The Lockerbie Case: Abu Nidal 'was a US spy'

Monday 27 October 2008

Abu Nidal 'was a US spy'

This is the gravamen of a long article by Robert Fisk in The Independent on 25 October. It was in reaction to this article that Tam Dalyell and I made a call for an inquiry into the possible relevance of this revelation to the Lockerbie disaster, which is reported in a number of newspapers today, including The Scotsman. I hasten to add that Mr Dalyell and I did not suggest that Abu Nidal had been the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine: General Command. This is the reporter's own embroidery. Mr Dalyell and I are well aware that the "distinction" of leading the PFLP:GC rests with Ahmed Jibril.

1 comment:

Patrick Haseldine28 October, 2008
The Scotsman report by David Maddox is wrong: "senior South African figures were not 'hauled off' the plane before its final flight."

A Reuters news agency report of 12 November 1994 clarified what actually happened: with confirmed bookings on Pan Am Flight 103, a 23-strong South African delegation - including Foreign Minister Pik Botha, Defence Minister Magnus Malan and Military Intelligence Chief C J Van Tonder - were travelling by South African Airways from Johannesburg. Their inbound flight inexplicably cut out a stopover at Frankfurt, and arrived early at Heathrow. The London embassy booked Botha and five of the party on Pan Am Flight 101 to New York for the signing of the Namibia Independence Agreement at UN headquarters on 22 December 1988. The remaining 17 members of the party returned on the SAA aircraft to Johannesburg.

UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, had been booked to travel by Sabena from Brussels to New York for the same signing ceremony. However, Carlsson was persuaded by the South Africans to stopover at Heathrow and became the most high profile of the 270 Lockerbie victims.

Apartheid South Africa is thus intimately involved. Abu Nidal, the CIA, Libya, Syria and Iran are all a smokescreen to hide the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing!
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