NEW YORK (Reuters) - CBS television said on Sunday that a senior Iranian intelligence service defector had claimed the bombing of a Pan Am aircraft over Scotland was masterminded by Iran and not Libya. The defector, now in protective custody in Turkey, told an associate producer of the ``60 Minutes'' current affairs program that he had documents to prove Tehran was behind the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. The Iranian, who had been in a refugee camp in Turkey, was now being de-briefed by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials, the program said. The CIA would only say he ``was in Iranian intelligence,'' a Washington official told CBS. CBS said its producer entered the refugee complex in disguise and without a camera to make contact with the man who claims to be Ahmad Behbahani, who coordinated all of Iran's overseas acts of terrorism for at least the past decade. ``He told us it was Iran, not Libya, that planned and directed the blowing up of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people,'' the CBS program said in its introduction. ``If his story can be confirmed, and American intelligence is trying to do that right now, it would not only disrupt the trial of the two Libyans charged with that bombing, it could interfere with the Clinton administration's efforts at relaxing and improving relations with Iran,'' it added. Two Libyans, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima, who prosecutors say were intelligence agents, have been on trial since May 3 at a special Scottish court in the Netherlands, charged with murdering the 270 victims. Lawyers for the Libyans suggested they will try to prove Syrian-backed Palestinian extremists were the perpetrators in an act of revenge on behalf of Iran for the destruction of an Iranian plane by a U.S. warship six months earlier. Iran vowed the skies would ``rain blood'' after the USS Vincennes shot down an Iran Air flight in July 1988, killing 290. It was widely assumed at first that Tehran ordered the destruction of the Pan Am airliner with Syrian-sponsored help. Behbahani, who said he had lost a power struggle in Tehran, was arrested then escaped, told the CBS producer he was responsible for the Lockerbie attack. Plan Proposed To Jabril The producer said: ``It all began, he says, when he proposed the job, along with a blueprint, to Ahmed Jabril, the radical Palestinian terrorist. ``Jabril replied by saying he agreed with the plan and that he sent a list of requirements which included explosives and other things that he needed in order for the operation to be carried out.'' The producer added: ``He (Behbahani) said after that we proceeded by bringing in a group of Libyans into Iran and training them at a special site, which was called the Lavison School, for a period of 90 days, and he was very proud to also mention that the bomb was so very sophisticated that it required that kind of intensive training.'' Robert Baer, a former CIA terrorism expert, tested Behbahani for the CBS program with a ``control question'' which no one outside the intelligence community could have known. He answered correctly. Baer, who worked on the CIA's Lockerbie inquiry, told CBS: ''He's the only person that has tied Libya and Iran into Pan Am 103, into the Lockerbie bombing. This is the first authoritative source that I've ever heard that connected the two countries together. It was always a mystery.'' Baer said: ``The CIA for about 6 to 7 months accepted the hypothesis that Iran, after the shoot down of the Airbus would take revenge against the United States.'' The former agent added: ``There were pieces of solid evidence that Iran was planning to shoot down an American airliner, but none of it was absolutely conclusive. ``And then once the forensic evidence was found on the ground which pointed at Libya the prosecutors and investigators were forced to drop the Iranian angle and look at Libya instead. It was totally forgotten.'' Behbahani also told Baer he had evidence that Tehran bombed Khobar Towers, the U.S. military complex in Saudi Arabia. Nineteen 19 American soldiers were killed in the 1996 attack. The program played an audio tape of Behbahni in which he said Jabril's group under the direction of Iran, had coordinated an attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994. His account named the hit squad, many of them Syrians, the program said. Before CBS could secure Behbahani's documents the Turkish authorities took him to a more secure custody. On Behbahani, the producer said: ``I traced the tone of someone who was extremely bitter, and was willing to go to any lengths in order to get revenge. He had fallen out of favor with the Iranian officials, with the government of Iran, and he just wanted to get back at them, at any cost.'' <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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[CTRL] Iran Defector Blames Tehran for Lockerbie-CBS TV
Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard Sun, 04 Jun 2000 18:45:56 -0700