Tuesday 5 February 2013

Lockerbie novel: it was Iran, not Libya

[This is the headline  over an item posted today on Alex Massie’s blog on the website of The Spectator.  It reads as follows:]

From a very entertaining New York Times profile of Gérard de Villiers, the French novelist who, though little known in this country, is seemingly better connected in the spy world than any mere hack novelist has any right to be:

Why do all these people divulge so much to a pulp novelist? I put the question to de Villiers the last time we met, in the cavernous living room of his Paris apartment on a cold winter evening. He was leaving on a reporting trip to Tunisia the next day, and on the coffee table in front of me, next to a cluster of expensive scotches and liqueurs, was a black military-made ammunition belt. “They always have a motive,” he said, absently stroking one of his two longhaired cats like a Bond villain at leisure. “They want the information to go out. And they know a lot of people read my books, all the intelligence agencies.”

Renaud Girard, de Villiers’s old friend and traveling companion, arrived at the apartment for a drink and offered a simpler explanation. “Everybody likes to talk to someone who appreciates their work,” he said. “And it’s fun. If the source is a military attaché, he can show off the book to his friends, with his character drawn in it.” He also suggested that if the source happens to have a beautiful wife, she will appear in a sex scene with Malko, and some of them enjoy this, too. “If you have read the books,” he said, “it’s fun to enter the books.”

I asked de Villiers about his next novel, and his eyes lighted up. “It goes back to an old story,” he said. “Lockerbie.” The book is based on the premise that it was Iran — not Libya — that carried out the notorious 1988 airliner bombing. The Iranians went to great lengths to persuade Muammar el-Qaddafi to take the fall for the attack, which was carried out in revenge for the downing of an Iranian passenger plane by American missiles six months earlier, de Villiers said. This has long been an unverified conspiracy theory, but when I returned to the United States, I learned that de Villiers was onto something. I spoke to a former CIA operative who told me that “the best intelligence” on the Lockerbie bombing points to an Iranian role. It is a subject of intense controversy at the CIA and the FBI, he said, in part because the evidence against Iran is classified and cannot be used in court, but many at the agency believe Iran directed the bombing.

Now, of course, this hardly proves the case one way or another but it is another small, but telling, data point supporting the suggestion that we still don’t know the full truth about Lockerbie. The Iranian involvement – or putative Iranian involvement – has long been a staple part of the discussion in this country but it’s less widely held, I believe, in the United States. Which makes it interesting that so many people at Langley apparently now give credence to the Iranian dimension to the plot.

3 comments:

  1. MISSION LOCKERBIE. 2013, MEBO's new investigative results in the "Lockerbie Fraud":

    Was the deception at Kamp van Zeist court intentionally charged against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi ?

    What played Fhimah after termination by LAA for a role as he had used between the various notes on the page with Date 15 December 1988, an additional text: "Abdelbaset is coming from Zurich".
    Abdelbaset al Megrahi's plane ticket was Malta-Zurich with Swissair (December 8, 1988) - he traveled alone - not with Abu Aquila, aka Abouagela ! - Zurich to Prague - Prague to Zurich on Friday the 16th of December 1988 with Swissair, SR 477 (overnight stay at the Hotel InterContinental Zurich). His next flight was on 17th December, Zurich-Malta with Swissair, code SR 648 - Mr. Al Megrahi arrived in Malta not in the morning, but about 14.55 and was traveling alone, not with Abu Aquila, aka Abouagela, or Salvu !
    Was intended, that Al Megrahi was involved intentionally with the existing text?

    Why was written in the US indictment No. 91-0645, page 11 :
    "On or about December 15th, 1988, Lamen Fhimah made the following entries in his diary: "Abdelbaset is coming from Zurich with Salvu....and "take taggs (sic) from Air Malta." On or about December 15th, 1988, Lamen Fhimah made an additional entry in the "Notes" section of his diary: "bring the tags from the airport (Abdelbaset Abdul Salam". ok.
    But as it turned out, the American prosecution took the entries out from their original context!

    MEBO, published end of 1991: What do the diary entries really say? This is the Arabic translation.
    A copy of the diary entry from Fhimah's diary (appendix no. 58) - all labels (text no.) are brought together by a bowed line in the end of their message, made by Fhimah:
    +++
    Text no. 1: 8. 30 in the morning with the owner of the shop Valetta - OK

    Text no. 2: Abdelbaset coming from Zurich

    Text no. 3: With Salvu (or Salva)
    1) Postbox
    2) Half of aluminium price
    3) Priority after 4 years (sellor rent)

    Text no. 4: X (cross) take TAGGS from Air Malta - OK
    +++
    Nothing at all in this entry has anything to do with the "PanAm 103 bombing", as alleged by the prosecution. The tags from Air Malta were taken by Fhimah in order to provide the shop owner in Valetta with some specimen for a production of new tags. Fhimah planned to print his own tags for the travel company. It happened that on this day Megrahi was arriving, and Fhimah made a note about it, in order to know what flight Megrahi was arriving on. Later Fhima reminded himself to check on a business friend, named Salvu.

    by Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd. Switzerland. URL: www.lockerbie.ch

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  2. Wonderful that the person had made a typical fraud error in the entry of Al Megrahi's arrival - on the wrong side of the 15th December 1988 - in the Notebook ! Al Megrahi's arrival in Malta, with Swissair was correct: in the afternoon of 17th December 1988 (not of 15th December 1988)...

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  3. Getting a writer of fiction to popularise Iran’s fictional role is the CIA’s way of blaming Iran without the need for any actual evidence.

    This has become necessary following the debunking of Megrahi’s conviction.

    However the worry is this revamping of the phoney criminal investigation will be merged with bogus claims of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme, as an excuse for further neo-con attacks on Syria and Iran that threatens world peace.

    Whereas a re-examination of the actual cause of the crash by holding a public enquiry, or even speculation about the cause, will be avoided at all costs, to avoid the truth being told.

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