, with which Britain had cooperated, stated: "But the much vaunted Libyan counter-attack did not and could not take place. Gaddafy had not been destroyed but he had been humbled. There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years."{20}

A key question in the PFLP-GC version has always been: How did the bomb get aboard the plane in Frankfurt, or at some other point? One widely disseminated explanation was in a report, completed during the summer of 1989 and leaked in the fall, which had been prepared by a New York investigating firm called Interfor. Headed by a former Israeli intelligence agent, Juval Aviv, Interfor -- whose other clients included Fortune 500companies, the FBI, IRS and Secret Service{21} -- was hired by the law firm representing Pan Am's insurance carrier.

The Interfor Report said that in the mid-1980s, a drug and arms smuggling operation was set up in various European cities,with Frankfurt airport as the site of one of the drug routes. The Frankfurt operation was run by Manzer Al-Kassar, a Syrian,the same man from whom Oliver North's shadowy network purchased large quantities of arms for the contras. At the airport, according to the report, a courier would board a flight with checked luggage containing innocent items; after the luggage had passed all security checks, one or another accomplice Turkish baggage handler for PanAm would substitute an identical suitcase containing contraband; the passenger then picked up this suitcase upon arrival at the destination.

The only courier named by Interfor was Khalid Jaafar, who, as noted above, had been named by the FBI a few months earlier as the person who unwittingly carried the bomb aboard.

The Interfor report spins a web much too lengthy and complex to go into here. The short version is that the CIA in Germany discovered the airport drug operation and learned also that Kassar had the contacts to gain the release of American hostages in Lebanon. He had already done the same for French hostages. Thus it was, that the CIA and the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA,Federal Criminal Office) allowed the drug operation to continue in hopes of effecting the release of American hostages. According to the report, this same smuggling ring and its method of switching suitcases at the Frankfurt airport were used to smuggle the fatal bomb aboard flight 103, under the eyes ofthe CIA and BKA.

In January 1990, Interfor gave three of the baggage handlers polygraphs and two of them were judged as being deceitful when denying any involvement in baggage switching. However, neither the U.S., UK or German investigators showed any interest in the results, or in questioning the baggage handlers. Instead, the polygrapher, James Keefe, was hauled before a Washington grand jury, and, as he puts it, "They were bent on destroying my credibility -- not theirs" [the baggage handlers].

To Interfor,the lack of interest in the polygraph results and the attempt at intimidation of Keefe was the strongest evidence of a cover-up by the various government authorities who did not want their permissive role in the baggage switching to be revealed.{22}

Critics claimed that the Interfor report had been inspired by PanAm's interest in proving that it was impossible for normal airline security to have prevented the loading of the bomb, thus removing the basis for accusing the airline of negligence.

The report was the principal reason PanAm's attorneys subpoenaed the FBI, CIA, DEA, State Department, National Security Council, and NSA, as well as, reportedly, the Defense Intelligence Agency and FAA, to turn over all documents relating to the crash of 103 or to a drug operation preceding the crash. The government moved to quash the subpoenas on grounds of"national security", and refused to turn over a single document in open court, although it gave some to a judge to view privately.

The judge later commented that he was "troubled about certain parts" of what he'd read, adding "I don't know quite what to do because I think some of the material may be significant."{23}

On October 30, 1990, NBC-TV News reported that "PanAm flights from Frankfurt, including 103, had been used a number of times by the DEA as part of its undercover operation to fly informants and suitcases of heroin into Detroit as part of a sting operation to catch dealers in Detroit."

The TV network reported that the DEA was looking into the possibility that a young man who lived in Michigan and regularly visited the Middle East may have unwittingly carried the bomb aboard flight 103. His name was Khalid Jaafar. "Unidentified law enforcement sources" were cited as saying that Jaafar had been a DEA informant and was involved in a drug-sting operation based out of Cyprus. The DEA was investigating whether the PFLP-GC had tricked Jaafar into carrying a suitcase containing the bomb instead of the drugs he usually carried.

The NBC report quoted an airline source as saying:"Informants would put [suit]cases of heroin on the PanAm flights apparently without the usual security checks, through an arrangement between the DEA and German authorities."{24}

These revelations were enough to inspire a congressional hearing, held in December, entitled, "Drug Enforcement Administration's Alleged Connection to the PanAm Flight 103Disaster".

The chairman of the committee, Cong. Robert Wise (Dem., W.VA.), began the hearing by lamenting the fact that the DEA and the Department of Justice had not made any of their field agentswho were most knowledgeable about flight 103 available to testify; that they had not provided requested written information, including the results of the DEA's investigation into the air disaster; and that "the FBI to this date has been totally uncooperative".

The two DEA officials who did testify admitted that theagency had, in fact, run "controlled drug deliveries" through Frankfurt airport with the cooperation of German authorities,using U.S. airlines, but insisted that no such operation had been conducted in December 1988. (The drug agency had said nothing of its sting operation to the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism which had held hearings in the first months of 1990 in response to the 103 bombing.)

The officials denied that the DEA had had any "association with Mr. Jaafar in any way, shape, or form." However, to questions concerning Jaafar's background, family, and his frequent trips to Lebanon, they asked to respond only in closed session. They made the same request in response to several other questions.{25}

NBC News had reported on October 30 that the DEA had toldlaw enforcement officers in Detroit not to talk to the mediaabout Jaafar.

The hearing ended after but one day, even though Wise hadpromised a "full-scale" investigation and indicated during thehearing that there would be more to come. What was said in theclosed sessions remains closed.{26}

One of the DEA officials who testified, Stephen Greene, had himself had a reservation on flight 103, but he canceled because of one or more of the several international warnings that had preceded the fateful day. He has described standing on theHeathrow tarmac, watching the doomed plane take off.{27} There have been many reports of heroin being found in the field around the crash, from "traces" to "a substantial quantity"found in a suitcase.{28} Two days after the NBC report, however,the New York Times quoted a "federal official" saying that "no hard drugs were aboard the aircraft."

In 1994, American filmmaker Allan Francovich completed adocumentary, "The Maltese Double Cross", which presents Jaafar asan unwitting bomb carrier with ties to the DEA and the CIA. Showings of the film in Britain were canceled under threat of lawsuits, venues burglarized or attacked by arsonists. When Channel4 agreed to show the film, the Scottish Crown Office and the U.S.Embassy in London sent press packs to the media, labeling thefilm "blatant propaganda" and attacking some of the film'sinterviewees, including Juval Aviv the head of Interfor.{29} Aviv paid a price for his report and his outspokenness.

Over a period of time, his New York office suffered a series ofbreak-ins, the FBI visited his clients, his polygrapher washarassed, as mentioned above, and a contrived commercial fraudcharge was brought against him. Even though Aviv eventually wascleared in court, it was a long, expensive, and painfulordeal.{30}

Francovich also stated that he had learned that five CIAoperatives had been sent to London and Cyprus to discredit thefilm while it was being made, that his office phones were tapped,that staff cars were sabotaged, and that one of his researchersnarrowly escaped an attempt to force his vehicle into the path ofan oncoming truck.{31}

Government officials examining the Lockerbie bombing went sofar as to ask the FBI to investigate the film. The Bureau laterissued a highly derogatory opinion of it.{32}

The film's detractors made much of the fact that the filmwas initially funded jointly by a UK company (two-thirds) and aLibyan government investment arm (one-third). Francovich saidthat he was fully aware of this and had taken pains to negotiatea guarantee of independence from any interference.

On April 17, 1997, Allan Francovich suddenly died of a heartattack at age 56, upon arrival at Houston Airport.{33} His film has had virtually no showings in the United States.

The DEA sting operation and Interfor's baggage-handler hypothesisboth predicate the bomb suitcase being placed aboard the plane inFrankfurt without going through the normal security checks. Ineither case, it eliminates the need for the questionabletriple-unaccompanied baggage scenario. With either scenario theclothing could still have been purchased in Malta, but in anyevent we don't need the Libyans for that.

Mohammed Abu Talb fits that and perhaps other pieces of thepuzzle. The Palestinian had close ties to PFLP-GC cells inGermany which were making Toshiba radio-cassette bombs, similar,if not identical, to what was used to bring down 103. In October1988, two months before Lockerbie, the German police raided thesecells, finding several such bombs. In May 1989, Talb wasarrested in Sweden, where he lived, and was later convicted oftaking part in several bombings of the offices of Americanairline companies in Scandinavia. In his Swedish flat, policefound large quantities of clothing made in Malta.

Police investigation of Talb disclosed that during October1988 he had been to Cyprus and Malta, at least once in thecompany of Hafez Dalkamoni, the leader of the German PFLP-GC, whowas arrested in the raid. The men met with PFLP-GC members wholived in Malta. Talb was also in Malta on November 23, which wasoriginally reported as the date of the clothing purchase beforethe indictment of the Libyans, as mentioned earlier.

After his arrest, Talb told investigators that betweenOctober and December 1988 he had retrieved and passed to anotherperson a bomb that had been hidden in a building used by thePFLP-GC in Germany. Officials declined to identify the person towhom Talb said he had passed the bomb. A month later, however,he recanted his confession.

Talb was reported to possess a brown Samsonite suitcase andto have circled December 21 in a diary seized in his Swedish flat. After the raid upon his flat, his wife was heard to telephonePalestinian friends and say: "Get rid of the clothes."

In December 1989, Scottish police, in papers filed withSwedish legal officials, made Talb the only publicly identifiedsuspect "in the murder or participation in the murder of 270people"; the Palestinian subsequently became another of theseveral individuals to be identified by the Maltese shopkeeperfrom a photo as the clothing purchaser.{34} Since that time, theworld has scarcely heard of Abu Talb, who was sentenced to lifein prison in Sweden, but never charged with anything to do with Lockerbie.

In Allan Francovich's film, members of Khalid Jaafar's family-- which long had ties to the drug trade in Lebanon's notoriousBekaa Valley -- are interviewed. In either halting English ortranslated Arabic, or paraphrased by the film's narrator, theydrop many bits of information, but which are difficult to puttogether into a coherent whole. Amongst the bits ... Khalid hadtold his parents that he'd met Talb in Sweden and had been givenMaltese clothing ... someone had given Khalid a tape recorder, orput one into his bag ... he was told to go to Germany to friendsof PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jabril who would help him earn some money... he arrived in Germany with two kilos of heroin ... "He didn'tknow it was a bomb. They gave him the drugs to take to Germany. He didn't know. Who wants to die?" ...

It can not be stated with certainty what happened atFrankfurt airport on that fateful day, if, as seems most likely,that is the place where the bomb was placed into the system. Either Jaafar, the DEA courier, arrived with his suitcase ofheroin and bomb and was escorted through security by the properauthorities, or this was a day he was a courier for Manzeral-Kassar, and the baggage handlers did their usual switch. Or perhaps we'll never know for sure what happened.

On February 16, 1990, a group of British relatives of Lockerbie victims went to the American Embassy in London for a meeting with members of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism. After the meeting, Britisher Martin Cadman was chatting with two of the commission members. He later reportedwhat one of them had said to him: "Your government and ourgovernment know exactly what happened at Lockerbie. But they are not going to tell you."{35}

Comments about the Hague Court verdict

"The judges nearly agreed with the defense. In their verdict, they tossed out much of the prosecution witnesses'evidence as false or questionable and said the prosecution had failed to prove crucial elements, including the route that thebomb suitcase took." -- New York Times analysis.{36} "It sure does look like they bent over backwards to find away to convict, and you have to assume the political context ofthe case influenced them." -- Michael Scharf, professor, NewEngland School of Law.{37}

"I thought this was a very, very weak circumstantial case. I am absolutely astounded, astonished. I was extremely reluctant to believe that any Scottish judge would convict anyone, even a Libyan, on the basis of such evidence." -- Robert Black, Scottish law professor who was the architect of the Hague trial.{38}

"A general pattern of the trial consisted in the fact thatvirtually all people presented by the prosecution as keywitnesses were proven to lack credibility to a very high extent,in certain cases even having openly lied to the court." "While the first accused was found 'guilty', the secondaccused was found 'not guilty'. ... This is totallyincomprehensible for any rational observer when one considersthat the indictment in its very essence was based on the jointaction of the two accused in Malta."

"As to the undersigned's knowledge, there is not a singlepiece of material evidence linking the two accused to the crime. In such a context, the guilty verdict in regard to the firstaccused appears to be arbitrary, even irrational. ... This leadsthe undersigned to the suspicion that political considerationsmay have been overriding a strictly judicial evaluation of thecase ... Regrettably, through the conduct of the Court,disservice has been done to the important cause of internationalcriminal justice." -- Hans Koechler, appointed as an international observer of the Lockerbie Trial by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.{39}

So, let's hope that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is really guilty. It would be a terrible shame if he spends the rest of his life in prison because back in 1990 Washington's hegemonicplans for the Middle East needed a convenient enemy, which just happened to be his country.

NOTES

1. "Opinion of the Court", Par. 39
1a. Mark Perry, Eclipse: The Last Days of the CIA (Wm. Morrow, New York, 1992), pp.342-7.
2. "Opinion of the Court", Par. 55
3. "Opinion of the Court", Par. 68
4. See, e.g., Sunday Times (London), Nov. 12, 1989, p.3.
5. For a detailed discussion of this issue see, "A Special Reportfrom Private Eye: Lockerbie the Flight from Justice", May/June2001, pp.20-22; Private Eye is a magazine published in London.
6. Sunday Times (London), December 17, 1989, p. 14. Malta is, infact, a major manufacturer of clothing sold throughout the world.
7. "Opinion of the Court", Par. 89
8. Ibid.
9. The Guardian (London), June 19, 2001
10. New York Times, Nov. 15, 1991
11. Los Angeles Times, Nov. 15, 1991
12. New York Times, April 13, 1989, p.9; David Johnston,Lockerbie: The Tragedy of Flight 103 (New York, 1989), pp.157,161-2.
13. Washington Post, May 11, 1989, p. 1
14. New York Times, December 16, 1989, p.3.
15. Department of the Air Force -- Air Intelligence Agencyintelligence summary report, March 4, 1991, released under a FOIA request made by lawyers for PanAm. Reports of the interceptappeared in the press long before the above document wasreleased; see, e.g., New York Times, Sept. 27, 1989, p.11;October 31, 1989, p.8; Sunday Times, October 29, 1989, p.4. Butit wasn't until Jan. 1995 that the exact text became widelypublicized and caused a storm in the UK, although ignored in theU.S.
16. The Times (London), September 20, 1989, p.1
17. New York Times, November 21, 1991, p. 14. It should be bornein mind, however, that Israel may have been influenced because ofits hostility toward the PFLP-GC.
18. Reuters dispatch, datelined Tunis, Feb. 26, 1992
19. The Guardian, Feb. 24, 1995, p.7
20. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York, 1993),pp.448-9.
21. National Law Journal, Sept. 25, 1995, p.A11, from papersfiled in a New York court case.
22. Barron's (New York), December 17, 1990, pp.19, 22. A copy ofthe Interfor Report is in the author's possession, but he hasbeen unable to locate a complete copy of it on the Internet.
23. Barron's, op. cit., p. 18.
24. The Times (London), November 1, 1990, p.3; Washington Times,October 31, 1990, p.3
25. Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture Subcommitteeof the Committee on Government Operations, House ofRepresentatives, December 18, 1990, passim.
26. Ibid,
27. The film, "The Maltese Double Cross" (see below).
28. Sunday Times (London), April 16, 1989 (traces); Johnston, op.cit., p.79 (substantial). "The Maltese Double Cross" filmmentions other reports of drugs found, by a Scottish policemanand a mountain rescue man.
29. Financial Times (London), May 12, 1995, p.8 and article byJohn Ashton, leading 103 investigator, in The Mail on Sunday(London), June 9, 1996.
30. Ashton, op. cit.; Wall Street Journal, December 18, 1995,p.1, and December 18, 1996, p.B2 31. The Guardian (London), April 23, 1994, p.5
32. Sunday Times (London), May 7, 1995.
33. Francovich's former wife told the author that he had not hadany symptoms of a heart problem before. However, the author also spoke to Dr. Cyril Wecht, of JFK "conspiracy" fame, who performedan autopsy on Francovich. Wecht stated that he found no reason to suspect foul play.
34. Re: Abu Talb, all 1989: New York Times, Oct. 31, p.1, Dec. 1,p.12, Dec. 24, p.1; Sunday Times (London), Nov. 12, p.3, December5; The Times (London), Dec. 21, p.5. Also The Associated Press,July 11, 2000
35. Cadman in "The Maltese Double Cross". Also see The Guardian,July 29, 1995, p.27
36. New York Times, Feb. 2, 2001
37. Ibid.
38. Electronic Telegraph UK News, February 4, 2001
39. All quotations are from Koechler's report of February 3,2001, easily found on the Internet

Written by William Blum , author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions SinceWorld War II andRogue State: A Guide to the World's Only SuperpowerThis essay is a chapter in the book, Everything You Know Is Wrong,a sequel to the book You Are Being Lied To.

http://members.aol.com/bblum6/panam.htm

Interview With Megrahi

2008-01-13T21:12:00.000Z

Prof. Robert Black's blog site has published an interview with the convicted Lockerbie bomber Al Megrahi, taken from Al-Quds al-Arabi.

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/01/interview-with-megrahi.html

Jim Swire's Letter - "Paying for Evidence"

2008-01-13T20:56:00.000Z

Apologies for the lack of updates recently as I have been working abroad.

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Dr Jim Swire of the UKF 103, has written to The Herald newspaper in Scotland expressing his concerns regarding payments made to witnesses at the Lockerbie trial, and therefore the credibility of their testimony.

"Paying for evidence is contrary to justice"

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.1948469.0.Paying_for_evidence_is_contrary_to_justice.php

Lockerbie - Hardie Amiss

2007-12-31T12:25:00.000Z

At the original trial at Camp Zeist, three Judges were appointed - all Lords. In the chair was Lord Sutherland, 68, a Queens Counsel since 1969. The others were Lord Coulsfield, 66, QC since 1973, and Lord McLean, 61.

The prosecution was originally to have been led by the Blairite Peer Lord Hardie, the new Labour Scottish Advocate. Not long before the trial started, Lord Hardie applied to become a High Court Judge and dropped out as chief Lockerbie prosecutor.

Private Eye magazine reported in May 2000 : "Hardie had been a pivotal figure in the authorities' handling of the Lockerbie disaster. During the last Conservative administration he served as deputy Crown spokesman at the 1990-91 fatal accident inquiry into the disaster. His abrupt decision to cut off all connection with the trial with only two months before it was due to begin was greeted with consternation by the relatives.

On 18th February Pamela Dix secretary of UK Families 103, whose brother died at Lockerbie, wrote to Lord Hardie to express the families' 'great surprise and indeed shock' at his decision. 'I would be grateful', she continued, 'if you could clarify whether the decision was yours alone.' So disturbed was the noble Lord by this anxious letter that he did not bother to reply."

Lord Hardie was replaced as Lord Advocate by his successor Colin Boyd QC and his Advocate Depute Alistair Campbell QC. They were supported by yet another QC, Alan Turnbull and two official of the the US Justice department, who sat with them.

Megrahi was represented by William Taylor QC, 56, a former Edinburgh Labour councillor and a Parliamentary Labour candidate. Fhimah's QC was Richard Kenn, 46.

The key solicitor for the defense, who represented Megrahi, was Alistair Duff, a criminal lawyer from Edinburgh, who had been associated with the case since first approached in 1993. Mr Duff has a reputation in Scotland for believing in and fighting for his clients : a reputation powerfully vindicated throughout the Camp Zeist trial.

The trial opened on May 3rd 2000 and dragged through numerous postponements and delays until judgement day on 31st January 2001.

From the outset it was clear that the trial would take so long and it's proceedings were so insufferably boring that few journalists would last the pace. The point was made graphically by the BBC's crime correspondent Joshua Rozenberg.

Rosenberg was, and is, a firm believer in British justice. He had recently published a rather flattering analysis of British judges. He was however horrified by what he found at Camp Zeist.

Writing in the Guardian on 5th June 2000 : Who Brought Down The Lockerbie Trial? Why Is The Most Important Trial In The World Being Ignored By The Media?

The entire proceedings seemed to him to be plunged into chaos and impossible to follow. Facilities for journalists, though lavish, were absolutely useless when it came to finding out basic information. Even the list of witnesses was withheld from the media.

The lawyers were separated from the journalists, public and relatives by screens. The reporters had nothing more to go on than the formal indictment issued nine years previously.

The Lord Advocate Colin Boyd didn't like questions, and found it hard to explain why "officials from the United States Justice Department are sit next to prosecution lawyers in court" ; or what the official told the victims' families at briefings every evening ; or why the prosecution again and again ran out of witnesses, forcing unnecessary adjournments.

The whole trial seems deliberately bunged up with issues that would never have arisen in an ordinary criminal case, and hours wasted on what seemed to be quite uncontroversial evidence.

No wonder, thought Rosenberg as he headed for home, so many journalists were giving the trial up for lost, and so little even the bare bones of the proceedings were appearing in the media. "Justice will be the loser", he grimly predicted, and he was right.

(c) Paul Foot/ Private Eye 2001

Rice To Meet Libyan Foreign Minister.

2007-12-31T12:07:00.000Z

Today's Scotsman newspaper is reporting a meeting is planned between Condoleezza Rice and Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalqam in Washington on Thursday, to discuss "unresolved issues" surrounding the Lockerbie case. It will be a Libyan government officials first visit to the US for 35 years.

Article here - http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Tense-forecast-for-Hogmanay-weather.3628798.jp

Libya May Escape Final Judgment in Pan-Am 103 Case

2007-12-22T12:10:00.000Z

By Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor.

Libya is close to getting off the hook for millions of dollars in payments to relatives of the 189 Americans who died in the bombing of Pan American Flight 103, amid a stiff new challenge to the 2001 verdict and rapidly warming relations between the erstwhile terrorist state and Washington.

It was 19 years ago this weekend that the airliner, bound from London to New York with 259 passengers, 189 of them Americans, exploded in the night skies over Scotland, killing all aboard as well as 11 residents of Lockerbie, the village where the fiery chunks of steel and other debris came crashing down.

A memorial service was planned for Friday at Arlington National Cemetery to mark the anniversary.

Back in 1988, Iran was immediately suspected of authoring the mass murder, in retaliation for the accidental downing of one of its own airliners by a U.S. Navy warship in the Persian Gulf a few months earlier.

U.S. intelligence agencies, in overdrive to find the culprits, quickly compiled evidence that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, or PFLP-GC, had carried out the plot on behalf of Iran and Syria. (The PFLP-GC was formed to opposed PLO leader Yassir Arafat’s movement toward detente with Israel.)

Nevertheless, on Jan. 31, 2001, a panel of three Scottish judges found Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, officially the head of security for Libyan Airlines, guilty of carrying out the plot and sentenced him to life in jail. A Libyan co-defendant was set free.

Libya always denied any guilt in the crime, but agreed to compensate relatives of the dead to open the door for normal relations with the United States. It also agreed to compensate victims of the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle discotheque in West Berlin, a gathering place for U.S. soldiers. Libya also denied complicity in that attack, which killed three and wounded scores more, but likewise agreed on compensation payments.

Megrahi, now serving a life sentence in Scotland, could be freed soon, British authorities hinted on Thursday, as part of a broad normalization of relations with Libya.

Only a day earlier, the Bush administration managed to stave off a congressional effort, led by Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg , D-N.J., to deny it funds to build an embassy in Tripoli until Libya completed payments to the relatives of those who died on Pan Am 103.

While Lautenberg lost that battle, he and his allies in the House did manage to prohibit the administration from giving Libya any U.S. aid until the payments are completed.

‘A Gaping Hole’

The ranks of critics of the 2001 verdict have steadily grown through the years.
Among them is Hans Koehler, the eminent Austrian jurist who was appointed by the United Nations to ensure the trial was conducted fairly.

“It is highly likely that the sentenced Libyan national is not guilty as charged and that one or more countries other than Libya, through their intelligence services and/or financial and logistical support for a terrorist group, may have responsibility for the crime,” Koehler said in a formal statement this year.

Likewise, Robert Black, the senior University of Edinburgh legal scholar who devised the trial of the Lockerbie defendants in the Netherlands under Scottish law, noted that the prosecution never produced any direct evidence tying the defendants to the bomb that brought the plane down.

It was entirely “circumstantial,” he said, based on a single computer print-out of a baggage manifest, which was contradicted by other evidence. “A gaping hole in the prosecution’s case,” he called it.

But more sinister factors were at work in the investigation, Black and other authoritative sources close to the case told me.

Black told me that he suspected Libya was framed to avoid a case that would hold Iran and Syria responsible.

The first Bush administration needed Syria to stay in the broad Middle East coalition that it was readying to oust Iraq’s troops from Kuwait.

“I have been told by persons involved in the Lockerbie investigation at a very high level, that a public announcement of PFLP-GC responsibility for the bombing was imminent in early 1991,”

Black told me, confirming earlier U.K. press reports. “Then suddenly, and to the mystification and annoyance of many on the investigation team, the focus of the investigation changed to Libya.”

Robert Baer, the former CIA officer who was based in Paris at the time and tracking Iranian terrorist operations, agrees.

Baer told me the Scottish commission reviewing evidence in the case was able to confirm that Iran and Syria paid the PFLP-GC to carry out the bombing.

Indeed, Vincent Cannistraro, who headed the CIA’s investigation of the crash, was quoted several times in 1989 blaming Iran, and right after the 1991 verdict he said it “was outrageous to pin the whole thing on Libya.” (Oddly, last week he told me the evidence “always pointed to the Libyans.”)

But Baer says, “Everybody” in U.S. intelligence knew about “Iran’s intention to bomb an American airliner” in response to the downing of one of its own only months earlier.”

“We knew that,” Baer added. “We had that solid.”

The Defense Intelligence Agency also thought the Iranians paid the PFLP-GC to do it.
Patrick Lang, chief of the DIA’s Middle East section at the time, told me he “signed off” on the DIA’s conclusion that “The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorized and financed by Ali-Akbar (Mohtashemi-Pur), the former Iranian minister of Interior.”

“The operation was contracted to Ahmad Jabril” [the head of the PFLP-GC] . . . for $1 million,” said the Sept. 24, 1989, memo, first reported last week in a London tabloid. “The remainder was to be paid after successful completion of the mission.”

Lang said on Friday, “I still agree with that. We felt quite sure that this was a PFLP thing.”
“The CIA wouldn’t listen to that,” Lang added, because it couldn’t find proof of Iranian or Syrian complicity and was under immense pressure to solve the case.

Just last week, a Scottish newspaper, citing “sources close to the investigation,” recently cited specific transactions that the SCCRC allegedly had uncovered, including amounts and dates.

“This doesn’t exonerate Libya,” Baer cautioned. “Iran and Syria and Libya could have been working together.”

Plenty of Theories

Conspiracy theories have grown like barnacles on the much-questioned verdict, including far-fetched allegations of Israeli and even South African involvement in the crime.

On the Internet, some bloggers see the hand of the White House in the growing evidence of Iranian complicity in the Pan Am bombing, suggesting that the administration is further laying the groundwork for an attack on Iran.

The available evidence, however, suggests that the administration is primarily interested in getting Western companies’ access to Libya’s oil fields.

A particularly persistent rumor is that key witnesses were paid off by American intelligence to finger the Libyans.

Edwin Bollier, head of the Swiss company that was said to have manufactured the timer used to detonate the Pan Am bomb, has claimed variously that he was offered “bribes” by the FBI and CIA to finger Libya.

Bollier’s company did in fact supply the circuit boards to Libya, he admitted, but also East Germany, where the PFLP-GC had an office.

Since Bollier had ongoing business with the Qaddafi regime, his veracity has often been questioned.

In response to my query, a CIA spokesman ridiculed Bollier’s accusations that it offered or paid him anything.

“It may disappoint the conspiracy buffs, but the CIA doesn’t belong in your story,” he said, insisting on anonymity.

An FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed, however, that the bureau met with Bollier in Washington in 1991, but denied he was offered anything to implicate Libya.
In a formal statement, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko emphatically rejected any suggestions of a payoff.

“Any accusations that any witness was paid to lie are complete fabrications and these ridiculous statements should be immediately discounted as the untruths they are,” Kolko said. “That is not the way the FBI operates.”

Likewise, allegations have persisted that Tony Gauci, a shopkeeper on Malta who testified, in spite of contrary evidence, that he sold Megrahi clothing that ended up in the suitcase bomb, was paid to finger the Libyans.

But Gauci was paid approximately $2 million from the State Department’s USA Rewards program, an authoritative source told me, along with another, still unidentified witness.

Together, they were paid somewhere between $3 million and $4 million for information leading to the conviction of Megrahi, the source said.

The State Department acknowledged to me that rewards were paid.

“A reward was paid out in the Lockerbie-Pan Am 103 case,” a spokesperson there said on condition of anonymity, “but due to operational and security concerns we are not disclosing details regarding specific amounts, sources, or types of assistance the sources provided.”

Freeing Megrahi

All this — and much more questionable evidence related to the electronic timers and witnesses — may soon be moot.

A British Ministry of Justice spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday that Foreign Minister Jack Straw had been in contact with Scotland’s justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, about a deal that would send Megrahi back to Libya.

Such a move could well make irrelevant a Scottish appeals court’s expected judgment that a “miscarriage of justice” occurred in the case.

Reopening the investigation to present evidence of an Iranian/Syrian connection to the Pan Am bombing would be extremely difficult if not impossible, in the view of all observers.

The commercial pressure against such a move would be extreme. Western oil companies are eager to develop Libya’s reserves.

How this will affect Libya’s stalled payments to relatives of the Lockerbie and LaBelle discotheque victims is unknown, but if past patterns hold true, they cannot be optimistic.

In July 2006, a lawyer for the LaBelle families was about to finalize a deal with Libya when the State Department announced its intention to take Libya off the terrorist list.

The deal evaporated, said attorney Thomas Fay.
“They had made an offer and we accepted and at their request had every client execute release of claims forms” he told me by e-mail late Friday.

“In short, we were not close to a deal, we had made the deal,” Fay said. “They just refused to pay when they came off the terrorist list.”

Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.

http://cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=hsnews-000002648396

Al Kassar Appeal Rejected.

2007-12-22T12:06:00.000Z

Spain's National Court rejects appeal by Syrian accused in U.S. of illegal arms deals.

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Spain's National Court on Thursday rejected a Syrian businessman's appeal against extradition to the United States where he is wanted on charges of plotting to supply weapons to Colombian rebels.

The court approved the extradition of Monzer al-Kassar in October but he appealed claiming the charges were of dubious legality, and the United States had racist and political motives in pursuing him.

Rejecting Al-Kassar's appeal, a panel of National Court judges said that he had been a known arms trafficker since the 1970s and had provided weapons to armed groups including Nicaragua, Brazil, Bosnia, Iran and Iraq.

"Some of these groups have been terrorist organizations ... whose aims have been to attack U.S properties and citizens," the panel ruled.

The final decision now lies with the Spanish governmentAccording to U.S. officials, undercover officers of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency arranged a fictitious deal with al-Kassar, convincing him they represented rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

They said they wanted to buy surface-to-air missile systems, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, thousands of machine guns and millions of rounds of ammunition for the group to take down U.S. helicopters aiding Colombia's battle against drug traffickers.

The U.S. indictment charges al-Kassar with conspiring to support terrorists, conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers, conspiring to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles and money laundering.Al-Kassar, a longtime resident of Spain, stood trial in Spain in 1995 on charges of supplying assault rifles used by Palestinian militants in the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985, in which one American was killed. He was acquitted for lack of evidence.

http://www.pr-inside.com/spain-s-national-court-rejects-appeal-by-r346931.htm

Lockerbie -19th Anniversary.

2007-12-21T00:24:00.000Z

Jim Swire's Letter to The Herald.

"International Criminal Court requires new powers to catch up with Terrorists."

This is the title of a letter published in The Herald on the 19th anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy.

The Herald - http://tiny.cc/pyfvx

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Angiolini rapped over Lockerbie file.

By JOHN ROBERTSON

THE Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, was criticised by Scotland's senior judge yesterday over the appeal by the convicted Lockerbie bomber.

The spat between Mrs Angiolini, QC, and Lord Hamilton, the Lord Justice-General, centred on her failure to spell out clearly in written submissions her stance on the possible disclosure of confidential documents to lawyers for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 55, the Libyan serving a life sentence for the 1988 bombing.

Earlier this year, Megrahi's case was referred to the appeal court by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which concluded he may have suffered a miscarriage of justice in being convicted of the murders of the 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie.

The Scotsman article continues - http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Angiolini-rapped-over-Lockerbie-file.3611641.jp

Published Date: 21 December 2007
Source: The Scotsman
Location: Scotland

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Judge raps law chiefs for delays to Lockerbie document.

By Lucy Adams

The Herald article - http://tiny.cc/uN2UB

21/12/07

Plus ça Change....

2007-12-20T19:52:00.000Z

Today's second procedural hearing in Edinburgh in connection with the appeal of Megrahi has once again echoed the problems which have persistently plagued the investigation and the resulting trial for almost 19 years.

It is clear that the Crown prosecution team, and indeed the British government, are impervious to pleas, appeals, or reason in seeking justice - not just in the possibility an innocent man may have served nearly seven years wrongly incarcerated, but also for the victims and some family members, who after 19 years, are still finding the truth about their loved ones deaths elusive.

With the news yesterday that the British government has also committed to an agreement with Libya with regards to prisoner transfers, specifically with regards to Megrahi, it merely highlighted the lies and hypocrisy at the heart of the current New Labour Government.

Tony Blair had explicitly told, just before he was forced from office (ironically as the result of the lies in taking Britain to war in Iraq, the lies surrounding cash for honors, and the scuppering of an investigation into an arms deal with Saudi Arabia), the Scottish government, and the British public, that the prisoner transfer memo agreement under discussion with the Libyan government, had no bearing whatsoever on Megrahi's case.

7 June 2007 - "The memorandum of understanding agreed with the Libyan Government last week does not cover this (Megrahi) case." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6731739.stm

19 Dec 2007 - "Jack Straw will be signing the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya tonight. Megrahi will not be listed in the treaty as somebody who is specifically excluded," http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Libya-deal-on-eve-of.3607023.jp

The Judges have set the date 20th February in court to discuss further the matter regarding the 'document(s)' which the Crown are refusing to disclose at the behest of the Lord Advocate and the British government.

The same document which, when requested by the SCCRC, was duly disclosed without qualification, and clearly was recognised as having significant bearing on the conviction, but now the Crown prosecution team has proposed a Public Interest Immunity (PII), that restricts Megrahi's defence team from it's use as possible evidence in any appeal process.

If the government have nothing to hide, then why keep their hands behind their back?

------------------------------------------------------------------

From The Herald, Scotland.

Government blocks release of vital Lockerbie appeal document.

Herald article here - http://tiny.cc/SQClP

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Other articles on the hearing :

Prof. Robert Black Q.C. offers an in depth perspective on today's hearing - http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/12/second-procedural-hearing.html

Dr. Ludwig De Braeckeleer : http://gaiapost.blogspot.com/2007/12/lockerbie-crown-refuses-to-reveal.html

Crown Refuses To Reveal Secret Document

2007-12-19T01:12:00.000Z

The Herald newspaper in Scotland reports that the Procedural Hearing to be heard on Thurday 20 December in relation to Al Megrahi's appeal, will discuss a secret document that Megrahi's Defence team have asked to be disclosed to the court, but currently only viewed and held by the Crown.

The Herald's Lucy Adams understands the Crown have refused to disclose the document, or documents, originating from a "foreign source", and this is understood to have resulted in the hearing on Thursday to discuss the matter further.

The SCCRC (Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission), in it's recommendation to send Megrahi's case to appeal in June this year had discovered the document(s) during their investigation.

Megrahi's team will lodge with the Judge, their full grounds for the appeal, on Friday.

The Herald Article - http://tiny.cc/BGtlC

If the Crown have viewed the document(s) and the SCCRC have either viewed or clearly know the contents of the document, I fail to see any possible valid reason for it to be withheld from Megrahi's defence team. Even in a closed private meeting between the three parties : the Crown, the Defence and the Judge

Surely it is the very least to be expected in any society wishing to uphold truth, fairness and justice?

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Prof. Robert Black Q.C. offers his opinion on the newspaper report :
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/12/crown-refuses-to-reveal-secret.html

Three Lords A Leaping.....To Conclusions.

2007-12-15T02:42:00.000Z

Left to right, Lords Coulsfield, Sutherland and MacLean.

It deals only in passing with the defence submissions that the PLFP-Autumn Leaves gang may have been responsible for Lockerbie.

"We accept that there is a great deal of suspicion as to the actings of Abu Talb and his circle, but there is no evidence to indicate they had either the means or intention to destroy a civil aircraft in December 1988". (para 81)

No means, that is, beyond working with a bomb-maker (Khreesat) who specialised in disguising explosive devices in cassette recorders so they could be smuggled onto aircraft. No intention except visits to airports and the studying and hoarding of aircraft schedules, including those of Pan Am.

Where did the bomb suitcase first get on the plane? The judges worked their way carefully through the theory that a bomb suitcase was introduced at Luqa airport. The tight security arrangements at Luqa Airport, they conceded, "seem to make it extremely difficult for an unaccompanied and unidentified bag to be shipped on a flight out of Luqa."

After discussing the evidence of Maltese airport officials that it was impossible or highly unlikely that a bag could be introduced undetected at the check-in desks or in the baggage area or by approaching the loaders", the judges concluded : "If therefore the unaccompanied bag was launched from Luqa, the method by which that was done, is not established by the Crown. The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 is a major difficulty for the Crown case." (38)

There was no evidence that an unaccompanied bag went on the plane at Malta - but lo and behold there was, as far as the judges were concerned, plenty of evidence that a bag arrived from Malta at Frankfurt. The judges sailed happily past the defence objections to the accuracy of the documents in this matter.

There was, they agreed, some evidence that the suspect bag might have come from a flight from Damascus, and the records did suggest that an unaccompanied bag from Warsaw may have been coded in the system taking it to Pan Am 103A.

There may have been discrepancies in the times and numbers of bags arriving at the relevant coding stations, but some of these could be accounted for by figures relating to other flights and "the remaining discrepancy might be accounted for as late arrival luggage which, according to some of the evidence, might not go through the automated system."

What about the x-ray system at Frankfurt? Would that not have caught the Toshiba bomb, especially after the evidence of Kurt Maier, the x-ray operator, a careful and conscientious worker who had worked out a drill for spotting electronic equipment containing bombs? The judges thought not : "Mr Maier's description of what he looked for does not suggest that he would necessarily have claimed to be able to detect explosives hidden in a radio cassette player" (34). (Note the use of that useful word "necessarily")

All in all, the conclusion was emphatic : "None of the points made by the defence seems to us to cast doubt on the inference from the documents and other evidence that an unaccompanied bag from KM180 was transferred to and loaded onto PA 103A" (35).

What of the case, so carefully presented, by Mr Taylor that the bomb may have gone onto a plane for the first time at Heathrow, London?

The judges recited the evidence of the loader John Bedford, given to Police so soon after the bombing, that, after coming back from a tea-break, he discovered a "maroony brown Samsonite" case in the luggage container in which the explosion later occurred. He had not put it there himself. He said his colleague Sulkash Kamboj told him he had put the case there - but Kamboj denied it.

The judges fought their way through this contradiction by believing Bedford instead of Kamboj. But how did they deal with the powerful argument that a brown Samsonite case, of the type in which the explosion actually occurred, was put on the plane at Heathrow in a position extremely close to the place where the bomb eventually went off?

This, they reckoned, would have required re-arrangement of the luggage before it was finally loaded. "But if there was such a re-arrangement", they said, "the suitcase described by Mr Bedford might have been placed in some remote corner of the container." Note again the judicial "might" to provide an explanation for which there is no evidence at all.

True, the Samsonite case might have come from Malta via Frankfurt Airport. There is however, no evidence of a Samsonite at either place. But there was evidence of a Samsonite going in curious circumstances onto Pan Am 103 at Heathrow.

Finally, what had the Judges to say about the amazing coincidence that a bomb of the type normally made by the PFLP-GC would have been set of by an ice-cube timer, which would have exploded some 38 minutes after take off - and the bomb went off over Lockerbie exactly 38 minutes after take off? So impressed were the Judges by this coincidence that they did not refer to it at all.

They concluded that the Lockerbie bomb was not set off by an ice-cube timer, but by an MST-13 timer. The evidence for this came from the forensic scientists, Allen Fereday, Thomas Hayes and FBI's Thomas Thurman. In June 1990 a posse of Scottish detectives had been over to Washington to test Mr Thurmans theory that a fragment found from the Lockerbie debris looked like a circuit board of an MST-13.

The Judges noted the various difficulties that had arisen in the finding of the fragment. The overwriting of its label by DC Gilchrist was inexplicable. The policeman's explanation to the court, said the Judges, was "at worst evasive and at best confusing" (13). They noted, too, the re-pagination of notes by Dr Hayes from the moment he started to deal with the fragment, but dismissed this as "of no materiality".

Not material either, apparently, was the second four month delay until Mr Fereday sent the fragment to the Scottish Police. None of these things worried the judges.

"While it is unfortunate," they concluded, "that this particular item which turned out to be of major significance to this enquiry despite it's minuscule size may not initially have been given the same meticulous treatment as most other items, we are nevertheless satisfied that the fragment was extracted by Dr Hayes in May 1989 from the remnant of the Slalom shirt found by DC Gilchrist and DC McColm."

The fragment led to the MST-13 which led to Edwin Bollier, whom the Judges found a most unsatisfactory witness, prone at best to glaring contradictions and at worst delusions, fantasy and lies. Nevertheless the Judges concluded, Bollier had sold timers to the Libyan Military, had tested some of them in the Libyan desert, and had gone to Libya to sell the MST-13 timerS shortly before the Lockerbie bombing.

Mr Bollier, they noted, had also had business dealings with Abdelbasset Megrahi, the first accused, and had rented his firm an office in Zurich - though there was no evidence that he had met Megrahi on his visit to Libya in December 1988, still less that he had conveyed a timer to Megrahi there.

The Judges also conceded that Bollier had sold MST-13 timers to the former East German secret police (the Stasi), but concluded, nevertheless, that the Lockerbie bombing was of "Libyan origin".

The three main witnesses in the trial, the Judges concluded, were the grass Giaka, whose evidence they discounted, Bollier the timer salesman, most of whose evidence they discounted, and the only witness they found reliable, Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper.

Despite the dramatic shifts in Mr Gauci's identification of the man who bought the clothes that ended up in the bomb suitcase, the Judges responded warmly to him. They did not see anything significant in thefact that his first identification of Megrahi as the clothes buyer was in February 1991, more than two years after the bombing - during which time he had seen scores of police photographs and part-identified two Palestinians.

The Judges conceded that the difference between Gauci's original description of the man as six feet tall and 50 years of age and Megrahi's actual height and age (five feet eight inches, and 37 years of age) was "a substantial discrepancy" (68). But Gauci's indentification, they concluded, "entirely reliable".

In what must have been a novel interpretation of Scottish Law, they went further. "There are situations", they said, "where a careful witness who will not commit himself beyond saying that there is a close resemblance, can be regarded as more reliable and convincing in his identification than a witness who maintains that his identification is 100 per cent certain" (69).

On what date where the clothes bought from Mr Gauci's shop?

There was much more relaible evidence than that of Mr Gauci. From the outset, he told his
interrogators that it was raining on the day of the sale: that the man who bought the clothes noticed it was raining, and had bought an umbrella.

As he left the shop, he opened the umbrella, and walked down the road to pick-up a taxi. The question of the incidence of rain on various dates at Sliema preoccupied the trial for many hours.
To start with, there was no doubt, and it was not denied, that there was light rain in Sliema on the evening of Wednesday 23 November 1988. Major Mifsud, chief meteorologist ffrom Luqa Airport, told the court, "0.6 millimetres of rain is not that much so the cloud would not have been that thick, but it did give some rain, yes."

So the early recollection of Paul Gauci (Tony's brother and co-owner of the shop, Mary's House), and the evidence about the rain both pointed to 23 November as the day the clothes were bought, and this explained the early media reports, especially the Sunday Times, that the clothes were bought on the 23 November. No doubt this fitted nicely with the Police view that the main suspect, the man who bought the clothes, Abu Talb, was in Malta in late November, but not later.

But this evidence was no use at all to the prosecution of Megrahi, who was certainly not in Malta on 23 November. Was there any other day he was in Malta and could have bought the clothes?

Yes, he was staying in the Holiday Inn in Sliema on 7 December 1988. So the thrust of the prosecution inquiries about the sale of the clothes shifted from the 23 November to 7 December.

But, was it raining on 7 December?

At first glance, it wasn't. The police records for rainfall in Sliema on the 7 December showed a complete blank. The prosecution claimed that this was not decisive since the blank referred to the period from noon on the previous day (6 december) to noon on the 7th.

So it could still have been raining at the time the clothes were sold - at about 6.30pm on the 7th.

But was it?

The witness from Luqa, Major Mifsud, who gave evidence on 5 December 2000 was asked :

Q. Just confirm with me, please, apart from the trace of rain that we discussed that fell or was measured at 9.00am on Wednesday 7December, did any rain fall at Luqa?

A. No, no rain was recorded. No, no rain was recorded.

Q. Up to midnight?

A. Up to midnight.

Mr Mifsud estimated that Luqa is "about 5 kilometres as the crow flies from Sliema". Asked specifically about the 7 December between 6.00pm and 7.00pm, he stated, "We had no rain all right between 6 and 7 at Luqa, but I cannot exclude the possibility that there could have been a drop of rain here and there".

Later he was even more specific, "If you ask for a percentage, if I have to talk about percentage probability, I would say that 90 per cent that there was no rain, and the possibility of a few drops of rain 10 per cent." The "few drops" rather reluctantly conceded, would not be enough to wet the ground.

The records and expert evidence, therefore, were not absolutely conclusive on this important point, but most of them pointed embarrassingly away from the 7 December as to the date the clothes were bought.

"There is no doubt", said the Judges, "that the weather on 23 November would be wholly consistent with a light shower between 6.30pm and 7.00pm. While Major Mifsud's evidence was clear about the position at Luqa, he did not rule out the possibility of a light shower in Sliema.

Mr Gauci's recollection of the weather was that 'it started dripping - not raining heavily', or that there was at least a 'drizzle' and it only appeared to last for the time that the purchaser was away from the shop to get a taxi."

Then there was the conclusion. "Having carefully considered all the factors relating to this aspect we have reached the conclusion that the date of purchase was Wednesday December 7."

Among the factors not very carefully considered was that Major Mifsud had estimated the chances of rain at most at 10 per cent and that there was no rain at Luqa five kilometres away. Perhaps the factor most carefully considered was not meteorological at all - that Megrahi was not even in Malta on 23 November and therefore could not have bought the clothes on that date.

The conclusions followed swiftly.

Megrahi, though he was nothing like six feet and nowhere near fifty years old, had bought clothes and an umbrella to protect him from rain on a day it was most probably not raining. He was a business associate of Bollier, and had never bought any timers from him. There was no evidence at all that he had made the bomb, packed it in a case and put it on a plane at Malta, but he obviously had.

Paragraph 86 of the judgement starts: "We now turn to the case against the first accused", and quickly makes it clear that any evidence against the second accused, Fhimah, cannot apply to the first. There were then four paragraphs left.

The first starts with the observation that on the 15 June 1987, eighteen months before Lockerbie, Megrahi was issued with a false passport, which had been used on visits to Nigeria, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Cyprus.

Paragraph 88 of the Judgement deals with the identification of Megrahi by Tony Gauci.

"While recognising that this is not an unequivocal identification....it could be inferred that the first accused was the one who bought the clothing which surrounded the explosive device."

Naturally, "if he was the purchaser of this miscellaneous collection of garments, it is not difficult to infer that he too must have been aware of the purpose for which they were being bought".

Add this to the fact that he was "involved with Mr Bollier, albeit not specifically in connection with the MST timers" and had been in Malta on the 20th and 21st December 1988, and "it is possible to infer that this visit under a false name the night before the explosive device was planted at Luqa, followed by his departure for Tripoli the following morning at or about the time the device must have been planted, was a visit connected with the planting of the device."

That paragraph also contained a sound explanation as to why Megrahi had had a false passport: "he was a member of the JSO (Libyan Intelligence) occupying posts of fairly high rank."

Paragraph 89 opened with a curious disclaimer. "We are aware that in relation to certain aspects of the case there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications. We are also aware that there is a danger that by selecting parts of the evidence which seems to fit together and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of conflicting evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified."

Quickly abandoning their own precautions about these matters, the Judges concluded, unanimously, that the case against Megrahi "does fit into a real and convincing pattern. There is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the first accused and accordingly we find him guilty."

There was, however, nothing remotely real or convincing (let alone any kind of pattern) in the case against Megrahi.

There was no evidence the bomb went on at Malta, still less that Megrahi put it there. All the other evidence against him - including the theory that the Lockerbie bomb was set off by an MST-13 timer, the vague nature of the Gauci identification over a period of ten years and the date the clothes were bought - were plagued by precisely the "uncertainties and qualifications" mentioned by the Judges.

The Judges, moreover, under Scottish law had the option of finding the case against Megrahi "not proven" - though in truth the only proper verdict was "not guilty."

In these circumstances the judgement and the verdict against Megrahi was perverse. The Judges brought shame and disgrace to all those who believed in Scottish Justice, and have added to Scottish law an injustice of the type which has often defaced the law in England. The verdict was a triumph for the CIA, but it did nothing to satisfy the demands of some of the families of those who died at Lockerbie - who still want to know how and why their loved ones were murdered.

In February 1990, a group of British relatives went to the American embassy in London for a meeting with seven members of the President's Commission on aviation security and terrorism. Martin Cadman remembers: "After we'd had our say, the meeting broke up and we moved towards the door. As we got there, I found myself talking to two members of the Commission - I think they were senetors. One of them said: 'Your government and our government know exactly what happened at Lockerbie. But they are not going to tell you'."

Nearly eleven years later, after a prolific waste of many millions of pounds and words, that is still the position.

Full Court Judgement (PDF File) - http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf

Megrahi - Second Procedural Hearing

2007-12-15T02:30:00.000Z

A second procedural hearing for Mr. Megrahi is to take place on 20th December in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Megrahi's Grounds for a Second Appeal are due to be lodged by his defence the following day, next Friday 21st December - in an odd twist of fate, the 19th anniversary of the tragedy.

Full details are on Prof. Black's blog - http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/12/second-procedural-hearing-on-20.html

The Goben Memorandum?

2007-12-08T03:04:00.000Z

Much has been made of a secret document that had been apparently seen by the Prosecution team during the original trial in 2000, but not revealed to the Defence team at Zeist.

In the weeks following the SCCRC decision to recommend the case for appeal, speculation, and indeed some quite definite assertions were made in the media as to this, or perhaps another document that was not revealed to the defence team, and this document's origin. It was assumed to be from either the US government itself, or one of it's agencies. However, the Defence team, led by Maggie Scott revealed at Megrahi's procedural hearing in October that the document they demanded was not from the US, nor any of it's agencies.

Since then, given the complex issues surrounding the case and plethora of foreign governments who have had an interest in the investigation, there has been little speculation from where the document might originate.

Is this the document Megrahi's Defence team are waiting for?

Private Eye magazine reported in 2001: Soon after FBI agent Edward Marshman had finished giving his evidence at Zeist in 2000, the trial was subject to a long delay.

The Prosecution team explained that they had had notice from a foreign government that more information might be available that would be relevent to the trial. The foreign government, it was revealed later, was Syria and the information was known as the Gober Memorandum, of which the full text was now in the hands of the government in Damascus.

Goben was the Palestinian "professor" based in Yugoslavia, who was said to have played a crucial part in the PLFP-GC/Iranian plot to blow up an American aircraft in revenge for the Iranian airbus wrecklessly shot from the skies by gung-ho USS captain over the Persian Gulf in July 1988.

On his death bed, it was rumoured that Goben has set out the entire 'Autumn Leaves' conspiracy. (The Autumn Leaves operation was carried out in Neuss, Germany in autumn 1988 by the BKA in which several arrests were made including Khreesat and Dalkamoni, and Toshiba radio's converted to bombs were confiscated)

He had since died and, after a few more weeks' delay to the trial at Zeist, the Syrian government made it clear that if there was any such memorandum, they had no intention of releasing it.

Articles:

The Goben Memorandum - http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,509150,00.html

FBI agent Edward Marshman at Zeist- http://tiny.cc/lFRSC

Megrahi Defence call for secret document - http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL11531443.html

Operation Autumn Leaves - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/1026312.stm

Abu Nidal Behind Lockerbie, Says Aide

2007-12-06T21:00:00.000Z

From CNN, August 23, 2002.

CAIRO, Egypt -- A former close aide to Abu Nidal has alleged the fugitive Palestinian terrorist was behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

In a series of interviews published in the Arabic Al Hayat newspaper, Atef Abu Bakr said Abu Nidal told a meeting his radical Fatah-Revolutionary Council was behind the explosion on Pan Am fight 103.

The claims come days after Abu Nidal was found dead in a hotel room in Iraq.
Abu Bakr is a former spokesman for the group and one of Abu Nidal's closest aides between 1985 and 1989 when he split with him over leadership of the organisation. Abu Bakr's whereabouts were not known.

"Abu Nidal told a... meeting of the Revolutionary Council leadership: I have very important and serious things to say. The reports that attribute Lockerbie to others are lies. We are behind it," Abu Bakr was quoted as saying in the interview to be published in the paper's Friday edition.
Abu Bakr did not say when the alleged meeting took place. The gathering was attended by five members of the council, including Abu Bakr and Abu Nidal.

'"If any one of you lets this out, I will kill him even if he was in his wife's arms,"' Abu Bakr quoting Abu Nidal as saying.
Ghassan Sharbal, al-Hayat's assistant editor who conducted the interview, said he spoke to Abu Bakr before Abu Nidal's death was announced this week. He refused to provide other details.
In March, a Scottish appeals court upheld the murder conviction of former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi for multiple murder.

Al-Megrahi was jailed for life, with a minimum term of 20 years. A second Libyan, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.

The Libyan was convicted of murdering the 270 people killed when the New York-bound Pan Am flight exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.
Relatives of the Lockerbie victims renewed their calls for an independent inquiry into attack in light of Abu Bakr's remarks.

Jim Swire, a spokesman for families of British victims, said Nidal's possible involvement was "one more of the many questions which we feel absolutely demand an independent inquiry into Lockerbie."

British Labour MP Tam Dalyell is also calling for an inquiry into the possibility of a Nidal link to the Lockerbie bombing.

Dalyell, who has long argued that the Libyans were not responsible for the attack, said: "I understand that close associates of Nidal are now saying that he, and he alone, was responsible for Lockerbie.

"If these allegations are true they blow everything relating to Lockerbie out of the water, including the trial in Holland."

Earlier this week Iraqi secret services chief Taher Jalil Habbush told reporters that Nidal shot himself in the mouth as he was about to be arrested by Iraqi authorities for communicating with a foreign country.

Habbush said Nidal pulled out a revolver and shot himself after saying he wanted to change his clothes when Iraqi agents came to his Baghdad apartment to take him away.

Copyright 2002 CNN.

Abu Nidal - http://lexicorient.com/e.o/abu_nidal.htm

Chronical Telegram 22 December 1988

2007-12-06T20:23:00.000Z

http://tiny.cc/7Snx8 - pdf file.

Post Script to Jim Swire...The Untold Story

2007-12-06T20:16:00.000Z

From 1st July 2007:

Friday’s (Lesley) Riddoch Questions with Lockerbie relative leader Jim Swire was a pleasant case of déjà vu.

In 1994 when I was Asst Editor of the Scotsman, I took the decision to screen a film made by the late Alan Frankovich called the Maltese Double Cross. The film argued that Iran not Libya was behind the Lockerbie bombing and though it was meant to be screened by the London Film Festival, they dropped it after getting a legal challenge from….someone. This got me interested. Lockerbie was the biggest single act of terrorism on British soil and no-one wanted to screen a film trying to explain what happened.

A solid week followed with reporter Stephen Breen, working through the film frame by frame to answer the many, many reservations raised by the Scotsman’s lawyers. I booked an Edinburgh cinema, which discovered it was double-booked -- at the last minute. Happily, the Glasgow Film Theatre came to the rescue. Along with Jim Swire.

His daughter Flora was killed on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 and earlier that day Jim had been at the Commons where Tam Dalyell showed Frankovich’s film in a private screening. He agreed to head to Glasgow the next day and to take the second tape of the film with him.

Unlike Tam, we were showing the film in public and could be sued for defamation if we put a foot wrong. We had several last minute edits ordered by the lawyers and there was no other way but Jim to get the film to Glasgow on time.

While Jim and Tam were at the Commons, the only other copy of the Maltese Double Cross was stolen in a burglary at a Birmingham Human Rights Office, which, as I recall, was also burned to the ground. Which left me feeling a trifle jumpy, heading for Glasgow with the first tape in a shopping bag, praying that Jim Swire would make it in time, with the second. Minutes before the start, with a cinema fill of hacks, spooks and humans, he appeared.

Exhausted but optimistic the film would raise questions, open doors, open minds…… And here he is again. 13 years later, looking not a day older with his wife Jane. Still hopeful that the true story of the Lockerbie bombing will emerge and quite convinced that Al Megrahi, the man convicted and given leave to appeal again this week, is actually innocent.

Like many other relatives, Jim and Jane hardly allow themselves to believe the guilty man or men will ever be found. But after the appeal they’ll press for an independent inquiry to find out what they really want to know. Why did the British authorities ignore all the warnings that caused other countries to take people off the flight from Heathrow.

I really hope we won’t all be gathering again in another 13 years time. But who knows?

http://www.lesleyriddoch.com/2007/07/post-script-to-.html

Time magazine and Coleman Rebuttal

2007-12-06T19:48:00.000Z

Taken from the American Journalism Review, this article carries a firm rebuttal of the Time magazine article (Why Did They Die? (1992)) posted below, Juval Aviv who investigated on behalf of Pan Am and Lester Coleman the ex-DIA agent.

PanAm Scam

How two self-styled intelligence agents took the news media for a ride.
By Steven Emerson

Steven Emerson is a Washington, D.C. based reporter who writes frequently on U.S. intelligence and the Middle East. His most recent books are "Terrorist" and "The Fall of Pan Am 103."
Michael Schafer is a 39-year-old American who owns a floor cleaning company in Atlanta. In late April, he received a phone call notifying him that his photo was in the current issue of Time magazine. Schafer found a copy and began leafing through the cover story, "The Untold Story of Pan Am 103."

Near the bottom of page 31 was a passport-size photo. It was his picture. But the caption identified the person as "David Lovejoy, a reported double agent for the U.S. and Iran."
"I just couldn't believe what I was looking at," says Schafer. "There it was in front of millions and millions of people – Time magazine accusing me of being a terrorist!"

Time obviously screwed up. Publications, even ones as reputable as Time, make mistakes. But in this case, misidentifying Schafer was only one indication that something was amiss. More troubling was the article's reliance on self-described "intelligence operatives" who had already convinced a number of news organizations, including ABC, NBC and Barron's, as well as the now-defunct Pan American World Airways, that they knew the true story behind the December 1988 bombing.

Time not only ignored evidence that contradicted key elements of its story, but it also discounted information that disputed the credibility of its two main sources. The fact that both sources had a financial interest in the story should have made the magazine even more skeptical: They were paid consultants for Pan Am attorneys fighting a multimillion - dollar negligence claim by the victims' families, who alleged the airline's careless baggage handling allowed the tragedy to happen. If Time's sources were correct in their contention that U.S. undercover agents could have prevented the bombing, Pan Am probably would not be found liable.

The Time story and similar ones preceding it have been dismissed as baseless by U.S. and British officials who investigated the bombing. Nevertheless, Time editors insist their story is accurate. "We stand by this story as a good faith effort to explain the bombing," says John Stacks, Time's chief of correspondents. "This piece went through the same vetting procedure as all other articles."

The "Untold" Story

Time's April 27 cover story, written by veteran correspondent Roy Rowan, described a conspiracy involving U.S. agents of the CIA and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who allegedly collaborated, wittingly and unwittingly, in a Byzantine plot in which terrorists and drug traffickers bombed Pan Am 103 on December 22, 1988. It killed all 259 passengers and crew members as well as 11 residents of Lockerbie, Scotland, where the plane crashed.

The story, according to Rowan, goes like this:

• In the late 1980s the CIA operated a "freewheeling" unit in the Middle East, known as COREA, that trafficked in "drugs and arms in order to gain access to terrorist groups." The CIA and the DEA also was secretly cooperating with a Syrian drug trafficker and arms dealer named Monzer al-Kassar. In return for his help in obtaining the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon, COREA allowed al-Kassar to ship drugs to the United States on U.S. airlines. Meanwhile, the DEA was using al-Kassar's drug-smuggling ring in a sting operation designed to flush out drug dealers in Detroit, Los Angeles and Houston – cities with large Arab populations.

• At about the same time, Syrian terrorist Ahmed Jibril, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, was contracted by the Iranian government to avenge the downing of an Iranian Airbus by the U.S.S. Vincennes in July 1988. Jibril solicited and received al-Kassar's pledge to help by using his "CIA-assisted drug and arms business" to plant a bomb on an American plane. Al-Kassar was "reluctant" to get involved because he didn't want to disrupt his profitable smuggling operation, but he went along with the plan.

• Jibril had an additional motive for the bombing: He wanted to eliminate a U.S. "intelligence team" that was working on a plan to rescue American hostages in Beirut.
U.S. military intelligence official Charles "Tiny" McKee, who had been stationed in Beirut to collect information on the whereabouts of American hostages, learned of the CIA's secret COREA unit. McKee had complained to the CIA about COREA's ties to al-Kassar, but the agency had failed to respond. Furious at the agency's silence, McKee and four other U.S. intelligence operatives "decided to fly back to Virginia unannounced and expose the COREA unit's secret deal with al-Kassar."

Tehran found out about McKee's plans from an American double agent named David Lovejoy, "a one-time State Department security officer." Armed with this information, Jibril's group was able to target McKee and the other officials who had flown from Cyprus to London, where they changed planes, boarding Pan Am 103. To do this, the terrorists – with al-Kassar's assistance – switched a suitcase containing a bomb for a suitcase containing drugs and loaded it onto Pan Am 103 in Frankfurt. The plane picked up the McKee team and others in London.

• Al-Kassar wasn't involved in selecting the target or the date of the bombing. But after an Israeli agent warned German and U.S. intelligence agents about a terrorist attack on a U.S. airliner leaving Frankfurt "on or about December 18," al-Kassar – "playing both sides of the fence" – told COREA that Pan Am 103 was Jibril's "most likely target." The CIA could have foiled the plot, but, as one purported source charged, the agency "knew about it and screwed up."

The Mistold Story

In 1990 the independent President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism examined the same allegations – initially raised in 1989 – and found "no foundation for speculation in press accounts that U.S. government officials had participated tacitly or otherwise in any supposed operation at Frankurt Airport having anything to do with the sabotage of Flight 103." More recently, officials at the Justice Department, FBI and DEA have called the Time story – and the stories by ABC, NBC and others that preceded it – fabrications. And the findings of the U.S.-British Pan Am 103 investigation – the most comprehensive counterterrorist probe in history – completely contradict the Time cover story. The bombing inquiry included hundreds of investigators who spent three years on the case, conducting more than 14,000 interviews in 53 countries.

Initially the investigators concluded that Syria and Iran were responsible. But in the summer of 1990 the investigation took a dramatic turn, and in November 1991 the U.S. Justice Department obtained the indictments of two Libyan intelligence agents, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, on charges they conspired to bomb the plane.

According to the indictments and other government and airline records, a remnant from a microchip in the bomb's timer identified in mid-1990 showed that the timer was one of many acquired by Libyan intelligence operatives and that the suitcase containing the bomb was loaded onto an Air Malta flight and transferred twice : at Frankfurt Airport onto a Boeing 727 with the Pan Am 103 flight number, and again onto a Boeing 747, also called Pan Am 103, at London's Heathrow Airport. According to U.S. officials, the evidence was further buttressed by a Libyan government agent who defected to the United States last year.

The indictments generated some controversy, leading several critics to charge that the U.S. government might be engaged in a cover-up. Some victims' families alleged that the indictments of the Libyans – and the fact that no Syrians were named – were a reward for Syria's involvement in the Desert Storm campaign and an attempt to persuade Syria to help win the release of American hostages. President Bush rushed to claim that the indictments exonerated Syria. "Syria took a bum rap on this," he told reporters.

Time exploited this controversy to advance a radically different explanation for the bombing, one that was being promoted by, among others, an ex-Israeli named Juval Aviv.
In fact, Time's investigation appears to be drawn largely from a report assembled by Aviv, now a U.S. citizen. Aviv is president of Interfor, a New York-based international security firm hired by Pan Am's attorneys in June 1989 to build a case to defend the airline from negligence charges.

Less than three months after Pan Am hired Aviv, he "solved" the mystery of who carried out the bombing. Claiming to have collected information from his own sources – none of whom he would identify – Aviv assembled a 26-page report and later made it available to the press. Two-and-a-half-years later he would give a longer version to Time. A line-by-line reading of Rowan's article and the updated Aviv report shows that Rowan repeated many of its most controversial allegations.

When carefully scrutinized, Aviv's report turns out to be a mixture of unsubstantiated declarations, previously reported arcane facts, and widely known information (such as the fact that passenger Khalid Jaffar initially was considered a suspect in carrying the bomb aboard the plane in Frankfurt) – all woven together in a tapestry of demonstrably false and largely uncorroborated theory. Aviv even asserts that German intelligence agents gave the CIA a videotape of the bomb being put aboard the plane. He claimed to have seen the video and promised reporters he would obtain a copy – a promise he has never kept.

Equally problematic is Aviv's background, which is decidedly different than what he told Pan Am and the press. Aviv says he worked for the Mossad, Israel's secret service. He also has claimed that he was personally responsible for tracking down and killing the Palestinian terrorists who massacred 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Rowan acknowledges that "Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources deny Aviv was ever associated with Mossad," but does not challenge further Aviv's background and repeats Aviv's claim that he was a Mossad agent.
Staff members of the the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism checked Aviv's background and concluded that he had "fabricated" his credentials.

The commission also had received a May 1990 report from Yigal Carmon, Israel's top counterterrorism official, which states that Aviv "never worked for the intelligence community of the State of Israel" and that the only connection he had to security work was a job he held as a "junior security officer" for the Israeli airline El Al. He was fired in April 1974 after less than 18 months work for being "unreliable and dishonest." Aviv, the report further notes, "has been involved during the years (after being dismissed from El-Al) in various acts of fraud and impersonation."

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA's Pan Am 103 investigation, says Aviv was never in Israeli intelligence and that "none of his allegations have any basis in fact. He's a fabricator and a scam artist." Aviv refused to be interviewed for this article.

The Observer Weighs In

Because his report lacked substantiation, Aviv might have been ignored by the media except for one development: Once Pan Am received his report in October 1989, its lawyers issued subpoenas to the CIA, DEA, FBI and other government agencies. The detailed descriptions in the subpoenas reiterated Aviv's claims.

To some journalists, the fact that Pan Am had issued subpoenas seemed to legitimize the charges. Within weeks, the combination of the subpoenas and the "leak" of Aviv's report resulted in a spate of headlines in Britain and the United States.

In response, the U.S. Senate and House intelligence committees asked for briefings from the CIA, FBI and Pentagon about Aviv's charges. In a series of classified briefings in November and December 1989, CIA and FBI officials told the committees there was no substance to the allegations.

The first journalists to report critically on the Aviv report were John Merritt and Simon de Bruxelles of the London-based Observer. In November 1989, Merritt began to scrutinize the few allegations that were subject to independent verification.

Merritt and de Bruxelles went over the report with painstaking detail. For example, Aviv had alleged that terrorist-drug trafficker al-Kassar had rented a car from a Paris car rental agency on November 25, 1988, and driven it to Frankfurt and back. But Merritt obtained the rental agency's records and found that no car rented at that time logged enough miles to cover such a trip.

The Observer reporters also found that COREA – which Aviv (and later ABC, NBC and Time) claimed was a CIA unit or operation – was in fact the "designated code word for communications [among an official] group of police, customs, and intelligence services cooperating in Europe" on terrorism and violence. The group, TREVI, has an office in Brussels. Despite Merritt's findings, Aviv's misrepresentation of COREA as a renegade intelligence unit would be repeated by the media for the next two-and-a-half years.

Merritt also found that Aviv's report contained passages about European law enforcement surveillance of al-Kassar that were similar to those in an obscure 1984 German nonfiction book ("Der Pate Der Terroriste" by Manfred Mohrstein) that has never been translated into English.
"Aviv had pieced together known events and facts together in a wild conspiracy," Merritt says. "He's never been in the Mossad."

The Retold Story

The Aviv conspiracy story died down until late October 1990, when a slightly newer version was broadcast as the lead news item on NBC and ABC evening and morning news shows. Instead of blaming the CIA for allowing the tragedy to happen, the two networks shifted the spotlight to the DEA.

NBC's Brian Ross reported that terrorists may have infiltrated a DEA undercover drug sting in which a 20-year-old passenger with dual Lebanese-U.S. citizenship, Khalid Jaffar, had been working as an informant and courier for U.S. agents. NBC reported that terrorists had secretly switched a suitcase containing a bomb for Jaffar's suitcase, which contained heroin. NBC said the name of the DEA Beirut-Cyprus-Frankfurt-Detroit drug operation was "Courier." ABC's Pierre Salinger reported the same allegation, but said the DEA drug operation was called "Corea" and was discontinued two months before the bombing. Salinger also suggested the DEA was involved in a cover-up. Despite competitive pressures, CBS refused to air the story.

Ira Silverman, Ross' producer at NBC, says the network's story was triggered by the fact that DEA was "calling in their own people – sources and subsources – to determine for themselves whether DEA operations were connected to the bombing." He says that he and Ross were concerned that DEA may have lost control of some of its informants, who may have been providing terrorists information about DEA sting operations.

Salinger says he stands by his story. "The fact that there was a drug operation in Frankfurt and in Cyprus was verified and the fact that the drug operation was called off a month before the Pan Am 103 bombing also has been verified," he says. However, Salinger acknowledges, "There is no proof of the connection between the drug operation and the bombing."

Besieged by inquiries from the press and Congress – which announced it would hold hearings – the DEA accelerated its investigation. Within a week the agency reviewed every file from the previous five years and sent inquiries to its agents overseas. The evidence collected by the DEA – and independently confirmed by the FBI – showed that the allegations reported by NBC and ABC were baseless.

The DEA produced a 350-page classified report in November 1990, released information to reporters, and then sent agency officials to testify in open congressional hearings in mid-December. According to the agency, there was no DEA operation or unit named "Corea," "Courier" or anything similar to that name. Passenger Jaffar had never been used as an informant or subsource, and no DEA office or agent ever had any contact with him. According to FBI and Scotland Yard forensic analyses, Jaffar's two pieces of luggage showed no signs of explosives or drugs – a conclusion publicly confirmed by Scotland's Fatal Accident Inquiry Board. (If one of Jaffar's bags had been "switched" after checking in, then that bag would have remained in Frankfurt. But both of his bags were accounted for.) Finally, there had been no "controlled deliveries" of drugs or sting operations through Cyprus or Frankfurt since 1987. There had been three controlled deliveries through Frankfurt between 1983 and 1987, but none involved Pan Am planes.

Still, some journalists were not convinced. In its December 17, 1990 issue, Barron's published a lengthy article reporting virtually everything in the Aviv report. The conspiracy theory would not die.

A New Source

The reports by NBC and ABC were also based on information from a new player in the conspiracy story: Lester Coleman. Coleman, who said he was a top operative for both the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), an arm of the Pentagon, and the DEA in the Middle East, had been hired by Pan Am in mid-1990 to assist in the Pan Am 103 investigation.
To journalists and Pan Am attorneys, Coleman was a dream come true. He said he was willing to talk about everything he knew – including a purported DEA sting operation that he believed led to the bombing of Pan Am 103. Coleman alleged that passenger Jaffar was one of his "informants" who served as a U.S. courier from Lebanon via the Frankfurt Airport as part of a DEA-sanctioned sting operation.

Conspiracy supporters claimed that Coleman's allegations independently corroborated Aviv's story. But, in fact, Coleman had teamed up with Aviv earlier in 1990 after reading about Aviv's investigation. An internal November 1990 DEA memo reported that Aviv told a DEA agent that Coleman had contacted him several months before and that "Coleman was approaching different people offering to sell information about the Pan Am 103 bombing." Journalists who were in regular contact with Coleman also confirmed that he collaborated with Aviv. By the time NBC and ABC interviewed Coleman, he had worked out his story with Aviv.

Coleman also was a principal source for Time's cover story a year-and-a-half later. Rowan reported Coleman's allegations as facts, repeating his description of himself as a top DIA agent working undercover for the DEA in Cyprus and intimately involved in covert "controlled drug operations" for the U.S. government. Calling Coleman Pan Am's "key witness," Rowan wrote that Coleman "spotted a newspaper picture of one of the Pan Am victims" and recognized him as one of his "drug-running informants" from Lebanon – Khalid Jaffar. Coleman, said Rowan, then contacted Pan Am.

Rowan quoted a source who suggested that Coleman was arrested in May 1990 in the United States on "trumped-up charges" in order to keep him quiet. Coleman, Rowan wrote, is now "hiding in fear of his life in a small town in Europe." In fact, Coleman fled the United States rather than stand trial after his arrest for passport fraud.

The charge of passport fraud is a minor indication that Coleman may not be completely honest. DEA documents, court records and interviews with journalists and government officials show him to be someone who operated at the periphery of U.S. government agencies but repeatedly exaggerated his work and involvement in anti-terrorist and anti-drug operations.

Rather than serving as an agent, DEA files state that Coleman was a freelance journalist in the Middle East who also worked as a U.S. informant. Coleman is married to a Lebanese woman, and therefore has an identity card that allowed him to move freely in and out of Lebanon.

An internal DEA memo states the agency hired Coleman on January 31, 1986 as a "confidential informant" in Cyprus for a 10-month period and again between February 1987 and June 1988. He was hired, according to the memo, after he "offered to video record the opium/cannabis production in Lebanon." But in June 1988, Coleman was "deactivated" by the DEA for "unsatisfactory behavior," which included selling DEA information illegally to Soldier of Fortune magazine and "obtaining goods and services" on Cyprus under "false pretenses." Coleman's file at DEA states that he had been "caught up in a quagmire of fabrications with DEA, the Cyprus Police Force and his] subsources and other associates in Cyprus."

To bolster Coleman's credibility, Rowan reported that Micheal Hurley, DEA's country attaché in Cyprus, "admitted in a Justice Department affidavit that he had paid Coleman $74,000 for information." But Rowan omitted nearly everything else in Hurley's detailed nine-page affidavit. Hurley stated flatly that there was no substance to Coleman's assertions and that Coleman had misrepresented his activities, bounced checks to subsources, and had been banned from Cyprus for failing to pay his bills.

Furthermore, Rowan didn't contact Hurley. Had he done so, Hurley says he would have provided him with a transcript of a tape-recorded telephone call between Coleman and a friend in which Coleman admitted that he never met Pan Am 103 passenger Jaffar – whom Coleman had identified as "one of his drug-running informants" to Time, NBC and ABC.

Besides U.S. government agencies, several journalists also have discovered Coleman has credibility problems. For example, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters Ron Martz and Lloyd M. Burchette Jr. went to Cyprus in 1988 to do research for a story on drug trafficking and terrorism. They hired Coleman as a consultant.

"Les promised to provide us access to all sorts of people and it's clear that he had greatly exaggerated his contacts," Martz says. "We soon found out what the Cypriot police already knew: He was a wannabe, scurrying around on the fringes... He was a great fabricator; he had a great ability to spin a yarn. I'm embarrassed to say that he even convinced me."

Burchette, now a screenwriter, recalls that Coleman continuously ran up hotel and telephone bills without delivering on any of his promises. "We were suckered," he says. "Coleman was a first-rate liar."

Following his arrest for passport fraud in May 1990, Coleman unsuccessfully tried to get DEA officials to quash the case against him. Embittered both by his termination from DEA and by the agency's refusal to protect him, Coleman apparently sought revenge, in particular against DEA agent Hurley, who had fired him. Revenge – in the form of the phony Pan Am story – would prove to be financially rewarding as well.

In a telephone conversation with Burchette in November 1990, Coleman said that he had provided information to ABC and NBC and that Pan Am was paying him for his information. "Coleman was snickering that he had pulled the wool over the networks' eyes," Burchette recalls. "He even admitted to me that he didn't know who Khalid Jaffar was." Coleman had just told ABC and NBC – and they reported – that Jaffar was a drug courier for the DEA.
The two networks were the first of many media outlets to be misled by Coleman over the next year. For example, in the Sunday (London) Times on July 22, 1991, Coleman's assertions – ranging from his claims about being an intelligence agent to his allegations about a drug sting aboard Pan Am 103 – were again reported uncritically.

The payoff for Coleman, who along with Aviv was working for Pan Am, has been significant. The two men have been paid tens of thousands of dollars by Pan Am's attorneys, according to officials close to the case. Pan Am's law firm, Windels, Marx, Davies & Ives, would not comment.
Having conned journalists about their inside knowledge of the bombing of Pan Am 103, Aviv and Coleman began plugging into other conspiracies fanned by various American reporters. INSLAW, a small company that alleges the Justice Department stole computer software from it, retained Aviv as an investigator. Prominent television shows such as "Nightline" and "60 Minutes" also have used Aviv as a consultant. Meanwhile, Coleman provided INSLAW with an affidavit claiming he has evidence linking the DEA, the Iran-contra scandal, the BCCI scandal and the INSLAW affair.

Like Aviv, Coleman refused to be interviewed for this article.

More Problems

Aside from its acceptance of Aviv and Coleman's allegations, Rowan's story had a number of other half-truths, misstatements and omissions. Among them:

• Rowan reported that in January 1990, Aviv, a Pan Am attorney and a "polygraph specialist" administered lie detector tests to two Frankfurt Airport Pan Am baggage handlers suspected of allowing the bomb on board. Rowan reported that both men had flunked their tests and that the polygraph specialist said one was "not truthful" when he denied that he switched suitcases.
Rowan neglected to point out that all of the court rulings in the Pan Am 103 case, in addition to FBI and Scotland Yard investigators, have dismissed as totally baseless allegations that the baggage handlers had anything to do with the bombing.

• Rowan also reported that the terrorists got the bomb aboard Pan Am 103 because they knew in advance which flight the targeted intelligence agents would be taking. In fact, at least three of the agents made their travel arrangements within 48 hours of the flight. Moreover, the agents flew from Cyprus to London. Rowan never explained how or why terrorists would place a bomb on a plane in Frankfurt in order to target agents travelling on a different route. Moreover, Rowan failed to report that the first leg of Pan Am 103's flight from Frankfurt to London was on a Boeing 727. In London, 49 out of the 125 passengers transferred to a Boeing 747 – also called Pan Am 103 – bound for New York. It was the second plane that blew up over Lockerbie.
U.S. and British investigators concluded that the fact that McKee and four other U.S. intelligence agents were aboard Pan Am 103 was a tragic coincidence.

• Time did not reveal a potential conflict of interest. Aviv, a key source for Time's Pan Am story, had been working on a project with Rowan for Time's sister company, Warner Books. The publishing company had paid "seed money" to Rowan and Aviv to explore the possibility of the two collaborating on a book about Aviv's life, according to Rowan and Nancy Neiman, a Warner Books executive vice president. Rowan says he could not substantiate enough of Aviv's biography to warrant the project, so he returned the unused portion of the money he had received. Aviv, however, did not return his unused portion, according to sources at Time. Neiman would not comment.

Time Chief of Correspondents Stacks said the Warner deal was completely separate from Time. "Time did not pay Aviv anything," he said. "This wasn't checkbook journalism."

The Lawsuit

The civil lawsuit pitting the victims' families against Pan Am's insurers was scheduled to begin last spring. The Aviv-Coleman conspiracy theory – essentially Pan Am's defense – would be put to the test. The stakes were enormous: If the jury found that the airline's security program had been negligent, Pan Am's insurers would be liable for hundreds of millions of dollars. Pan Am itself had gone bankrupt in January 1991 and went out of business last December.
The Time cover story appeared a week before the opening of the trial on April 27. Much of Rowan's story was taken from court records and exhibits filed by Pan Am's attorneys before the trial, which included material supporting the Aviv-Coleman allegations. But Pan Am's attorneys never introduced their "key witness" Coleman, Aviv, or the allegation that terrorists infiltrating a CIA-DEA drug sting.

According to sources familiar with the defense strategy, Pan Am's attorneys began having doubts about Aviv and Coleman two years ago. Even so, they went along with the conspiracy story because it was their only hope of winning the case. But when the defense attorneys apparently realized that their prize witnesses and their story would be torn to shreds under cross examination, they withdrew the witnesses. Even so, the Aviv-Coleman story showed up on the cover of Time just one week before the trial.

Rowan's story was not the first time allegations similar to those outlined in the Aviv report surfaced just before judicial proceedings on the bombing. As David Leppard, author of "On the Trail of Terror," a book on the bombing, pointed out in an article he wrote for the Washington Post in late April, Time's "untold story of Pan Am 103" "appeared twice before under similar circumstances... In autumn 1989, in the midst of evidence-taking in Frankfurt that proved highly critical of Pan Am, the story surfaced in the British and U.S. media. A year later, on the eve of the 1990 inquiry in Scotland, an identical item was reported on NBC-TV."

Two days after the Time story appeared, attorneys for the victims' families, in a letter to the court, charged that Pan Am's attorneys were trying to sow confusion in an effort to influence the 550-member jury pool. In the letter, lead attorney Lee Kreindler stated that "false information..appears to have been given to Time by the defendants."

Nevertheless, the strategy didn't work. On July 11, a jury found Pan Am liable for "willful misconduct" in its sloppy baggage handling that allowed the bomb on Pan Am 103.

False Accusation

Time's Rowan stands by his story. He says he independently confirmed the substance of his article and cites the fact that other "stories had also reported these things."
He says Aviv and Coleman correctly identified COREA as a secret CIA unit dealing with drugs and weapons. "I buy the notion that COREA was a rogue unit," he says. "I have talked to another intelligence agent. But I can't tell you his name."

As for the other allegations in his article, Rowan says, "I only used from Aviv what I could corroborate from another source. There were a lot of things in his report that I could not substantiate and I did not report them. In the case of Coleman, I used things for which I had documentation either from him or from other sources. A lot of people in the government would like to discredit Coleman. I haven't found anything that he told me that was proven wrong.
"We made one mistake in identifying [Schafer as] Lovejoy," he acknowledges, "but that wasn't Coleman's error."

Michael Schafer and his attorney complained to Time about the false accusation. Time acknowledged in a one-paragraph "correction" four weeks after the Pan Am story was published that the photo was actually that of Schafer and stated it "regrets that Schafer's photograph was used in error." Time said that the photo was "identified in court documents as being of David Lovejoy, a reported double agent for the U.S. and Iran." But how did the photo get into the court records?

Former Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Burchette believes the picture was given to Pan Am by Coleman, who had worked with Schafer when the latter was a cameraman for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in Lebanon in 1985. Burchette recalls that one day in May 1988 in Cyprus, Coleman showed him a letter of identification stating that Michael Schafer "is a representative of CBN News assigned to the Beirut bureau." It included a photo of Schafer – the same photo Time said was "David Lovejoy" – and was signed by Coleman, who was a CBN senior correspondent at the time. A copy of this letter of identification shows that the photo of Schafer and that of "Lovejoy" are exactly the same.

"Coleman never thought the picture would ever end up in Time," says Burchette. "He just thought that Pan Am would buy it and that would be it."

The Flannigan Family Tragedy.

2007-11-30T22:08:00.001Z

Amid the many tragic consequences of the Lockerbie disaster, there are some that are all too often forgotten amid the international politics, the webs of intelligence and the conflicting investigations; the people of Lockerbie themselves. Those who died in the small Scottish town, and those who were left to rebuild their houses and their lives.

In 2000, twelve years after the Pan Am bombing, there were those who's lives were irreversibly changed in 1988, and there were some still struggling to come to terms with the terrible night four days before Christmas. One such person was Stephen Flannigan, whose life changed, in a moment, beyond almost anyone's comprehension.

IT WAS 7pm on 21 December 1988, a wet and miserable winter evening. In the small Dumfriesshire market town of Lockerbie local people were looking forward to Christmas, some wrapping presents and others preparing their dinner. Fourteen-year-old Steven Flannigan had just braved the weather to go to a neighbour's house to set up his present of a new bicycle for his younger sister Joanne. His parents Kathleen and Thomas were also at home with his sister.

About 60 miles away, in Prestwick Airport's control tower, air traffic controller Alan Topp was watching his radar screen as Pan American Flight 103 from London to New York - the Clipper Maid of the Seas - crossed the Solway Firth. "Clipper 103 requesting oceanic clearance," First Officer Raymond Wagner said. It was the standard, normal request for aircraft about to cross the Atlantic.

Not a single person in the immediate area forgets where they were when their routine, pre-Christmas evening was transformed into a scene of unimaginable death and destruction. While Topp watched in disbelief as his radar screen showed the deterioration of the aircraft in dozens of bright green squares, the bulk of Pan Am 103 scored a direct hit on Lockerbie.

"The fire was falling down from the sky," said resident Jasmine Bell. "Everything was burning - the driveway, the lawn, the hedges, the rooftops." In seconds the quiet normality of Lockerbie, and all the Christmas preparation that was taking place, was shattered.

The aviation fuel exploded when the plane hit the ground sending what residents described as "an atomic mushroom" through the houses in the crescent. Many homes - along with the people inside - were vaporised. Another 21 homes were so badly damaged they had to be demolished. The giant fireball rose above the houses and moved towards the A74 Glasgow to Carlisle motorway, burning cars on the southbound carriageway.

Eleven residents of Lockerbie lost their lives when the plane hit. Steven Flannigan, who had taken his sister's new bicycle to a neighbour, looked out to see his house gone. Nothing of his parents, Katherine and Thomas, were ever found and his 10-year-old sister Joanne also died. The visit to his neighbour had saved Steven's life but suddenly left him an orphan.

Four members of one family, Jack and Rosalind Somerville, and their children Paul and Lynsey, who lived at number 15 Sherwood Crescent, were all killed instantly.

Steven Flannigan became known as the "Orphan of Lockerbie". He and his older brother David, who had been in Blackpool on the night of the bombing, won a $3.2 million settlement from Pan Am.

In 1993, David died at a hostel in Thailand.

Steven tried to make a go of things but in August 2000, on his 26th Birthday, he lay down on a railroad track in Wiltshire, England, and was killed by a train.

When Steven was finally laid to rest in a pretty Lockerbie graveyard, his remains joined those of his brother and sister. Had the bodies of his parents not been destroyed when Pan-Am 103 crashed into their terraced bungalow with the force of a meteorite on the night of 21 December 1988, his would be the last of five corpses in one grave. As it is, only two coffins had to be disturbed to make space for the last of the Flannigan clan.

http://heritage.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1377&id=811922006

From Dungeon To Talk Show Host

2007-11-30T21:50:00.000Z

by Michael Brown. 28 May 1998.

A US District Judge has sentenced Lester K. Coleman, a witness in the Lockerbie disaster civil case, to time served and a $30,000 fine for five counts of perjury based on an affidavit he gave in the Pan Am case. Last week, Coleman, now a talk show host on WLXG in Lexington, Kentucky, retaliated with a $6.5 million damages lawsuit against the US prison service for his treatment during his time in jail awaiting trial.

Coleman had filed an affidavit in 1991 after fleeing to Sweden where he had been granted sanctuary on humanitarian grounds. He voluntarily returned to the US in 1996 and was immediately taken into custody. He is the only person in US legal history to be charged with perjury over an affidavit filed in a civil case.

Judge Thomas C. Platt had warned Coleman during sentencing : "If I hear you attacking the Government on your radio show, I shall take that very very seriously". Judge Platt also barred Coleman from speaking about his case on the radio programme. Coleman said after the sentencing : "Today was another episode in the saga of a five-year-old perjury case, based on a sever-year-old civil affidavit, over a ten-year-old air disaster. No American can ever give up free speech to preserve a judge's order."

Judge Platt said from the bench : "I want to send to send a message to all those in the beltway in Washington that perjury in a civil case is prosecuted, as this case shows." (Platt, a Nixon appointee, may have been challenging Pres. Clinton's supporters who claimed that perjury in a civil case is never prosecuted.)

Coleman, a former agent with the Defence Intelligence Agency, provoked controversy in the US and UK by claiming in 1992 that the Lockerbie tragedy, in which 270 people died, was caused by an American drug sting operation which went wrong. (Transcript of Coleman affidavit posted below this article.)

Coleman claimed that the DEA had been operating a number of Beirut-based sting operations, involving more than 130 paid informants, which allowed controlled deliveries of heroin from Lebanon to US airports. The goal was to arrest US-based drug gangs. Several informants had been given CIA 'asset' status in 1987 to lure a suspected terrorist out of Beirut aboard a yatch off the coast of Cyprus. The operation was codenamed Goldenrod.

[ Further reading on this particular operation, and an admission by the DEA, in court, that the drug sting was indeed operational, is detailed in this article -
http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence/readme/lockerbie ]

This operation was co-ordinated by several key figures subsequently drafted in to deal with the bombing of Flight 103. Oliver 'Buck' Revel, Deputy Director of FBI, Vincent Cannistraro of the CIA's Rome Station and Michael T Hurley, the DEA attaché in Cyprus. Coleman suspected that it was Lebanese drug informants, adopted as CIA assets for the drug operation, who eventually provided Syria with the intelligence used to place the bomb aboard Pan Am 103.

Coleman claimed the DEA's drug operation had been infiltrated by Iranian financed and Syrian backed PLFP-GC, who had been ordered to avenge the shootdown by the US navy of a commercial Iranian flight (Iran Air 655) in July 1988, killing 290 people. Instead of placing the usual heroin on the flight, it was substituted for a suitcase containing explosives.

Coleman made the allegations in an affidavit to Pan Am during the airline's investigation into the tragedy. Pan Am had filed notice of legal action against the Government. Government attorneys balked at turning over classified documents claiming National Security reasons. The case was dismissed by then district Judge Thomas Platt in the Eastern District of New York for lack of evidence.

It was not until Coleman reiterated his allegations in a book, some two and a half years later, that the US government responded by accusing him of perjury. He became the first ever person to be charged with perjury over statements given in an affidavit in a civil case.

At the time "Trail of the Octopus" was published, Coleman and his family were already in Sweden having successfully applied for asylum. Coleman already had had the feeling that he had become a state target. His supporters claim that the charge of perjury was brought because he had dared to contradict the official US view that Libya was responsible for the bombing.

After six years in exile, in failing health and with the US pressing for his deportation, Coleman voluntarily returned home on 11 October 1996. He was held for five months, without bail, while a cancerous tumour the size of a golf ball, grew on his collar bone. Coleman repeatedly told his public defender, Abraham Clott, he needed medical care, but it was not until Vivian Shevitz agreed to take his case without fee that something was done.

Shevitz wrote to the Warden at Metropolitan Detention Centre on 13 January 1997, three months after Coleman's arrival : "I wrote on January 7th to suggest the need for immediate medical treatment for pre-trail detainee Lester K. Coleman. I visited Mr.Coleman yesterday and learned essentially nothing has been done. A painful growth on his chest is still apparently oozing. His t-shirt is covered with blood. Mr Coleman advised me that he was told on 23 December that it would take about two weeks for an operation. It has been longer than that and there is a need."

On January 21, Coleman was operated upon, returning the same day to jail. For 16 days, he received no further medical attention or assistance, and his wound became seriously infected. Shevitz wrote numerous letters to the court. Coleman was finally returned to hospital and Shevitz describes the visit in a letter : "It was not until Thursday 6 February that Mr Coleman was taken to see Dr Beaton at Downtown Hospital. While Dr Beaton refused to tell me directly about his reaction to Mr Coleman's condition, the two Special Deputy Marshals who accompanied Mr Coleman were willing to be forthcoming. (Despite their expressed
knowledge that the system expected their silence.)

Own Flynn is a Special Deputy Marshal who kindly spoke to me on the telephone on 7 February. He told me that when in the examination room with Mr Coleman, Dr Beaton, when first looking at the wound, said in substance :"Oh my God, look at this, this is criminal. This is appalling."

The doctor had warned Mr Coleman that, even that the wound was infected, he would have to remove the stitches from the original operation, and that would be painful.

Dr Beaton wrote : "This frankly is an outrage, as it relates to a man who is charged with no more than perjury in an affidavit in a civil case! Whether he 'jumped bail' or not in the past or another charge, hardly smacks of Jack the Ripper : he voluntarily returned and has no money, nor energy to go anywhere. He is sick with cancer and needs medical care and rest. He needs also to prepare his case at the same time."

After Shevitz's letter to the court charging the Justice department with malpractice and cruelty, Coleman was sent to suburban hospital to recover. It took round the clock treatment for 11 days to clear up the infection. While he was there he was seen by resident psychiatrist, Harvey Berman, clinical professor at New York Medical College.

Dr Berman later wrote to the court on 11 September 1997 : "Mr Lester Coleman is a patient under my care. He has been in treatment with me since 28 February. His diagnosis is major depression. His symptoms include sad moods, insomnia, lethargy, difficulty in concentrating, ruminations of hopelessness, frequent thoughts of death and nightmares of his time at the MDC earlier this year where he received sub-standard medical care. I believe the depression was
precipitated by the way he was treated there."

Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for the British relatives of the Lockerbie victims said he was disturbed at how the US authorities were treating Coleman. Swire wrote "The gross maltreatment of Coleman by the American authorities appears to fit a pattern of victimisation of people who challenge the official version that Libya was solely to blame for Lockerbie."

Shevitz's campaign to obtain Coleman's release on bail finally bore fruit when Assistant Attorney Alan Vickery agreed on 27 March 1998 that Coleman could be released into the custody of his daughter, living upstate New York. The terms included house arrest, wearing an electronic bracelet (tag), with no travel except to see a doctor and to court.

For the next six months Coleman remained confined, but it remained a level up from the ordeal at MDC. He had still not seen the family that he had left behind at Atlanta Airport over a year before.

Coleman and Shevitz began preparing to take on the Government, filing a host of discovery requests for classified documents, listed by file number and name. It was obvious from the detailed requests that Coleman's past relationship with US military intelligence was real. Shevitz, still representing Coleman without charge, filed her expenses with the court only to be denied her motion by Judge Platt.

Soon she was out of pocket almost $10,000. Towards the end of the summer, with not one shred of discovery from the Government, Shevitz reluctantly told Coleman she was forced to withdraw. His only alternative was public defender, Abraham Clott, the lawyer who had not even bothered to complain about Coleman's medical treatment for several months.

With Clott back, the case ground to a halt. Clott and his boss, Attorney-in-Charge, Thomas J Cancannon visited Coleman at his daughter's home on August 28 1998. From illness and prescribed drugs, Coleman has little recollection of that day, but did have the where-with-all to tape the meeting. Cancannon and Clott advised Coleman he could take advantage of the unusual Rule 11 (1)(e) - Deal, plead guilty and walk free - or continue to fight, be returned to jail and face two or three years litigation before Judge Platt. Even in Coleman's distorted state, the choice was clear. He had had enough.

Still, Coleman wrestled with the decision until the day before he walked into court. Clott called him on September 10. Coleman again recorded the conversation :

Coleman : I might just walk in there and disagree with the whole thing, I don't know, I might just do that.
Clott : If you do that, you'll be remanded and face two to three years....
Coleman : Oh, I don't think this will go away anytime soon...
Clott : Yes it will
Coleman : It will?
Clott : I am sure it will, after tomorrow.

The following morning, on 11 September 1998, advised he would never have his day in court, he stood before Judge Thomas C. Platt, and pleaded guilty to five counts of perjury based on the affidavit he gave in the Pan Am civil case nearly seven years earlier.

Within two days, he was on a plane to Palm Springs, California at the Government's expense, where he was joined by his wife and three children.

Coleman Affidavit

2007-11-30T21:43:00.000Z

Affidavit of Lester K. Coleman, being duly sworn, do hereby state as follows:
"(1) I am currently selfemployed as a freelance writer, editor, and security consultant. I am a United States citizen and am temporarily outside of the United States.
"(2) In November 1984, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) offered me a position in human intelligence operations in the Middle East. I was raised in the Middle East, where I lived in Iran, Libya and Saudi Arabia. I speak three dialects of Arabic and some Farsi. I accepted the position and received training from the DIA. I was assigned to a Middle East intelligence unit.
"(3) Between February and September 1987, I was seconded by DIA to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Nicosia, Cyprus, reporting to the DEA Country Attache, Michael T. Hurley.
"(4) After a cover assignment in the United States, I was again seconded to the DEA in Nicosia, Cyprus, in early 1988.
"(5) During April and May 1988, I worked in the office of Euramae Trading Company, Ltd. in Nicosia, Cyprus, a DEA proprietary company. On or about May 29, 1988, because of my concern about poor security in the DEA operation in Cyprus, I returned to the United States, having previously obtained the concurrence of DIA.
"(6) During my two stints as a DIA covert intelligence officer seconded to the DEA in Nicosia, Cyprus, I became aware of the fact that DEA was using its proprietary company, Euramae Trading Company, Ltd. to sell computer software called PROMISE or PROMIS to the drug abuse control agencies of various countries in the Middle East, including Cyprus, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Turkey.
"(7) I personally witnessed the unpacking at the Nicosia, Cyprus, Police Force Narcotics Squad of boxes containing reels of computer tapes and computer hardware. The boxes bore the name and red logo of a Canadian corporation with the words `PROMISE' or `PROMIS' and `Ltd' in the company name.
"(8) The DEA objective in inducing the implementation of this computerized PROMIS[E] system in the drug abuse control agencies of the Middle East countries was to augment the drug control resources available to the United States Government by making it possible for the United States Government to access sensitive drug control law enforcement and intelligence files of these Middle East governments.
"(9) It is also my understanding that thirdparty funds were generally made available for the purchase of these computer software and hardware systems. One thirdparty funding source was the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control in Vienna, Austria.
"(10) As DEA Country Attache for Cyprus, Michael T. Hurley had overall responsibility for both the Euramae Trading Company, Ltd. and its initiative to sell PROMIS[E] computer systems to Middle East countries for drug abuse control.
"(11) In 1990, DEA reassigned Hurley to a DEA intelligence position in Washington State.
"(12) I became aware in 1991 that Michael Riconosciuto, known to me as a longtime CIA asset, was arrested in Washington State by DEA for the manufacturing of illegal chemical drugs. I had also become aware of the fact that Riconosciuto had made a sworn statement, prior to his arrest, about his participation in a covert U.S. intelligence initiative to sell Inslaw's PROMISE software to foreign governments.
"(13) In light of Hurley's personal involvement in the U.S. Government's covert intelligence initiative to sell PROMIS[E] software to foreign governments and his reassignment to a DEA intelligence position in Washington State in advance of the DEA's arrest of Riconosciuto, the arrest of Riconosciuto should be regarded as suspect. I do not believe that Hurley's posting to a drug intelligence position in Washington State in advance of Riconosciuto's arrest on drug charges is merely coincidental. Rather, the probability is that Hurley was reassigned to Washington State to manufacture a case against Riconosciuto in order to prevent Riconosciuto from becoming a credible witness about the U.S. Government's covert sale of the PROMIS software to foreign governments.
"(14) The investigative journalist Danny Casolaro contacted me in Europe on August 3, 1991. Mr. Casolaro had leads and hard information about things that I know about, including Department of Justice groups operating overseas, the sale of PROMIS[E] software by the U.S. Government to foreign governments, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the IranContra scandal. I subsequently learned of Mr. Casolaro's death in Martinsburg, West Virginia, one week later, on August 10, 1991. I contacted Inslaw in October 1991, after learning about Mr. Casolaro's death under suspicious circumstances."

Signed and sworn to before me this 10tht day of August, 1991.
Melissa J. Corbett. Notary Public. My Commission Expires: June 14th, 1994

Inconvenient Truths by Hugh Miles

2007-11-29T00:02:00.000Z

On 21 December 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was 38 minutes into its journey when it was blown up at 31,000 feet. The explosion was so powerful that the nose of the aircraft was torn clean off. Within three seconds of the bomb detonating, the cockpit, fuselage and No. 3 engine were falling separately out of the sky. It happened so quickly that no distress call was sent out and no oxygen masks deployed. With the cockpit gone, the fuselage depressurised instantly and the passengers in the rear section of the aircraft found themselves staring out into the Scottish night air. Anyone or anything not strapped down was whipped out of the plane; the change in air pressure made the passengers’ lungs expand to four times their normal volume and everyone lost consciousness. As the fuselage plummeted and the air pressure began to return to normal, some passengers came round, including the captain. A few survived all the way down, until they hit the ground. Rescuers found them clutching crucifixes, or holding hands, still strapped into their seats.

The fuselage of the plane landed on a row of family houses in the small Scottish town of Lockerbie. The impact was so powerful that the British Geological Survey registered a seismic event measuring 1.6 on the Richter scale. The wing section of the Boeing 747, loaded with enough fuel for a transatlantic flight, hit the ground at more than 500 miles an hour and exploded in a fireball that lit the sky. The cockpit, with the first-class section still attached, landed beside a church in the village of Tundergarth.

Over the next few days rescuers made a fingertip search of the crash site: 243 passengers, 16 crew members and 11 people on the ground had been killed. Bodies and debris were strewn along an 81-mile corridor of Scottish countryside. Ten thousand pieces of debris were retrieved; each was meticulously logged. Among the items recovered were the remains of a Samsonite suitcase, which investigators later established had been used to transport the bomb. The suitcase had contained clothes, clothes that were subsequently traced to the shop of a Maltese man called Tony Gauci. Gauci later became a key prosecution witness. Fragments of a circuit board and a Toshiba radio were also recovered and identified as parts of the bomb.

Twelve years later, on 31 January 2001, a panel of three Scottish judges convicted a former Libyan intelligence officer for mass murder at Lockerbie. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was tried at a specially convened court on a former US air force base near the Dutch town of Zeist. Under a special international arrangement, the court, which sat without a jury, was temporarily declared sovereign territory of the United Kingdom, under the jurisdiction of Scottish law.

Megrahi is still the only person to have been found guilty in connection with the attack. He was sentenced to 27 years in jail. His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, a fellow Libyan intelligence officer, was acquitted. Al-Megrahi was initially told that he would spend at least twenty years in prison, but the Crown, which was prosecuting, protested that this sentence was unduly lenient and petitioned the judges for a longer one. In 2003 the judges reconvened to rule that he must serve no less than 27 years before the parole board would consider his eligibility for release. Al-Megrahi’s defence team had already lodged an appeal against the conviction, but in March 2002 the guilty verdict was upheld.

From the outset the Lockerbie disaster has been marked by superlatives. The bombing was the deadliest terror attack on American civilians until 11 September 2001. It sparked Britain’s biggest ever criminal inquiry, led by its smallest police force, Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary. It spelled the end of Pan Am, which never recovered from the damage to its reputation. The trial at Camp Zeist was the longest and – at a cost of £75 million – the most expensive in Scottish legal history. The appeal hearing was the first Scottish trial to be broadcast live on both television and the internet.

Lawyers, politicians, diplomats and relatives of Lockerbie victims now believe that the former Libyan intelligence officer is innocent. Robert Black QC, an emeritus professor of Scottish law at Edinburgh University, was one of the architects of the original trial in Holland. He has closely followed developments since the disaster happened and in 2000 devised the non-jury trial system for the al-Megrahi case.

Even before the trial he was so sure the evidence against al-Megrahi would not stand up in court that he is on record as saying that a conviction would be impossible. When I asked how he feels about this remark now, Black replied: ‘I am still absolutely convinced that I am right. No reasonable tribunal, on the evidence heard at the original trial, should or could have convicted him and it is an absolute disgrace and outrage what the Scottish court did.’

Al-Megrahi lost his appeal in 2002, but under Scottish law he is entitled to a further legal review, to be conducted by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), an independent public body made up of senior police officers and lawyers. Its job is to re-examine cases where a miscarriage of justice may have occurred: it handles cases after the appeal process has been exhausted, and if it finds evidence that a miscarriage of justice may have taken place it refers the case to the High Court to be heard again. Al-Megrahi applied to the SCCRC for a review of his case in 2003 and the commission has been reinspecting evidence from the trial for the last four years. It will submit its findings at the end of June. It looks likely that the SCCRC will find that there is enough evidence to refer al-Megrahi’s case back to the appeal court. The Crown Office has already begun reinforcing its Lockerbie legal team in anticipation of a referral.

If al-Megrahi is granted a second appeal, it will, like the original trial, be held before a panel of Scottish judges, without a jury. This time the trial will take place in Scotland, and if the glacial pace of proceedings in the past is anything to go by, it will probably not be heard before the summer of 2008. Al-Megrahi’s defence team would be ready to launch an appeal in a matter of weeks, but the prosecution would be likely to delay the hearing for as long as possible. If an appeal takes place, al-Megrahi’s defence team will produce important evidence that was not available at the time of the first appeal, evidence that seems likely not only to exonerate al-Megrahi but to do so by pointing the finger of blame at the real perpetrators of the Lockerbie bombing and revealing some inconvenient truths.

Even the judge who presided over the Lockerbie investigation and issued the 1991 arrest warrants for the two Libyans has cast doubt on the prosecution’s case. In an interview with the Sunday Times in October 2005, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, Scotland’s larger-than-life lord advocate from 1989 to 1992, questioned the reliability of the shopkeeper Tony Gauci, the prosecution’s star witness. ‘Gauci was not quite the full shilling. I think even his family would say [that he] was an apple short of a picnic. He was quite a tricky guy, I don’t think he was deliberately lying but if you asked him the same question three times he would just get irritated and refuse to answer.’ Lord Fraser made it clear that this did not mean he thought al-Megrahi was innocent. But he had presented Gauci as a reliable witness; he went on to become the heart of the prosecution’s case. Now he was casting doubt on the man who identified al-Megrahi.

Since al-Megrahi’s last appeal, many thousands of pages of reports, detailing freight and baggage movements in and out of Frankfurt airport, have been handed over to the defence. Largely in German and many handwritten, the papers were translated by the Crown at the taxpayer’s expense, but the Crown refused to share the translations with the defence and left it no time to commission its own. The Privy Council’s judicial committee, made up of law lords and senior judges, has declared that the Crown’s refusal to disclose this evidence is a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. More damaging still, an unnamed senior British police officer – known to be a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS), which implies that his rank is assistant chief constable or higher – has testfied to al-Megrahi’s defence team that crucial evidence at the trial was fabricated. If the SCCRC finds that the prosecution played foul, the Crown may decide it would be better not to continue with its case, allowing al-Megrahi to be freed immediately.

This anonymous senior officer’s testimony chimes with the well-trodden theory that the American government had a hand in fixing the trial. Hans Köchler, the UN observer at Camp Zeist, reported at the time that the trial was politically charged and the verdict ‘totally incomprehensible’.

In his report Köchler wrote that he found the presence of US Justice Department representatives in the court ‘highly problematic’, because it gave the impression that they were ‘“supervisors” handling vital matters of the prosecution strategy and deciding . . . which documents . . . were to be released in open court and what parts of information contained in a certain document were to be withheld.’ ‘The alternative theory of the defence,’ he went on, ‘was never seriously investigated. Amid shrouds of secrecy and national security considerations, that avenue was never seriously pursued – although it was officially declared as being of major importance for the defence case. This is totally incomprehensible to any rational observer.’ The prosecution, Köchler noted, dismissed evidence on the grounds that it was not relevant; but now that that evidence has finally – partially – been released, it turns out to be very relevant indeed: to the defence.

Whatever happens, al-Megrahi may not have to wait long. As soon as a further appeal is scheduled, he can make an application to be released from custody: the convicted Lockerbie bomber, who was supposed to serve no fewer than 27 years in a Scottish jail, might well be free this summer. Whether al-Megrahi is freed pending his appeal – and what conditions would be applied if he were – depends largely on whether his defence team can convince the judge that he is not a flight risk. This may be hard to do. The judge might decide that if he left the country, he might choose to stay in Libya rather than come back next year for another round in court. If al-Megrahi is exonerated, many tricky questions will resurface, not least what to do about the $2.7 billion compensation paid by Libya to the relatives of the victims of the bombing. And then, of course, there is the question of who really bombed Flight 103.

In the first three years following the bombing, before a shred of evidence had been produced to incriminate Libya, the Dumfries and Galloway police, the FBI and several other intelligence services around the world all shared the belief that the Lockerbie bombers belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC), a Palestinian rejectionist organisation backed by Iran. The PFLP-GC is headed by Ahmed Jibril, a former Syrian army captain; its headquarters are in Damascus and it is closely allied with the Syrian president and other senior Syrian officials. In the 1970s and 1980s the PFLP-GC carried out a number of raids against Israel, including a novel hang-glider assault launched from inside Lebanon. Lawyers, intelligence services and diplomats around the world continue to suspect that Jibril – who has even boasted that he is responsible – was behind Lockerbie.

The case against Jibril and his gang is well established. It runs like this: in July 1988, five months before the Lockerbie bombing, a US naval commander aboard USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf shot down an Iranian airbus, apparently mistaking it for an attacker. On board Iran Air Flight 655 were 270 pilgrims en route to Mecca. Ayatollah Khomeini vowed the skies would ‘rain blood’ in revenge and offered a $10 million reward to anyone who ‘obtained justice’ for Iran. The suggestion is that the PFLP-GC was commissioned to undertake a retaliatory bombing.

We know at least that two months before Lockerbie, a PFLP-GC cell was active in the Frankfurt and Neuss areas of West Germany. On 26 October 1998, German police arrested 17 terrorist suspects who, surveillance showed, had cased Frankfurt airport and browsed Pan Am flight timetables. Four Semtex-based explosive devices were confiscated; a fifth is known to have gone missing. They were concealed inside Toshiba radios very similar to the one found at Lockerbie a few weeks later. One of the gang, a Palestinian known as Abu Talb, was later found to have a calendar in his flat in Sweden with the date of 21 December circled. New evidence, now in the hands of al-Megrahi’s defence, proves for the first time that Abu Talb was in Malta when the Lockerbie bombing took place. The Maltese man whose testimony convicted al-Megrahi has also identified Abu Talb. During al-Megrahi’s trial Abu Talb had a strange role. As part of a defence available in Scottish law, known as ‘incrimination’, Abu Talb was named as someone who – rather than the accused – might have carried out the bombing. At the time he was serving a life sentence in Sweden for the bombing of a synagogue, but he was summoned to Camp Zeist to give evidence. He ended up testifying as a prosecution witness, denying that he had anything to do with Lockerbie. In exchange for his testimony, he received lifelong immunity from prosecution.
Other evidence has emerged showing that the bomb could have been placed on the plane at Frankfurt airport, a possibility that the prosecution in al-Megrahi’s trial consistently ruled out (their case depended on the suitcase containing the bomb having been transferred from a connecting flight from Malta). Most significantly, German federal police have provided financial records showing that on 23 December 1988, two days after the bombing, the Iranian government deposited £5.9 million into a Swiss bank account that belonged to the arrested members of the PFLP-GC.
The decision to steer the investigation away from the PFLP-GC and in the direction of Libya came in the run-up to the first Gulf War, as America was looking to rally a coalition to liberate Kuwait and was calling for support from Iran and Syria. Syria subsequently joined the UN forces. Quietly, the evidence incriminating Jibril, so painstakingly sifted from the debris, was binned.
Those who continued to press the case against the PFLP-GC seemed to fall foul of American law. When a New York corporate investigative company asked to look into the bombing on behalf of Pan Am found the PFLP-GC responsible, the federal government promptly indicted the company’s president, Juval Aviv, for mail fraud. Lester Coleman, a former Defense Intelligence Agency operative who was researching a book about the PFLP-GC and Lockerbie, was charged by the FBI with ‘falsely procuring a passport’. William Casey, a lobbyist who made similar allegations in 1995, found his bank accounts frozen and federal agents searching through his trash. Even so, documents leaked from the US Defense Intelligence Agency in 1995, two years after the Libyans were first identified as the prime suspects, still blamed the PFLP-GC.
Suspicions and conspiracy theories have swirled around Lockerbie from the beginning. Some of them are fairly outlandish. In Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse (2005), Brigid Keenan, the wife of the British diplomat Alan Waddams, reported that over dinner in Gambia, a former Interpol agent told her and her husband that the bombing had been a revenge attack by Iran, in retaliation for the downed airliner (though she didn’t say how he knew this). The Interpol agent claimed the cargo had not been checked because the plane was carrying drugs as part of a deal over American hostages held by Hizbullah in Beirut. Militant groups were being allowed to smuggle heroin into the US in exchange for information; the bomb had gone on board when the PFLP-GC found a loophole in this drug-running operation.
At least four US intelligence officers, including the CIA’s deputy station chief in Beirut, were on the Flight 103 passenger list. In the days following the bombing, CIA agents scoured the Scottish countryside, some reportedly dressed in Pan Am overalls. Mary Boylan, then a constable with Lothian and Borders police, has said that senior police officers told her not to make an official record of the CIA badge she recovered from the wreckage, asking her instead to hand it over to a senior colleague. Her testimony, too, is now in the hands of the SCCRC. Jim Wilson, a farmer from the village of Tundergarth, reported shortly after the bombing that he had found in his field a suitcase packed with a powdery substance that looked ‘like drugs’. He last saw the suitcase when he handed it over to the police, he said; he was never asked about it again.

In December 1998, Susan Lindauer, a US congressional aide, submitted a sworn deposition to the court in which she claimed that Richard Fuisz, a CIA agent, had given her a guarantee that he knew who was behind the Lockerbie bombing. Lindauer’s affidavit describes a conversation in Fuisz’s ‘business office’ in Chantilly, Virginia, in which he said he knew for sure the perpetrators were based in Syria. ‘Dr Fuisz has told me that he can identify who orchestrated and executed the bombing. Dr Fuisz has said that he can confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or executing the bombing of Pan Am 103, either in any technical or advisory capacity whatsoever.’ ‘If the government would let me, I could identify the men behind this attack,’ Lindauer says Fuisz told her.

Lindauer has since been accused by the US government of being an Iraqi agent; her case is pending. But her earlier deposition has been submitted to the SCCRC. It can’t count for much, however, since Fuisz himself is not able to comment. In October 1994, a month after Lindauer spoke to him, Fuisz was gagged by a Washington court. The US government ruled that under state secrecy laws he faced ten years in prison if he spoke about the Lockerbie bombing. UN observers have since criticised this apparent restraint of a key witness.

When Libya handed al-Megrahi over for trial, sanctions on Libya authorised by the Security Council were suspended and diplomatic relations with Britain restored. Tony Blair claims the Libyan detente was one of his most important foreign policy victories, and last month, as the long shadow began to fall across his premiership, Blair swung by Tripoli to meet again with Libya’s leader. Gaddafi has always contested that al-Megrahi is not the Lockerbie bomber and that he should be allowed to return home. Maybe the two leaders touched on the prickly topic of what should be done about the compensation paid by Libya, in the event al-Megrahi is exonerated.

When al-Megrahi was handed over for trial, Libya declared that it would accept responsibility for his actions. But it never accepted guilt. This distinction was spelled out clearly in Libyan letters to the UN Security Council. In a BBC radio interview in 2004, the Libyan prime minister, Shukri Ghanem, underlined once again that compensation had been paid because this was the ‘price for peace’ and to secure the lifting of sanctions. When asked if Libya did not accept guilt, he said: ‘I agree with that.’

If the court that convicted al-Megrahi now reverses its decision, then Libya would clearly have a case for demanding its money back. Since recovering the compensation from the relatives would be unthinkable, it is more likely Libya would pursue those responsible for the miscarriage of justice. ‘What they might try to do,’ Black suggests, ‘is to recoup the money from the British and American governments, who after all are responsible for the initial farce and the wrongful conviction in the first place. They paid that money on the basis of a miscarriage of justice perpetrated by the British courts.’ Al-Megrahi’s acquittal on appeal would not ipso facto make a compelling case for Libya to have its money back: even if guilt can’t be proved beyond reasonable doubt – the test of the criminal burden of proof – it could still be shown that it was more likely than not (which is the burden applied to civil cases such as compensation cases).

If Libya paid the money for purely political reasons then, one could argue, it might have to live with that decision. When I asked the Foreign Office whether Britain would consider reimbursing Libya in the event of al-Megrahi’s exoneration, a spokesman declined to comment.

If al-Megrahi is acquitted, he will also have the right to sue for wrongful conviction. He could claim compensation to the tune of several tens of thousands of pounds. The Crown Office, which is headed by the Scottish lord advocate, is responsible for what happened, which means that al-Megrahi would sue the Scottish Executive. The lord advocate is now one of the ‘Scottish ministers’, whereas previously he – now she – was one of the law officers of the UK Government. The Scottish Executive might refuse to pay, blaming Westminster. Westminster, meanwhile, would argue that Lockerbie is and always has been a Crown Office matter and that the UK government has no say. A political storm is on its way, especially now that the SNP is in charge in Scotland.

Since the case against al-Megrahi was so weak, it is hard to understand how the judges who presided over the trial could have got it so wrong. Black has a view:
It has been suggested to me, very often by Libyans, that political pressure was placed upon the judges. I don’t think for a minute that political pressure of that nature was placed on the judges. What happened, I think, was that it was internal politics in Scotland. Prosecutions in Scotland are brought by the lord advocate. Until just a few years ago, one of the other functions of the lord advocate in Scotland was that he appointed all Scottish judges. I think what influenced these judges was that they thought that if both of the Libyans accused are found not guilty, this will be the most fiendish embarrassment to the lord advocate.

The appointment system for judges has changed since the trial, but another controversial aspect of the al-Megrahi case may also be re-examined: the policies on disclosure. Compared to almost any other similar criminal justice system, Scotland does not have a proper system of disclosure of information. In England and Wales, the Crown has to disclose all material to the defence, according to rules set out in statute. In Scotland the Crown is allowed to modify or withhold evidence if it considers that withholding is in the ‘public interest’. At least the Scottish criminal justice system doesn’t have the death penalty.

Hugh Miles has lived in Libya, Egypt and Yemen. He works in London.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/mile01_.html

Why Did They Die?

2007-11-25T12:29:00.000Z

Taken from a Time magazine article of 1992 by ROY ROWAN:

"FOR THREE YEARS, I've had a feeling that if Chuck hadn't been on that plane, it wouldn't have been bombed," says Beulah McKee, 75.

Her bitterness has still not subsided. But seated in the parlor of her house in Trafford, Pennsylvania, the house where her son was born 43 years ago, she struggles to speak serenely. "I know that's not what our President wants me to say," she admits.

George Bush's letter of condolence, written almost four months after the shattered remains of Pan Am Flight 103 fell on Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, expressed the usual "my heart goes out to you" sorrow. "No action by this government can restore the loss you have suffered," he concluded.

But deep inside, Mrs. McKee suspects it was a government action gone horribly awry that indirectly led to her only son's death. "I've never been satisfied at ( all by what the people in Washington told me," she says.

Today, as the U.S. spearheads the U.N.-sanctioned embargo against Libya for not handing over two suspects in the bombing, Mrs. McKee wonders if Chuck's background contains the secret of why this plane was targeted. If her suspicions are correct, Washington may not be telling the entire story. Major Charles Dennis McKee, called "Tiny" by his Army intelligence friends, was a burly giant and a superstar in just about every kind of commando training offered to American military personnel. He completed the rugged Airborne and Ranger schools, graduated first in his class from the Special Forces qualification course, and served with the Green Berets. In Beirut he was identified merely as a military attache assigned to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). But his hulking physique didn't fit such a low- profile diplomatic post. Friends there remember him as a "walking arsenal" of guns and knives. His real assignment reportedly was to work with the CIA in reconnoitering the American hostages in Lebanon and then, if feasible, to lead a daring raid that would rescue them.

McKee's thick, 37-page Army dossier contains so many blacked-out words that it's hard to glean the danger he faced. Surviving the censor's ink was his title, "Team Chief." Under "Evaluation," it was written that he "performs constantly in the highest-stress environment with clear operational judgment and demeanor . . . Especially strong in accomplishing the mission with minimal guidance and supervision . . . Continues to perform one of the most hazardous and demanding jobs in the Army."

For Beulah McKee the mystery deepened six months after Chuck's death, when she received a letter from another U.S. agent in Beirut. It was signed "John Carpenter," a name the Pentagon says it can't further identify. Although the letter claimed that Chuck's presence on the Pan Am plane was unrelated to the bombing, Carpenter's message only stirred her suspicions. "I cannot comment on Chuck's work," he wrote, "because his work lives on. God willing, in time his labors will bear fruit and you will learn the true story of his heroism and courage."

Chuck had given no clues about his work. Back home in November for Thanksgiving three weeks before he perished, he wouldn't even see his friends. "I don't want to mingle, so I don't have to answer any questions," he told his mother. "Anyway, he didn't have time," she recalls. "He stayed up till 3 every morning studying reports. And when he flew back to Beirut, all he said was, 'Don't worry, Mom. Soon I'll be out from under all this pressure.' "

Almost immediately after the Pan Am bombing, which killed the 259 people aboard the plane and 11 more on the ground, the prime suspect was Ahmed Jibril, the roly-poly boss of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (P.F.L.P.-G.C.). Two months earlier, West German police had arrested 16 members of his terrorist organization. Seized during the raids was a plastic bomb concealed in a Toshiba cassette player, similar to the one that blew up Flight 103. There was other evidence pointing to Jibril. His patron was Syria. His banker for the attack on the Pan Am plane appeared to be Iran. U.S. intelligence agents even traced a wire transfer of several million dollars to a bank account in Vienna belonging to the P.F.L.P.-G.C. Iran's motive seemed obvious enough. The previous July, the U.S.S. Vincennes had mistakenly shot down an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf, killing all 298 aboard.
Suddenly, last November, the U.S. Justice Department blamed the bombing on two Libyans, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah. The scenario prompted President Bush to remark, "The Syrians took a bum rap on this." It also triggered an outcry from the victims' families, who claimed that pointing the finger at Libya was a political ploy designed to reward Syria for siding with the U.S. in the gulf war and to help win the release of the hostages. Even Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA's investigation of the bombing, told the New York Times it was "outrageous" to pin the whole thing on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
A four-month investigation by Time has disclosed evidence that raises new questions about the case.

Among the discoveries:
-- According to an FBI field report from Germany, the suitcase originating in Malta that supposedly contained the bomb may not have been transferred to Pan Am Flight 103 in Frankfurt, as charged in the indictment of the two Libyans. Instead, the bomb-laden bag may have been substituted in Frankfurt for an innocent piece of luggage.

-- The rogue bag may have been placed on board the plane by Jibril's group with the help of Monzer al-Kassar, a Syrian drug dealer who was cooperating with the U.S.'s Drug Enforcement Administration in a drug sting operation. Al- Kassar thus may have been playing both sides of the fence.

-- Jibril and his group may have targeted that flight because on board was an intelligence team led by Charles McKee, whose job was to find and rescue the hostages.

Investigators initially focused their efforts on examining the procedures in the baggage-loading area at Frankfurt's international airport. But risking the transfer of an unaccompanied, bomb-laden suitcase to a connecting flight did not jibe with the precautions terrorists usually take. Security officers using video cameras routinely keep watch over the area. An intricate network of computerized conveyors, the most sophisticated baggage-transfer system in the world, shunts some 60,000 suitcases a day between loading bays.

Every piece of luggage is logged minute by minute from one position to the next, so its journey through the airport is carefully monitored. The bags are then X-rayed by the airline before being put aboard a plane.

But the U.S. government's charges against al-Megrahi and Fhimah don't explain how the bronze-colored Samsonite suitcase, dispatched via Air Malta, eluded Frankfurt's elaborate airport security system. Instead, the indictment zeroes in on two tiny pieces of forensic evidence -- a fingernail-size fragment of green plastic from a Swiss digital timer, and a charred piece of shirt.

Even though investigators previously thought the bomb was probably detonated by a barometric trigger (considered much more reliable, especially in winter, when flights are frequently delayed and connections missed), a Swiss timer was traced to Libya. The shirt, which presumably had been wrapped around the bomb inside the suitcase, was traced to a boutique in Malta called Mary's House. The owner identified al-Megrahi as the shirt's purchaser, although he originally confused al-Megrahi with a Palestinian terrorist arrested in Sweden.

It was the computer printout produced by FAG, the German company that operates the sophisticated luggage-transfer system, that finally nailed down the indictment of the two Libyans. The printout, discovered months after the bombing, purportedly proved that their suitcase sent from Malta was logged in at Coding Station 206 shortly after 1 p.m. and then routed to Gate 44 in Terminal B, where it was put aboard the Pan Am jet. But a "priority" teletype sent from the U.S. embassy in Bonn to the FBI director in Washington on Oct. 23, 1989, reveals that despite the detailed computer records, considerable uncertainty surrounded the movement of this suitcase.

TIME has obtained a copy of the five-page FBI message, which states, "This computer entry does not indicate the origin of the bag which was sent for loading on board Pan Am 103. Nor does it indicate that the bag was actually loaded on Pan Am 103. It indicates only that a bag of unknown origin was sent from Coding Station 206 at 1:07 p.m. to a position from which it was supposed to be loaded on Pan Am 103."

The FBI message further explains that a handwritten record kept by a baggage handler at Coding Station 206 was even less specific about what happened to the suitcase. "It is noted," the teletype continues, "that the handwritten duty sheet indicates only that the luggage was unloaded from Air Malta 180. There is no indication how much baggage was unloaded or where the luggage was sent." The FBI agent's report concludes, "There remains the possibility that no luggage was transferred from Air Malta 180 to Pan Am 103."

Also described in the teletype is an incident that "may provide insight into the possibilities of a rogue bag being inserted into the baggage system." On a guided tour of the baggage area in September 1989, it was disclosed, detective inspector Watson McAteer of the Scottish police and FBI special agent Lawrence G. Whitaker "observed an individual approach Coding Station 206 with a single piece of luggage, place the luggage in a luggage container, encode a destination into the computer and leave without making any notation on a duty sheet." This convinced the two investigators that a rogue suitcase could have been "sent to Pan Am 103 either before or after the unloading of Air Malta 180."

Lee Kreindler, the lead attorney for the victims' families, who are suing Pan Am for $7 billion, says he can prove that the suitcase from Malta was put aboard Flight 103. He charges that a gross security failure by Pan Am, which went bankrupt in January 1991 and later folded, contributed to the disaster.

But it was the rogue-bag theory that was pursued by Pan Am's law firm, Windels, Marx, Davies & Ives, representing the airline's insurers. To piece together their version of how the bomb was planted, Pan Am's lawyers hired Interfor, Inc., a New York City firm specializing in international intelligence and security. If it hadn't been for the government's implausible plottings revealed during the Iran-contra hearings, Interfor's findings might be dismissed as a private eye's imagination run amuck -- especially considering the controversial background of the company's president, Juval Aviv.

Now 45 and an American citizen, Aviv claims to have headed the Mossad hit squad that hunted down and killed the Arab terrorists who murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources deny that Aviv was ever associated with Mossad. However, working for Pan Am, he spent more than six months tracking the terrorists who the airline now alleges are responsible for the bombing. While his report has been written off as fiction by many intelligence officials, a number of its findings appear well documented.
The central figure emerging from the Interfor investigation is a 44-year-old Syrian arms and drug trafficker, Monzer al-Kassar. His brother-in-law is Syria's intelligence chief, Ali Issa Duba, and his wife Raghda is related to Syrian President Hafez Assad.

Al-Kassar has many passports and identities. Most important, he was part of the covert network run by U.S. Lieut. Colonel Oliver North. During the Iran- contra hearings, it was revealed that al-Kassar was given $1.5 million to purchase weapons. Questioned about al-Kassar, former U.S. National Security Adviser John Poindexter said, "When you're buying arms, you often have to deal with people you might not want to go to dinner with."

It was through al-Kassar's efforts, or so he claimed, that two French hostages were released from Lebanon in 1986 in exchange for an arms shipment to Iran. The deal caught the eye of a freewheeling CIA unit code-named COREA, based in Wiesbaden, Germany. This special unit was reported to be trafficking in drugs and arms in order to gain access to terrorist groups.
For its cover overseas, COREA used various front companies: Stevens Mantra Corp., AMA Industries, Wildwood Video and Condor Television Ltd. Condor paid its bills with checks drawn on the First American Bank (account No. 2843900) in Washington, D.C., which was subsequently discovered to be a subsidiary of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
According to Aviv, agents in COREA's Wiesbaden headquarters allowed al- Kassar to continue running his smuggling routes to American cities in exchange for help in obtaining the release of the American hostages being held in Lebanon.

At about the same time, al-Kassar's drug-smuggling enterprise was being used by the U.S.'s DEA in a sting operation. The DEA was monitoring heroin shipments from Lebanon to Detroit, Los Angeles and Houston, which have large Arab populations, in an attempt to nail the U.S. dealers.

By the fall of 1988, al-Kassar's operation had been spotted by P.F.L.P.-G.C. leader Ahmed Jibril, who had just taken on the assignment from Tehran to avenge the U.S. downing of its Airbus. A CIA undercover agent in Tripoli reported that Jibril also obtained Gaddafi's support. According to Mossad, Jibril dined with al-Kassar at a Paris restaurant and secured a reluctant promise of assistance in planting a bomb aboard an as yet unselected American transatlantic jet.

Al-Kassar's hesitancy was understandable. He wouldn't want anything to disrupt his profitable CIA-assisted drug and arms business. Presumably he was also worried because West German police had just raided the Popular Front hideouts around Dusseldorf and Frankfurt. Among those arrested: the Jordanian technical wizard and bombmaker Marwan Khreesat.

The bomb that ended up on the Pan Am jet could have been assembled by Khreesat. However, last month the Palestine Liberation Organization reported that it was built by Khaisar Haddad (a.k.a. Abu Elias), who is also a member of Jibril's Popular Front. Haddad purchased the detonator, the P.L.O. said, on the Beirut black market for more than $60,000.

The detonator, in fact, is considered one of the main keys to the bombing puzzle. Thomas Hayes, a leading forensics expert, did the main detective work on a minute piece of timer recovered from the wreckage by Scottish authorities. In a recent book about the Lockerbie investigation, On the Trail of Terror, British journalist David Leppard reports that "Hayes is not prepared to commit himself publicly on whether the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 was originally made by Khreesat and subsequently modified by timers of the sort found in possession of the Libyans." In fact, adds Leppard, "his authoritative view is that not enough of the bomb's timing device has been recovered to make a definite judgment about whether it was a dual device containing a barometric switch and a timer, or a single trigger device, which was activated by just a timer."
James M. Shaughnessy, Pan Am's lead defense lawyer, has tried to drive a wedge into this opening left by Hayes, thereby casting further doubt on Libya's responsibility for the bombing. Britain's High Court ruled that Pan Am's lawyers could depose Hayes. However, in a last-minute legal maneuver by the Scottish authorities, the deposition was blocked for reasons of national security. Pan Am's lawyers are now appealing that decision.

But regardless of the bomb's design, al-Kassar still didn't know how and when Jibril planned to use it. A Mossad agent, according to Aviv, first tipped off U.S. and West German intelligence agents that a terrorist attack would be made on an American passenger plane departing from Frankfurt on or about Dec. 18. Al-Kassar quickly figured out that Pan Am Flight 103 was the most likely target and, playing both sides of the fence, notified the COREA unit. His warning corroborated an earlier bomb threat, involving an unspecified Pan Am flight from Frankfurt, telephoned to the U.S. embassy in Helsinki.

Precisely how a rogue bag containing the bomb eluded the Frankfurt airport security system, Aviv doesn't know. Presumably this required the help of baggage handlers there. So in January 1990 he and a former U.S. Army polygraphist flew to Frankfurt, accompanied by Shaughnessy. At the Sheraton Conference Center, adjoining the airport, the polygraphist administered lie- detector tests to Pan Am baggage handlers Kilin Caslan Tuzcu and Roland O'Neill. Pan Am had determined that they were the only ones who were in a position to switch suitcases and place the bomb-laden bag aboard Flight 103.

Tuzcu took the test three times, and O'Neill took it twice. As the polygraphist later testified before a federal grand jury in Washington, Tuzcu "was not truthful when he said he did not switch the suitcases." The polygraphist also told the grand jury, "It is my opinion that Roland O'Neill wasn't truthful when he stated he did not see the suitcase being switched, and when he stated that he did not know what was in the switched suitcase." The two men continued to claim ignorance of a baggage switch.

After flunking their lie-detector tests, both were sent on a bogus errand by Pan Am to London, where it was assumed they would be arrested. But British authorities refused to even interrogate the pair. According to Leppard, Tuzcu and O'Neill were simply "scapegoats" and were never "considered serious suspects." They returned to Frankfurt that same night.
If the bomb-laden luggage replaced an innocent bag, what happened to the displaced suitcase? On Dec. 21, 1988, the day of the bombing, one of Pan Am's Berlin-based pilots was about to head home to Seattle, Washington, for Christmas when he received orders to fly to Karachi first. He had with him two identical Samsonite suitcases full of presents. At the Berlin airport, he $ asked Pan Am to send them directly to Seattle. "Rush" tags, marked for Flights 637 to Frankfurt, 107 to London and 123 to Seattle, were affixed to the bags.

It so happened that the flight from Berlin to Frankfurt was delayed. While all the passengers ultimately made the connection to London, 11 suitcases, including the pilot's two bags, remained behind in Frankfurt. They were entered into the airport computer system and rerouted via the Pan Am flight. But only one of the pilot's suitcases was recovered at Lockerbie. The other had been mysteriously left behind in Frankfurt, and arrived safely in Seattle a day later. That story, which TIME has corroborated, doesn't prove Pan Am's claim that terrorists used al-Kassar's drug pipeline to pull a suitcase switch in Frankfurt. But it does support the theory that a rogue bag was inserted into the automated baggage-control system, as the secret FBI report indicates was possible.

TO GATHER FURTHER EVIDENCE that the bomb was not contained in an unaccompanied bag from Malta, Pan Am lawyer Shaughnessy recently interviewed under oath 20 officials who were in Malta on Dec. 21, 1988, including the airport security commander, the bomb-disposal engineer who inspected all the baggage, the general manager of ground operations of Air Malta, the head loader of Flight 180 and the three check-in agents. Their records showed that no unaccompanied suitcases were put aboard the flight, and some of the staff Shaughnessy interviewed are prepared to testify under oath that there was no bag that day destined for Pan Am Flight 103.

Although Shaughnessy subpoenaed the FBI, CIA, DEA and four other government agencies for all documents pertaining to both the bombing of Flight 103 and the narcotics sting operation, he has been repeatedly rebuffed by the Justice Department for reasons of national security. Even so, with the help of investigators hired after Aviv, he has managed to obtain some of the documents needed to defend Pan Am's insurers in the trial scheduled to begin April 27 at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The stakes are enormous, and the incentive is high for Shaughnessy to demonstrate the government's responsibility for the bombing. In addition to defending against the compensation claims of $7 billion, he is bringing a claim against the government for failing to give warning that Pan Am had been targeted by the terrorists.

The man who has been Shaughnessy's key witness in these proceedings is hiding in fear of his life in a small town in Europe. His real name is Lester Knox Coleman III, although as a former spy for the dia and DEA he was known as Thomas Leavy and by the code name Benjamin B. A year ago, the stockily built, bearded Coleman filed an affidavit describing the narcotics sting operation that Shaughnessy claims was infiltrated by Jibril.

It wasn't until July 1990, when Coleman spotted a newspaper picture of one of the Pan Am victims and recognized the young Lebanese as one of his drug- running informants, that he realized he might be of assistance to Pan Am. He was also looking for work. Two months earlier he had been deactivated by the DIA after being arrested by the FBI for using his DIA cover name, Thomas Leavy, on a passport application. Coleman claims that the DIA instructed him to do this. "But such trumped-up charges are frequently used to keep spooks quiet," says A. Ernest Fitzgerald, a Pentagon whistle-blower and a director of the Fund for Constitutional Government in Washington, which has been looking into Coleman's case.

Coleman spent three days in jail. His official pretrial services report, filed with the U.S. District Court of Illinois for the Northern District, began, "Although Mr. Coleman's employment history sounds quite improbable, information he gave has proven to be true."

Raised in Iran, Libya and Saudi Arabia, Coleman, now 48, was recruited by the dia and assigned to the still classified humint (Human Intelligence) MC-10 operation in the Middle East. In early 1987 he was transferred from Lebanon to Cyprus, where he began his work for the DEA. However, he says he was instructed not to inform the DEA there of his role as a DIA undercover agent. By this time even the DIA suspected that the freewheeling narcotics sting operation was getting out of hand.

In Nicosia, Coleman saw the supposedly controlled shipments of heroin, called kourah in Lebanon -- inspiration for the CIA operation's code name COREA -- grow into a torrent. The drugs were delivered by couriers who arrived on the overnight ferry from the Lebanese port of Jounieh. After receiving their travel orders from the DEA, the couriers were escorted to the Larnaca airport by the Cypriot national police and sent on their way to Frankfurt and other European transit points. The DEA testified at hearings in Washington that no "controlled deliveries" of drugs through Frankfurt were made in 1988.

Coleman's DEA front in Nicosia, called the Eurame Trading Co. Ltd., was located on the top floor of a high-rise apartment near the U.S. embassy. He says the intelligence agency paid him with unsigned Visa traveler's checks issued by B.C.C.I. in Luxembourg. Additionally, the DEA country attache in Cyprus, Michael Hurley, kept a drawer full of cash in his office at the embassy, which he parceled out to Coleman and to a parade of confidential informants, known by such nicknames as "Rambo Dreamer," "Taxi George" and "Fadi the Captain." Hurley admitted in a Justice Department affidavit that he paid Coleman $74,000 for information.
The informants, Coleman reported, were under the control of Ibrahim el-Jorr. "He was a Wild West character who wore cowboy boots and tooled around in a Chevy with expired Texas plates," he says. "I was told ((by el-Jorr)) that in the Frankfurt airport the suitcases containing the narcotics were put on flights to the U.S. by agents or other sources working in the baggage area. From my personal observation, Germany's BKA ((Bundeskriminalamt, the German federal police)) was also involved, as was Her Majesty's Customs and Excise service in the United Kingdom."

After deciding to become a witness for Pan Am, Coleman phoned a friend, Hartmut Mayer, a German intelligence agent in Cyprus, and asked if he knew how the bomb got aboard Flight 103. Mayer suggested calling a "Mr. Harwick" and a "Mr. Pinsdorf," who Mayer said were running the investigation at the Frankfurt airport. "I spoke with Pinsdorf," says Coleman. "From his conversation I learned that BKA had serious concerns that the drug sting operation originating in Cyprus had caused the bomb to be placed on the Pan Am plane." Mayer and Pinsdorf gave depositions last year at the request of Pan Am. But the German Federal Ministry of the Interior ruled they couldn't discuss law-enforcement matters relating to other nations. Mayer did say he knew Coleman.

"It took three informants just to keep tabs on al-Kassar," claims Coleman. He said the informants reported that al-Kassar and the Syrian President's brother Rifaat Assad were taking over drug production in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, under protection of the Syrian army. Coleman also says he learned that the principal European transfer point for their heroin shipments was the Frankfurt airport.

In December 1988 al-Kassar picked up some news that threatened to shut down his smuggling operation. Charles McKee's counterterrorist team in Beirut that was investigating the possible rescue of the nine American hostages had got wind of his CIA connection. The team was outraged that the COREA unit in Wiesbaden was doing business with a Syrian who had close terrorist connections and might endanger their planned rescue attempt.

Besides McKee, a key member of the team was Matthew Gannon, 34, the CIA's deputy station chief in Beirut and a rising star in the agency. After venting their anger to the CIA in Langley about al-Kassar, McKee and Gannon were further upset by headquarters' failure to respond. Its silence was surprising because Gannon's father-in-law Thomas Twetten, who now commands the CIA's worldwide spy network, was then chief of Middle East operations based in Langley. He was also Ollie North's CIA contact.

MCKEE AND GANNON, joined by three other members of the team, decided to fly back to Virginia unannounced and expose the COREA unit's secret deal with al- Kassar. They packed $500,000 in cash provided for their rescue mission, as well as maps and photographs of the secret locations where the hostages were being held. Then the five-man team booked seats on Pan Am 103 out of London, arranging to fly there on a connecting flight from Cyprus.
McKee's mother says she is sure her son's sudden decision to fly home was not known to his superiors in Virginia. "This was the first time Chuck ever telephoned me from Beirut," she says. "I was flabbergasted. 'Meet me at the Pittsburgh airport tomorrow night,' he said. 'It's a surprise.' Always before he would wait until he was back in Virginia to call and say he was coming home."

Apparently the team's movements were being tracked by the Iranians. A story that appeared in the Arabic newspaper Al-Dustur on May 22, 1989, disclosed that the terrorists set out to kill McKee and his team because of their planned hostage-rescue attempt. The author, Ali Nuri Zadeh, reported that "an American agent known as David Love-Boy ((he meant Lovejoy)), who had struck bargains on weapons to the benefit of Iran," passed information to the Iranian embassy in Beirut about the team's travel plans. Reported to be a onetime State Department security officer, Lovejoy is alleged to have become a double agent with CIA connections in Libya. His CIA code name was said to be "Nutcracker."

Lawyer Shaughnessy uncovered similar evidence. His affidavit, filed with the federal district court in Brooklyn, New York, asserts that in November and ; December 1988 the U.S. government intercepted a series of telephone calls from Lovejoy to the Iranian charge d'affaires in Beirut advising him of the team's movements. Lovejoy's last call came on Dec. 20, allegedly informing the Iranians that the team would be on Pan Am Flight 103 the following day.
In his book, Lockerbie: The Tragedy of Flight 103, Scottish radio reporter David Johnston disclosed that British army searches of the wreckage recovered more than $500,000 cash, believed to belong to the hostage-rescue team, and what appeared to be a detailed plan of a building in Beirut, with two crosses marking the location of the hostages. The map also pinpointed the positions of sentries guarding the building and contained a description of how the building might be taken.

Johnston also described how CIA agents helicoptered into Lockerbie shortly after the crash seeking the remnants of McKee's suitcase. "Having found part of their quarry," he wrote, "the CIA had no intention of following the exacting rules of evidence employed by the Scottish police. They took the suitcase and its contents into the chopper and flew with it to an unknown destination." Several days later the empty suitcase was returned to the same spot, where Johnston reported that it was "found" by two British Transport Police officers, "who in their ignorance were quite happy to sign statements about the case's discovery."

Richard Gazarik, a reporter for the Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Tribune- Review, spent many months probing the major's secret mission. He found, hidden inside the lining of McKee's wallet, which was retrieved from the Pan Am wreckage and returned to his mother, what he assumes was McKee's code name, Chuck Capone, and the gangster code names (Nelson, Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde) of the other team members.

The theory that Jibril targeted Flight 103 in order to kill the hostage- rescue team is supported by two independent intelligence experts. M. Gene Wheaton, a retired U.S. military-intelligence officer with 17 years' duty in the Middle East, sees chilling similarities between the Lockerbie crash and the suspicious DC-8 crash in Gander, Newfoundland, which killed 248 American soldiers in 1985. Wheaton is serving as investigator for the families of the victims of that crash. "A couple of my old black ops buddies in the Pentagon believe the Pan Am bombers were gunning for McKee's hostage-rescue team," he says. "But they were told to shift the focus of their investigation because it revealed an embarrassing breakdown in security." The FBI says it investigated the theory that McKee's team was targeted and found no evidence to support it.
Victor Marchetti, former executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director and co-author of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, believes that the presence of the team on Flight 103 is a clue that should not be ignored. His contacts at Langley agree. "It's like the loose thread of a sweater," he says. "Pull on it, and the whole thing may unravel." In any case, Marchetti believes the bombing of Flight 103 could have been avoided. "The Mossad knew about it and didn't give proper warning," he says. "The CIA knew about it and screwed up."

The CIA may still be trying to find out more information about why McKee and Gannon suddenly decided to fly home. Last year three CIA agents, reportedly following up on their hostage-rescue mission, were shot dead in a Berlin hotel while waiting to meet a Palestinian informant.

Beulah McKee has given up trying to find out if Pan Am's bombers were after her son, although she says, "The government's secrecy can't close off my mind." Twice she called and questioned Gannon's widow Susan, who like her husband and her father Tom Twetten worked for the CIA. "The last time, I was accused of opening my mouth too much," says Mrs. McKee.

Yet memories die hard, and mothers never quite get accustomed to losing a child. Beulah McKee keeps her son's bedroom all tidied up, as if she still expected him to come home. His pictures, diplomas, miltary awards, even his chrome-plated bowie knife, decorate the walls. In a cardboard carton under the made-up bed are the heavily censored service records of her son, which may contain the secret of why Pan Am 103 was blown out of the sky over Scotland.