The Pan Am 103 Verdict
February 3, 2001
THE PAN AM 103 VERDICT
by William Blum*
The papers are filled with pictures of happy relatives of the victims of
the 1988 bombing of PanAm 103. A Libyan, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi,
was just found guilty of the bombing by a Scottish court in the Hague, his
co-defendant, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, being acquitted. At long last there's
going to be some kind of closure for the families.
What's wrong with this picture?
What's wrong is that the evidence against Megrahi is thin to the point
of
transparency. The court verdict might be dubbed Supreme Court II, another
instance of non-judicial factors clouding judicial reasoning. The three
Scottish judges can not have relished returning to the UK after finding both
defendants innocent of the murder of 270 people, largely from the UK and the
US. Not to mention having to directly face dozens of hysterical victims'
family members in the courtroom. And with the full knowledge of the desires
of Washington and Downing Street as to the outcome.
I have now read the entire 26,000-word Opinion of the Court which
accompanied the verdict. One has to do that, as well as being very familiar
with the history of the case, as I am, to appreciate what the judges did.
I
can only offer here a few examples of the many questionable aspects of the
decision.
The key charge against Megrahi -- the sine qua non -- is that he caused
a
suitcase with explosives to be loaded at Malta airport and tagged it so it
would pass through Malta, Frankfurt and London airports without an
accompanying passenger and without being inspected. That by itself would
have been a major feat and so unlikely to happen 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 is
no
witness, no video, no document, no fingerprints, no nothing, no evidence of
any kind. And the court admits 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."
The court places great -- nay, paramount -- weight upon the supposed
identification of Megrahi by a storekeeper in Malta as the purchaser of the
clothing found in the bomb suitcase. But this storekeeper had earlier
identified several other people as the culprit, including one who was a CIA
agent. When he finally identified Megrahi from a photo, it was after
Megrahi's photo had been in the world news for years. Again, the court
acknowledges the possible danger inherent in such a decision:
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 ten years after the
event are of little if any value.
The Opinion of the Court places considerable weight as well 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 try to squeeze as
much mileage out of these events as they can, as if they had no better case
to make. But Megrahi was seemingly a member of Libyan intelligence, and last
we all knew, Libya is entitled to have an intelligence service, and
intelligence agents have been known to act ... well, in mysterious ways, for
whatever assignment they're on. The court 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. We are also 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."
Let's hope that Megrahi is really guilty. It would be a terrible shame
if he spends the rest of his life in prison because back in 1990, as the
United States was preparing for war against Iraq and needed Syria and Iran
as
allies, Washington suddenly dropped those two countries as the prime suspects
in the plane bombing and -- seemingly from nowhere -- discovered Libya, the
Arab state least supportive of the US buildup to the Gulf War.
* William Blum is the author of "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only
Superpower" and "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since
World War 2"
-----------------------------------------
Comments About the book: "Killing Hope"
"Far and away the best book on the topic." Noam Chomsky
"I enjoyed it immensely." Gore Vidal
"I bought several more copies to circulate to friends with the hope of
shedding new light and understanding on their political outlooks."
Oliver Stone
"A very valuable book. The research and organization are extremely impressive."
A. J. Langguth, author and former NY Times Bureau Chief
"A very useful piece of work, daunting in scope, important."
Thomas Powers, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
"Each chapter I read made me more and more angry."
Dr. Helen Caldicott, international leader of the
environmental movement
--------------------------------------------
Background Article written early 1999:
PANAM 103, THE CHANGE AGAINST LIBYA:
CASE CLOSED? OR DISINFORMATION?
by Bill Blum
PanAm Flight 103? ... Oh yeah, Christmas time 1988, those
two Libyans did it, but Gaddafy has refused to allow them to be
tried in an American or British court. He knows they'll be found
guilty and the whole world will condemn him.
He does indeed. But not necessarily because the two men are
guilty. The acquittal of the Los Angeles police in the Rodney
King beating was sufficient to disabuse the Libyan leader of any
illusions about the workings of the American justice system he
may have entertained.{1} The verdict in the O.J. Simpson case may
well have reinforced that view, while "The Guildford Four", the
"Birmingham Six" and other infamous miscarriage-of-justice cases
in Britain have reportedly imparted to Gaddafy a similar lesson
about the UK.{2}
Now, with December 21 marking the tenth anniversary of the
tragedy that took 270 lives in Lockerbie, Scotland, the United
States, the UK, and Libya have agreed, at least in principle, to
try the two Libyan suspects in the Netherlands, before Scottish
judges and under Scottish law.
In actuality, the evidence against the Libyans -- Abdel
Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, who worked for
Libyan Arab Airlines at the Malta airport -- is thin to the point
of transparency. There is no forensic evidence to support the
charge that they placed a suitcase containing the fatal bomb in
an Air Malta plane in Malta, tagging it so it would eventually be
transferred to Flight 103 in London. No witnesses, no
fingerprints. Nothing to tie them to that particular brown
Samsonite suitcase. No past history of terrorism.
Amongst the reported pieces of evidence casting suspicion on
the two Libyans or on the Libyan government is an entry on
December 15, 1988 in a diary kept by Fhimah, which, according to
the U.S. indictment, says: "Abdel Basset is coming from Zurich
with Salvu ... take taggs from Air Malta." It's all in Arabic
except for the misspelled "taggs". "Salvu" is not explained.{3}
However, the indictment further states that "Air Malta ...
was the handling agent for Libyan Arab Airlines" for flights to
and from Malta, "and as such utilized Air Malta luggage tags on
luggage destined for Libyan Arab Airline flights." It therefore
seems rather unsurprising that Fhimah might have had some normal
business reason to be using such tags. More importantly, if he
were actually planning a murderous covert operation using the
tags, why would he commit any mention of them to paper? And then
leave the diary in his office where it could be taken.
Another piece of evidence presented by US/UK investigators,
out of which they derived much mileage, is that the type of
timing device used in the bomb was sold only to Libya. It was
later revealed that, in fact, the investigators were told in 1990
by the Swiss manufacturer that he had also sold the same timers
to East German intelligence, which had close contact with the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command
(PFLP-GC) and numerous other "terrorist" groups.{4}
The investigators' failure to disclose this information can
best be described by the word "coverup". And in any event,
there's no reason to assume that Libya could not have given one
of their timers to another party.
Malta became a focus for investigators, even before serious
Libyan involvement was presumed, when tests indicated that the
suitcase which contained the bomb also contained several items of
clothing manufactured in Malta and supposedly sold in a
particular clothing shop on the island. The present US/UK
version of events would have the world believe that Megrahi has
been identified by the shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, as the purchaser
of the clothing. But there is no such evidence. Megrahi has
never been presented to Gauci in person, and there has been no
report that Gauci has even been shown his photo. Moreover, the
Maltese shopkeeper has already made several erroneous "positive"
identifications, including one of a CIA asset.{5}
Before the indictment of the two Libyans, the press reported
police findings that the clothing had been purchased on November
23.{6} But the indictment of Megrahi states that he made the
purchase on December 7. Can this be because the investigators
can document Megrahi being in Malta on that date but cannot do so
for November 23?
The identification of Megrahi is even more questionable than
the above indicates.{7} The fact that the investigative authorities
do not make clear exactly how Megrahi was identified by Gauci is
indicative of the weakness of their case.
Furthermore, after the world was 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."{8}
Once Malta became a focus due to the clothing, it appears
that the next "logical" conclusion for the investigators was that
the suitcase containing the bomb and the Maltese clothing was put
together there; and thus the suitcase was somehow put aboard Air
Malta flight KM180 to Frankfurt without an accompanying passenger
on the first leg in its fateful journey. News reports presenting
the latter as a certainty have alternated with reports like the
following: The Lockerbie investigating team "discovered [that]
the list of luggage checked into the hold against passengers'
names on Air Malta KM180 to Frankfurt bore no resemblance to what
the passengers had checked in. The Air Malta list was a
shambles, one officer said."{9}
Air Malta itself is on record as having made an exhaustive
study of this matter and has categorically denied that there was
any unaccompanied baggage on KM180 or that any of the passengers
transferred to the Frankfurt-to-London flight.{10} And a report
sent by the FBI from Germany to Washington in October 1989 reveals
profound doubt about this thesis. The report concludes: "There
remains the possibility that no luggage was transferred from Air
Malta 180 to Pan Am 103."{11}
In January 1995, more than three years after the indictment
of the Libyans, the FBI was still of the same mind. A
confidential Bureau report stated: "There is no concrete
indication that any piece of luggage was unloaded from Air Malta
180, sent through the luggage routing system at Frankfurt
airport, and then loaded on board Pan Am 103." The report added
that the baggage records are "misleading" and that the bomb
suitcase could have come from another flight or was simply a
"rogue bag inserted into the system".{12}
To accept the Malta scenario is to believe that the suitcase
itself led the following charmed life: 1)loaded aboard the 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?
Under international airline rules, bags unaccompanied by
passengers should not be allowed onto aircraft without being
searched or X-rayed. Actual practice is of course more lax, but
how could serious professional terrorists count on this laxness
taking place three times in a row for the same suitcase? Regular
airline passengers wouldn't make such an assumption. Moreover,
since the perpetrators in all likelihood wanted to time the
explosion to occur over the ocean, adding Malta as an extra step
could only add much more uncertainty.
In any event, the Pan Am X-ray operator at Frankfurt on
December 21 testified in court that he had been told look for a
radio in such baggage, but found none.{13}
A passenger could conceivably have accompanied the suitcase
on the first, and/or second leg, but this would carry with it the
sizeable risk of subsequent identification.
We must also ask why Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,
writing in her 1993 memoirs about the US bombing of Libya in
1986, 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."{14}
Finally, it should be pointed out that even if the two
Libyans were involved, there is no reason to assume that they
knew that the suitcase contained a bomb, and not drugs, or some
other contraband.
Alternative theory
There is, moreover, an alternative scenario, laying the
blame on Iran and Syria, which is much better documented and
makes a lot more sense, logistically, politically, and
technically. 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
Gulf War came along and the support of Iran and Syria was needed,
and Washington was anxious as well to achieve the release of
American hostages held in Lebanon by groups close to Iran. The
distinctive scurrying sound of backtracking then became audible
in the corridors of the White House. Suddenly -- or so it seemed
-- in October 1990, there was a New Official Version: It was
Libya -- the Arab state least supportive of the US buildup 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 November 14, 1991. "This was a Libyan government
operation from start to finish," declared the State Department
spokesman.{15} "The Syrians took a bum rap on this," said President
Bush.{16} 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 1968
breakaway from a component of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO), 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 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.{17}
In May, the State Department stated that the CIA was
"confident" of the Iran-Syria-PFLP-GC account of events.{18}
On September 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, Scottish investigators announced that they had
"hard evidence" of the involvement of the PFLP-GC in the bombing.{19}
A National Security Agency (NSA) 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.{20}
Israeli intelligence also intercepted a communication
between Mohtashemi and the Iranian embassy in Beirut "indicating
that Iran paid for the Lockerbie bombing."{21}
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.{22}
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 "Middle
Eastern country" other than Libya.{23}
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.{24}
Key Question
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,
Interfor -- whose other clients included Fortune 500 companies,
the FBI, IRS and Secret Service{25} -- 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 Pan Am 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 is Khalid Jaafar,
although this may well have derived from the many news reports
already citing Jaafar as a prime suspect.
The report spins a web much too complex and lengthy to go
into here. The short version is that the CIA in Germany
discovered the drug operation at the airport 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 of
the CIA and BKA. Because of several warnings, these same
officials had reason to suspect that a bomb might be aboard
flight 103, possibly in the drug suitcase. But the CIA, for
various reasons, including not wanting to risk the hostage-
release operation, told the BKA to do nothing.
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, this attempt at
intimidation was the strongest evidence of a cover-up.{26}
Critics claimed that the report had been inspired by Pan
Am'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 Interfor report was likely the principal reason Pan Am'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, that he didn't "know quite what
to do because I think some of the material may be significant."{27}
Drugs Revelation
A year later, on October 30, 1990, NBC News reported that
"Pan Am 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 [or in addition to?] the drugs he usually
carried.
The report added that "Informants would put [suit]cases of
heroin on the Pan Am flights apparently without the usual
security checks ... through an arrangement between the DEA and
German authorities."{28}
These revelations were enough to inspire a congressional
hearing, held in December, entitled, "Drug Enforcement
Administration's Alleged Connection to the Pan Am Flight 103
Disaster".
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 agents
who 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 the
agency 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 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. (NBC News had reported on October 30 that the DEA had
told law enforcement officers in Detroit not to talk to the media
about Jaafar.)
The hearing ended after but one day, even though Wise had
promised a "full-scale" investigation and indicated during the
hearing that there would be more to come. What was said in the
closed sessions remains closed.{29}
One of the DEA officials who testified, Stephen Greene, had
himself had a reservation on flight 103, but he canceled because
of the warnings. He has described standing on the Heathrow
tarmac, watching the doomed plane take off.(30}
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.{31} Two days after the NBC report, however, the
New York Times quoted a "federal official" saying that "no hard
drugs were aboard the aircraft."
The DEA of course knew of its sting operation in Frankfurt
two years earlier when the tragedy occurred, but they said
nothing, not even to the President's Commission on Aviation
Security and Terrorism which held hearings in the first months of
1990 in response to the 103 bombing.
The Whistleblowers
Lester Coleman, author and radio talk-show host, who spent
several years with the Defense Intelligence Agency and the DEA,
beginning in the mid-1980s, has revealed that when he was working
with the DEA station in Cyprus, he met Khalid Jaafar several
times, that Jaafar was working for the DEA, and that the young
man had run two or three controlled deliveries of heroin into
Detroit.{32}
Because Coleman did not keep what he knew to himself, but
repeated his story in an affidavit for Pan Am's action against
the U.S. government, and then co-authored a highly revealing
book, he was hounded for several years, across continents, and
severely punished by various institutions of that same
government, including being imprisoned on phony charges to damage
his credibility. His tale reads like something out of Les
Miserables with the U.S. government as Inspector Javert.
At one point, a federal judge warned Coleman: "If you attack
the government on the radio, I will take that very, very
seriously."{33}
Several other individuals who have raised questions about a
U.S. government role in the 103 disaster have also paid a heavy
price, including Juval Aviv, the head of Interfor. His office
suffered a series of break-ins; the FBI visited his clients; his
polygrapher was harassed, as mentioned; and a contrived
commercial fraud charge was brought against him. Even though
Aviv eventually was cleared in court, it was a long, expensive,
and painful ordeal.{34}
There was also Allan Francovich, who made a documentary
film, "The Maltese Double Cross", which presents Jaafar as an
unwitting bomb carrier with ties to the DEA and the CIA.
Showings of the film in Britain were canceled under threat of law
suits, venues burglarized or attacked with arson. When Channel 4
agreed to show the film, the Scottish Crown Office and the U.S.
Embassy in London sent press packs to the media, labeling the
film "blatant propaganda", and attacking some of the film's
interviewees, including Coleman and Aviv.{35} Additionally,
Francovich said he had learned that five CIA operatives had been
sent to London and Cyprus to discredit the film while it was
being made; that his office phones were tapped, and staff cars
sabotaged; and that one of his researchers narrowly escaped an
attempt to force his vehicle into the path of an oncoming truck.{36}
Lockerbie investigators went so far as to ask the FBI to
investigate the film. The Bureau later issued a highly
derogatory opinion of it.{37}
The film's detractors made much of the fact that the film
was initially funded jointly by a UK company (two-thirds) and a
Libyan government investment arm (one-third). Francovich said
that he was fully aware of this and had taken pains to negotiate
a guarantee of independence from any interference.
On April 17, 1997, Allan Francovich suddenly died of a heart
attack at age 56, upon arrival at Houston Airport.{38} His film has
had virtually no showings in the United States.
Abu Talb
The DEA sting operation and Interfor's baggage-handler
hypothesis both predicate the bomb suitcase being placed aboard
the plane without going through the normal security checks. In
either case, it eliminates the need for the questionable
triple-unaccompanied baggage scenario. They don't eliminate the
clothing purchased in Malta, but we don't need the Libyans for
that.
Mohammed Abu Talb fits that and perhaps other pieces of the
puzzle. The Palestinian had close ties to PFLP-GC cells in
Germany which were making Toshiba radio-cassette bombs, similar,
if not identical, to what was used to bring down 103. In October
1988, two months before Lockerbie, the German police staged
several raids against these cells, uncovering all but one of
their known five bombs. In May 1989, Talb was arrested in
Sweden, where he lived, and was later convicted of taking part in
several bombings of the offices of American airline companies in
Scandinavia. In his Swedish flat, police found large quantities
of clothing made in Malta.
Police investigation of Talb disclosed that during October
1988 he had been to Cyprus and Malta, at least once in the
company of Hafez Dalkamoni, the leader of the German PFLP-GC, who
was arrested in the raid. The men met with PFLP-GC members who
lived in Malta. Talb was also in Malta on November 23, which was
originally reported as the date of the clothing purchase before
the indictment of the Libyans, as mentioned earlier.
After his arrest, Talb told investigators that between
October and December 1988 he had retrieved and passed to another
person a bomb that had been hidden in a building used by the
PFLP-GC in Germany. Officials declined to identify the person to
whom Talb said he had passed the bomb. A month later, however,
he recanted his confession.
Additionally, Talb was reported to possess a brown Samsonite
suitcase, and have circled December 21 in a diary seized in his
Swedish flat. After the raid upon his flat, his wife was heard
to telephone Palestinian friends and say: "Get rid of the
clothes."
In December 1989, Scottish police, in papers filed with
Swedish legal officials, made Talb the only publicly identified
suspect "in the murder or participation in the murder of 270
people".{39} Since that time, the world has scarcely heard of Abu
Talb, who was sentenced to life in 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
notorious Bekaa Valley -- are interviewed. In either halting
English or translated Arabic, or paraphrased by the film's
narrator, they drop many bits of information, but which are
difficult to put together into a coherent whole. Amongst the
bits ... Khalid had told his parents that he'd met Talb in Sweden
and had been given Maltese clothing ... someone had given Khalid
a tape recorder, or put one into his bag ... he was told to go to
Germany to friends of Ahmed Jabril who would help him earn some
money ... he arrived in Germany with two kilos of heroin ... "He
didn't know 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 at
Frankfurt 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 of
heroin and bomb and was escorted through security by the proper
authorities, or this was a day he was a courier for Manzer al-Kassar,
and the baggage handlers did their usual switch.
International Law
Contrary to what American officials and the media have
stated on numerous occasions, the 1992 U.N. resolutions do not
demand that Libya turn the two men over to the United States or
Scotland. No specific venue is mentioned.{40}
In 1992, Gaddafy declared that if the U.S. could demand that
Megrahi and Fhimah be turned over for trial, he could ask for the
surrender of the American airmen who bombed two Libyan cities,
killing 37 people, including his daughter.
The United States refuses to accede to the request of Costa
Rica for the extradition of John Hull, an American who was a
major player in Iran-Contra, and who is wanted in Costa Rica for
drug trafficking and other crimes. Similar requests from Cuba
over the years for the terrorists harbored by the U.S. in
Washington have also been ignored.
It is surprising that Gaddafy has agreed to subject the two
Libyans to a Scottish judge and Scottish law, without a jury.
Even though it would take place in the Netherlands, there's no
reason to assume that the Scottish judges would be any less
biased than in Scotland. To return home after acquitting the men
could not be a pleasant thing to face.
At the same time, it's unlikely that any U.S. or British
official really believes that Libya played a significant role, if
any. And for that reason they probably do not actually want to
see the trial of the two men take place.{41} Not only would the
paucity of their evidence be exposed for all the world to see,
but they might be obliged to reveal information they'd rather not
see the light of day, perhaps touching upon the role played by
one or more US agencies.
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. One of
them said to him: "Your government and our government know
exactly what happened at Lockerbie. But they are not going to
tell you."{42}
NOTES
1. The Times (London), May 11, 1992, p.11.
2. "God Bless America -- A Personal View", paper written by Dr.
Jim Swire, spokesman for the bereaved UK families of Pan Am 103
victims, Oct. 20, 1995. Copy in author's possession. Swire met
with Gaddafy in Libya.
3. Grand Jury indictment, US District Court for the District of
Columbia, 1991.
4. Der Spiegel (Germany), April 18, 1994, pp.92-7; Sunday Times
(London), December 19, 1993, p.2; The Times (London), December
20, 1993, p.11; Los Angeles Times, December 20, 1993.
5. Mark Perry, Eclipse: The Last Days of the CIA (Wm. Morrow, New
York, 1992), pp.342-7. See also Time, April 27, 1992, p. 27 for
another example of the unreliability of the shopkeeper's
identification.
6. See, e.g., Sunday Times, Nov. 12, 1989, p. 3.
7. See The Independent (London), Jan. 24, 1995, p.3 for more on
this matter.
8. Sunday Times, December 17, 1989, p. 14. Malta is, in fact, a
major manufacturer of clothing sold throughout the world.
9. The Independent, October 30, 1989, p.2.
10. The Guardian (London) July 29, 1995, p.26.
11. Time, April 27, 1992, p. 28
12. The Independent, Jan. 30, 1995, p. 3. The newspaper said it
was a five-page official briefing paper that had been leaked to
it. It is possible that this is the same 1989 report referred to
in note 11. Time magazine also said it was a five-page document.
13. Donald Goddard with Lester Coleman, Trail of the Octopus:
Behind the Lockerbie Disaster (London: Penguin Books, 1994),
p.420
14. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York, 1993),
pp.448-9.
15. New York Times, November 15, 1991, p.1
16. Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1991, p.25
17. New York Times, April 13, 1989, p.9; David Johnston,
Lockerbie: The Tragedy of Flight 103 (New York, 1989), pp.157,
161-2. Johnston says investigators believed that the person who
put the bomb into Jaafar's bag was Abdul Dalkamoni, the brother
of Hafez Dalkamoni, whom we shall meet later.
18. Washington Post, May 11, 1989, p. 1
19. New York Times, December 16, 1989, p. 3.
20. Department of the Air Force -- Air Intelligence Agency
intelligence summary report, March 4, 1991, released under a FOIA
request made by lawyers for Pan Am. The intercept appears to
have taken place in July 1988, shortly after the downing of the
Iranian plane. Reports of the intercept appeared in the press
long before the above document was released; see, e.g., New York
Times, Sept. 27, 1989, p.11; October 31, 1989, p.8; Sunday Times,
October 29, 1989, p.4. But it wasn't until Jan. 1995 that the
exact text became widely publicized and caused a storm in the UK,
although ignored in the U.S.
21. The Times, September 20, 1989, p. 1
22. New York Times, November 21, 1991, p. 14. It should be borne
in mind, however, that Israel may have been influenced because of
its hostility toward the PFLP-GC.
23. Reuters dispatch, datelined Tunis, Feb. 26, 1992
24. The Guardian, Feb. 24, 1995, p. 7
25. National Law Journal, Sept. 25, 1995, p.A11, from papers
filed in a New York court case.
26. Barron's (New York), December 17, 1990, pp.20, 22
27. Barron's, p. 18.
28. Goddard/Coleman, p.205; Washington Times, October 31, 1990,
p. 3; The Times, November 1, 1990, p.3
29. Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture Subcommittee
of the Committee on Government Operations, House of
Representatives, December 18, 1990, passim.
30. The film, "The Maltese Double Cross" (see below).
31. Sunday Times, April 16, 1989 (traces); Johnston, p.79
(substantial). "The Maltese Double Cross" mentions other reports
of drugs found, by a Scottish policeman and a mountain rescue
man.
32. Goddard/Coleman, pp.40-3.
33. Goddard/Coleman, passim, and conversations with Coleman by
the author in 1998. Coleman was eventually compelled to plead
guilty to a contrived perjury charge in order to be released from
detention while seriously ill.
34. Article by John Ashton, The Mail on Sunday (London), June 9,
1996; Wall Street Journal, December 18, 1995, p.1, and December
18, 1996, p.B2
35. Ashton article and Financial Times (London), May 12, 1995,
p.8
36. The Guardian, April 23, 1994, p.5
37. Sunday Times, May 7, 1995.
38. Francovich's former wife told the author that he had not had
any symptoms of a heart problem before. However, the author also
spoke to Dr. Cyril Wecht, of JFK "conspiracy" fame, who performed
an autopsy on Francovich. Wecht stated that he found no reason
to suspect foul play.
39. Re Abu Talb, all 1989: New York Times, Oct. 31, Dec. 1, Dec.
24; Sunday Times, Nov. 12; The Times, Dec. 21; and The Times, Feb.
9, 1990
40. UN Resolution 731, Jan. 21, 1992 and Resolution 748, Mar. 31,
1992
41. See The Guardian, June 8, 1995, p.1, "Clinton ends fight to
try Lockerbie suspects"; and The Times, Sept. 20, 1997, p.9,
"Britain gives up fight over Lockerbie".
42. Cadman in "The Maltese Double Cross". Also see The Guardian,
July 29, 1995, p.27