[This is the heading over a post on the Gather website by Reza Khalili. It reads in part:]
The Iranian government, through its daily paper, Aftab, published an article about me and my book, calling it, “A plot against the Islamic regime of Iran by the CIA.”
The paper starts with a lengthy headline:
"In a new scenario designed to create psychological warfare against Iran, the CIA has authorized a person who claims to have been a member of the Revolutionary Guards and to have spied for 10 years for the CIA to publish a book clearly named as a betrayal A Time to Betray by someone named Reza Kahlili."
The paper then goes on to attempt to refute some of the facts in my book:
"This person claims that the former President of Iran, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, ordered the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie. He says this despite the fact that Libyan TV has repeatedly shown Libyan leader, Muoamar Gaddafi, greeting al-Megrahi upon his return to Libya and that Megrahi was the only one indicted and sentenced for life for the bombing."
The paper fails to point out that I got my information from one of the regime’s own intelligence agents. This agent told me that the bombing was in retaliation for the downing of an Iranian commercial airliner by the US Navy.
[Reza Khalili's book, and Richard Marquise's reaction to it, is mentioned on this blog here.]
One can see that Iran is immensely annoyed with Mr Kahlili for his assertion in his book that Iran did Lockerbie. Perhaps the Iranians fear that as the unlikelihood of a Libyan provenance gains credibility,they believe the US will begin to promote the "Iran did it" line, which various ex CIA lights, especially Mr Baer have begun to do.
ReplyDeleteBoth Mr Kahlili and Mr Baer are however constrained by their circumstances. Both are essentially pensioners of the CIA, and are not allowed to implicate their former employer. Neither might want to, but to a certain extent, especially in Mr Baer's case they are prisoners of what they've said publicly, and cannot be unsaid. Both the Iranian and the British secret services adopt the line of "silence until death, and then not".
The presence of the CIA at Lockerbie (which essentially Mr Marquise denies, but he is an unreliable witness) is fully attested by Johnston, Charles and elements of the Scottish Police; but that story is tortuous and hard to tell and has not been done with any completeness yet.
Mr Marquise is certainly wrong that Mr Baer had no involvement with Lockerbie beyond that of a newspaper reader, and put his and Ms Stahl's CBS story of meeting a Mr Behbahani, or two of them together, and it becomes somewhat clearer. That was in 2000, during the early stages of the Zeist trial.
But little facts keep slipping out. Mr Kahlili's story of the "radio transmitter" in his book, is almost certainly misleading, but somewhat confirmative to those who have guessed the truth more closely.
Mr Marquise, we can forget about; he can only preach from his prosecutor's pulpit. I have offered him my story and he has refused to reply, simply falling back on his position of authority.
Lockerbie was for him a really sad end to what promised to be a fine career.
Thank you, Tony
ReplyDeleteJust don't touch his micro-dots.......
ReplyDelete(mine are fine)
I''m not sure we can trust Khalili's reading of said Irannian article, but if it really says something like "Libyan TV has repeatedly shown Libyan leader, Muoamar Gaddafi, greeting al-Megrahi upon his return to Libya and that Megrahi was the only one indicted and sentenced for life for the bombing," it's one of the dumber arguments I've heard.
Gosh, the site has slowed down. There's newer news -
ReplyDeletehttp://news.scotsman.com/politics/Fury-at-SNP-leader-Alex.6252470.jp
etc...