-Caveat Lector- from: http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/full_text_66_pa103.htm Pan Am 103 & The Charge Against Libya: Case Closed or More Disinformation? by William Blum Pan Am Flight 103? Oh yes, Christmas time 1988, those two Libyans did it, but the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar Qaddafi 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 confirmation of the Libyan leader’s lack of illusions about the workings of the American justice system.1 The verdict in the O.J. Simpson case may well have reinforced that view, while “The Guilford Four,” the “Birmingham Six,” and other infamous miscarriage-of-justice cases in Britain have reportedly imparted to Qaddafi a similar lesson about the U.K.2 Now, with December 21 having marked the tenth anniversary of the tragedy that took two hundred and seventy lives in Lockerbie, Scotland, the United States, the United Kingdom, 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. Among 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 is 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 mention them on paper? And then leave the diary in his office where it could be taken? Another piece of evidence presented by U.S./U.K. 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 it 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 Coverup The investigators’ failure to disclose this information can best be described by the word “coverup.” And in any event, there is 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 U.S./ U.K. version of events would have the world believe that al-Megrahi has been identified by the shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, as the purchaser of the clothing. But there is no such evidence. Al-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 al-Megrahi states that he made the purchase on December 7. Can this be because the investigators can document his being in Malta on that date but cannot do so for November 23? The identification of al-Megrahi is even more questionable than the above indicates.7 The fact that the investigative authorities do not make clear exactly how al-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 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 doubts 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 two 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 Pan Am 103A flight to London without an accompanying passenger; 3) transferred in London to the Pan Am 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, baggage 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 occurring three times in a row for the same suitcase? Regular airline passengers would not 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 to 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 U.S. 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. Qaddafi 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 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 U.S. buildup to the Gulf War and the sanctions imposed against Iraq, that was behind the bombing after all, declared Washington. The two Libyan airline employees 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 this 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 ten 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 Pan Am 103 was the work of a “Middle Eastern country” other than Libya.23 In February 1995, a former Scottish Office minister, Alan Stewart, wrote to the British Foreign Secretary and the Lord Advocate, questioning the reliability of the 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, the equivalent of the office of the Attorney General, 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, the IRS, and the Secret Service25–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 Col. 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 Al-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., U.K. 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 coverup.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 <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, mis- directions 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, CTRLgives 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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