Reconsidering the “Lockerbie Bomber”

[The American WhoWhatWhy website has just republished a long article by Russ Baker headlined Reconsidering the “Lockerbie Bomber”  that originally appeared in 2012. It reads as follows:]

I first learned about the death of the “Libyan bomber” Ali Megrahi from a television screen. The sound was off, but I could see the closed captioning on CNN. Newspeople and guests were talking about the terrible thing Megrahi had done, and the closure or lack thereof from his passing. One man was noting that the perpetrator was a high official of Libyan intelligence, and that the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 had been ordered at the very top—by Muammar Qaddafi. The deaths of 270 people, 189 of them Americans, it was implied, justified last year’s removal of Qaddafi, and the dictator’s own abrupt and horrible death.

But there’s something wrong with that scenario.

How do I know? I read the New York Times. Especially the best part…..the fine print.

The Times Opens A Door…and Shuts It

Check out this article, from Robert McFadden, the Times’ septuagenarian obit writer and rewrite man extraordinaire. Under the appropriately neutral headline, “Megrahi, Convicted in 1988 Lockerbie Bombing, Dies at 60,” McFadden nailed the true import of Megrahi’s death in the second paragraph:

The death of Mr. Megrahi, who insisted that he was not guilty, foreclosed a fuller accounting of his role, and perhaps that of the Libyan government under Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, in the midair explosion of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.

Most of the front half of the article lays out the conventional line on the plane that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. But anyone getting to the latter part will notice that it is dominated by evidence casting doubt on the official story.

Thus, if you read those second-half paragraphs carefully, you see what the reporter (and perhaps his bosses) may actually wonder: whether Libya was framed by some enemy, with hints on who that might be.

The trial lasted 85 days. None of the witnesses connected the suspects directly to the bomb….The court called the case circumstantial, the evidence incomplete and some witnesses unreliable…Much of the evidence was later challenged….The court’s inference that the bomb had been transferred from the Frankfurt feeder flight was also cast into doubt when a Heathrow security guard revealed that Pan Am’s baggage area had been broken into 17 hours before the bombing, a circumstance never explored….Hans Köchler, a United Nations observer, called the trial “a spectacular miscarriage of justice”…. Many legal experts and investigative journalists challenged the evidence, calling Mr. Megrahi a scapegoat for a Libyan government long identified with terrorism. While denying involvement, Libya paid $2.7 billion to the victims’ families in 2003 in a bid to end years of diplomatic isolation.

But the Times was not finished with the story. It would have more to say, though not pursuing the line developed by the desk-bound McFadden, a 1996 Pulitzer Prize winner. Someone apparently decided that “more reporting” was needed, this time from another Pulitzer Prize winner, the longtime war correspondent John Burns.

His article, headlined “Libyan’s Death Brings Up Debate Over His Release,” focuses in part on the fact that Megrahi was given early release from prison because he suffered from cancer. But it also expanded on McFadden’s theme of doubts about Libya’s involvement. It actually goes a bit further in that direction, raising the theory that Libya was not involved.

Then it suggests that the true sponsor is…Iran.

The Times’s John Burns focuses on one relative and his theory.

In the aftermath of Mr. Megrahi’s death, his defense was taken up anew by the most persistent — and most controversial — of Mr. Megrahi’s defenders in Britain, Dr. Jim Swire, a 75-year-old retired family doctor whose 23-year-old daughter, Flora, died in the bombing. Years before Libya handed Mr. Megrahi and another man, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, over for trial, Dr. Swire voiced strong doubts about the Scottish case, and he fainted in court when Mr. Megrahi was convicted and Mr. Fhimah acquitted.

In the years since, he has been a vociferous advocate of a new independent inquiry into the bombing, saying that there was no reliable evidence that Mr. Megrahi was involved, and much that pointed to Iran, not Libya, as the culprit.

If Swire is so “controversial,” why give his claims such attention?

By citing Swire, Burns, wittingly or not, pulls out one of the oldest tricks in the book. He seems to be himself advancing legitimate inquiry by proposing an alternative theory that is not alternative at all. Indeed, what he does is redirect criticism from a former enemy of the United States establishment to a current one. The “controversial” disclaimer is also an old trick. It insulates the Times from any accusations that it has fallen into its predictable role of advancing the agenda of the American establishment. (Remember The Times’ former star reporter Judith Miller and all those Weapons of Mass Destruction that served as the Bush administration’s justification for the Iraq invasion?)

Even better, Burns cites “broadcast interviews” in which Swire had just repeated his assertions. Thus, it’s not The Times that is responsible for this. It is just “reporting on reporting.” Of course, those who trust the Times for their understanding of the world will not likely focus on any of these implied disclaimers at all. What they will remember is this: it was either Libya….or it was Iran.

Been Here Before, Ladies and Gents

Anyone really interested in figuring out who bombed that plane, and why, cannot ignore history. It is a history of our own government’s playing hardball, sometimes even doing (or at least contemplating) crazy and evil-seeming things in the service of a perceived greater cause. One example of this, and not the only one, is Operation Northwoods, a proposal from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rejected by an incredulous John F Kennedy, which would have involved committing acts of terrorism on US soil that could be blamed on Fidel Castro’s government. It was seen as regrettably leading to the loss of innocent life. But the proponents argued that the ends—setting the stage for an American invasion and the removal of Castro—justified the means.

This kind of thing is unpleasant, to put it mildly—almost too awful to contemplate. And discussing it is to invite tremendous hostility from those who don’t know better (and from those who do as well). But raising these uncomfortable truths is called….journalism. History shows us that US and allied intelligence operations will go to almost any lengths to gain the upper hand psychologically, to defame enemies of the state in order to persuade the public to go along with more overt moves, ideally by surrogates. (See Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Congo and Dominican Republic 1961, Vietnam 1963, Indonesia and Congo 1965, Cambodia 1970, Chile 1973…may we stop here?).

Meanwhile, governments like Libya under Qaddafi, or Iran under the mullahs, despicable though they are in many respects, have little real incentive to commit such acts against much more powerful countries. They gain nothing and stand to lose everything. Indeed, we can see strong indications that Qaddafi was railroaded over many years (but the effort was put on a bullet train last year) using Lockerbie as well as allegations of mass rape and mass murder, among other issues, as laid out here.  If getting rid of the irksome and fiercely independent Qaddafi was a priority, Iran is much, much more important. The effort to remove the current leadership of Iran and bring it back into the Western political, military and corporate fold is one of the highest priorities of the US, its allies, and their spinmasters. (Read this and this to learn more)

Burns’s Times piece is yet another in a long string of unsupported claims of Iranian nefariousness, which are practically a staple of the Western news diet. But reporters needn’t be complicit. One can accept that the Iranian mullahs and their cohorts are brutal and contemptible without being willing to traffic in falsehoods about them.

Beyond Burns

If the repositioning from McFadden’s good work that Burns’ piece represented wasn’t enough, we get this, from the Times-owned International Herald Tribune and republished by The Times, headlined “Lockerbie Bomber Dead, Conspiracy Theories Survive.”  The message is, “If you don’t have time to read this, and you probably don’t, just remember: when anyone tries to tell you there’s more to this story, just dismiss them and their notions with the back of your hand.”

Every time we see a journalist use the term “conspiracy theory,” let’s add one of two thought bubbles: Either “I’m lazy” or “I’m worse.” It usually means the reporter is not actually looking into any of the assertions, just taking five minutes to type out references to them, and then subtly undermine the whole train of thought. Because the term “conspiracy theory” immediately telegraphs to readers that they can safely ignore the claims contained therein.

A proper headline, based on the cumulative facts, would be, “Lockerbie Bomber Dead, Big Questions on Bombing Sponsors Unresolved.” (Message to Times and IHT: Happy to help you with headline accuracy—and even headline buzz!)

The Plot Thickens—and Another Person Dies

If you’re still not convinced that dark forces of a particular sort have a deep interest in how this all plays out, consider this development: the mysterious death Sunday of Sukri Ghanem, Libya’s former Oil Minister. Ghanem’s early defection turbocharged the effort to unseat Qaddafi. What’s so interesting, besides his ending up floating in the Danube, is that he had long insisted that Libya had no connection to Lockerbie, nor to the 1984 shooting of a British policeman outside the Libyan embassy in London, four years before Pan Am 103, that was cited as the basis for severing UK-Libyan ties.

Call Ghanem the man who knew too much. And please compare to a fellow defector, the Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil, who, unlike Ghanem, was perfectly happy to stoke the fires against Qaddafi—by announcing, after he had switched sides, that Qaddafi personally ordered the bombing, and promising to produce evidence.

He…..never has. It is now more than a year since the media ran its Jeleil headlines that were so damaging to Qaddafi, and no one, including the Times , has bothered to go back and see if he kept his word. (Background on that can be found here.)

The Pan Am 103 story could provide crucial linkage to the invasion of Libya and removal of Qaddafi—and lead to a real understanding of why some “accidents” happen, of why some “unavoidable interventions” happen. And no, it’s not always, or even usually, for the stated reasons. Just as the isolation of Libya over Lockerbie was, it seems, not really motivated by justice, the Western support of an externally-planned and -stimulated “indigenous” uprising was not really motivated by a concern for the human rights or the lives of the Libyan people.

This is not to pick on any particular reporter. On some level, all but the very stupidest journalists know how things really work. But they aren’t permitted to tell the rest of us. Thinking of digging deeper when that’s strongly (albeit implicitly) discouraged? There’s a simple choice: your conscience or your job.

To read Megrahi’s claims of innocence, go here.  (If you are in the UK or just want to read the more extensive British reader comments, go here.)

Neutral venue Lockerbie trial draws closer

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Kim Sengupta published in The Independent on this date in 1998:]

The Prime Minister yesterday called on Libya to hand over the two suspects involved in the Lockerbie bombing. "The United Nations has made it quite clear now that it supports this way forward," Tony Blair said. It is obviously important that Libya complies.

The noises appear to be welcoming, but they have to be followed by the action of actually delivering up the suspects.

Mr Blair said Britain took the decision to go for the third country option after a lot of debate and hesitation because it was believed it was the "only way" of securing a chance of bringing these people to justice.

The resolution by the Security Council backing the American and British proposal to hold the trial in The Netherlands under Scottish law was backed unanimously.

Mr Blair said he felt particularly felt for the relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing, adding that, "it was important for them to have the possibility, the opportunity, of having those people brought to justice because that is a big part of their continuing anguish."

The United Nations voted yesterday to lift sanctions against Libya once it hands over two of its intelligence agents accused of the Lockerbie bombing.

The response from the Libyan government, however, appeared to be confusing and contradictory. Its UN ambassador, Abuzed Omar Dorda, stated in New York that his country accepted the plan, adding: "We reaffirm this position today, this is a serious position, an irreversible position."

However, later in the day the Tripoli regime criticised the Security Council resolution, stressing it was not committed by an agreement reached between Britain, the United States and The Netherlands and asked instead for direct negotiations with Libya.

The Libyan foreign ministry maintained that crucial talks needed to be held over the guarantee of safety of the two suspects, as well as aspects of the legal procedure, before any progress could be made.

The hard line from Tripoli echoed some of the reservations expressed by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in an interview with the television network CNN in which he claimed that Britain and the US would find ways to make the holding of the trial impossible.

He said: "I think Libya has no objections. But I am not sure America and Britain have the good intention to solve this problem. I am not assured they are serious.

"More details have to be clear. You cannot say give us these two people quickly; they are not tins of fruit. They are human beings.

"Their destiny must be assured. What is the destiny of the suspects if they are convicted or acquitted, and if they take any appeal action."

The Libyan leader went on to " warn" London and Washington not to engage in any "tricks" to sabotage the prospect of a hearing.

The Foreign Office in London stated that overall the prospects of an agreement still looked positive, and said it welcomed the Libyan decision to hand over the two intelligence officers to the judicial process.

We all want to know the truth

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009:]

The truth never dies: Megrahi demands Lockerbie inquiry

[This is the headline over the report on The Herald's website by Ian Ferguson and Lucy Adams on their interview in Tripoli with Abdelbaset Megrahi. The following are excerpts. The full story can be read only in The Herald's print edition.]

The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has backed demands for a far-reaching public inquiry into the atrocity, saying the international community owes that to the families of the 270 victims.

In his first full-length interview since being released last week, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi told The Herald: "We all want to know the truth. The truth never dies."

Speaking from a hospital bed at his home in Tripoli, Megrahi talked extensively about his 10-year battle with the Scottish legal system and insisted he did not commit the worst terrorist act on mainland Britain. (...)

Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, revealed he dropped his appeal against the conviction because he would not live to see its outcome and was desperate to return to his family. "It is all about my family," he said. "People have said there was pressure from the Libyan authorities or Scottish authorities, but it wasn't anything like this."

Instead, he put his faith in an appeal for compassion and said he was impressed by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill during their meeting at Greenock Prison. "I thought he was a very decent man and he gave me a chance to say what I wanted and to express myself. He gave me the chance to make a presentation to him and he was very polite."

Megrahi is still determined to clear his name, partly through an autobiography, and also backs a public inquiry. Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the tragedy, has already called for such an investigation, but the UK Government seems firmly opposed.

"I support the issue of a public inquiry if it can be agreed. In my view, it is unfair to the victim's families that this has not been heard. It would help them to know the truth. As I said, the truth never dies.

"If the UK guaranteed it, I would be very supportive. I would want to help Dr Swire and the others with the documents I hold."

However, he added during an hour-long interview: "My feeling is that the UK Government will avoid a public inquiry because it would be a headache for them and the Americans and it would show how much the Americans have been involved and it would also cost them a lot of money which they may not want to spend because of the recession."

Megrahi was vitriolic about the Scottish police and legal system. "I was supposed to receive a fair trial and I was supposed to be subject to fair procedure. From day one of the trial there were delays and delays from the Crown Office. "The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found at least six grounds of appeal and said there were six grounds on which it may have been a miscarriage of justice.

"From that point we asked the Crown for more documents and more papers. We received only some of them and they were still redacted. Most of the pages were black and I think this is shameful. They were supposed to give us everything."

Referring to the revelation seven years ago that some of the police notebooks recording the aftermath of the tragedy had been destroyed, Megrahi said: "It is very strange that the police forces that dealt with the case - and there were more than 400 officers - it is very strange that many of their notebooks went missing.

When one officer was asked about a notebook, he said it was destroyed. I find this very strange. Surely to destroy the notebooks of so many people is a decision that someone must have been made? This is not fair and is a big question mark about the case."

He said his priority now is to spend time with his five children, the youngest of whom is still of primary school age. "It was always my dream to come back to my family. It was in my prayers every day and when I received the diagnosis, even more so."

Lockerbie investigators "abused our friendship and infringed Maltese law"

[What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009:]

Pan Am 103: The unanswered questions

[This is the headline over a long interview with Joe Mifsud published in the midweek edition of maltatoday. Mr Mifsud has followed, and written about, the Lockerbie case for many years. The following are excerpts from the interview.]

“Malta is still portrayed as the place where the terrorists met and executed their plan to kill 270 innocent people. Our national airline Air Malta was unjustly implicated. I have suffered silently as a Maltese citizen, listened patiently to the allegations but fought with pride to clear Malta’s name.”

So saying, Joe Mifsud reiterates a point he has been making for almost 20 years. But with Megrahi now released on compassionate grounds, and a growing chorus of voices demanding an independent inquiry into the 1988 disaster, Mifsud still has mixed feelings about the entire affair.

“Vindicated? No,” he says when asked for his reaction to the release. “I thought about the relatives and friends of the victims who perished in the Pan Am tragedy. I thought about the time that was wasted and the truth that has not emerged. There are some who might be happy with financial compensation or a guilty verdict. The latter will not take away the pain and anguish caused by the fact that they still do not know the cruel hand behind the planning and the execution of their dear ones...”

Mifsud argues that foreign investigators had abused our friendship and infringed Maltese law. They illegally tapped telephones and even offered money for evidence to strengthen their case.

“I still remember two particular occasions. During proceedings the court was told that the whereabouts of a husband and wife, mentioned as members of a Palestinian terror team responsible for the Lockerbie bombing, were unknown, when I knew that there were living openly with their three young children in Gaza. Everyone was surprised when I interviewed the couple and the story was published on the front page of Scotland on Sunday. When Scottish police first came to Malta in 1989, it was to investigate a Lockerbie connection because clothes originating on the island had been in the bomb suitcase. On their second visit, Palestinian terrorists were suspected. At that time the Palestinian man was living in Malta with his family. His phone was illegally tapped by Scottish police operating in partnership with the American and German investigators. The Maltese authorities protested when the clandestine operation was discovered and the whole investigation was immediately suspended. The investigators were asked to leave Malta and were only allowed to return several weeks later when the Maltese government had been guaranteed that there would be no repeat of illegal investigations.”

The second occasion was when Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, the second suspect, was acquitted on 31 January, 2002.

“I visited Fhimah one week after the end of the trial when festivities to celebrate his acquittal were still in full swing in his home area Suq il-Gimgha. I still remember Fhimah’s words: ‘I had tears in my eyes when I bid him farewell, I was very sad and left with a broken heart knowing that my friend Basset was still there. I kept contact with him. As you believed that I was innocent, believe that Basset is innocent too.’”

But what, apart from instinct, originally led Mifsud to doubt the prosecution’s version of events?

“I personally knew Fhimah as he used to live in Mosta, my home town. When his name was mentioned in the investigations I was surprised, and my initial reaction was that I was witnessing a frame up in the making. I was very suspicious regarding Abdul Majid Jiacha, a Libyan defector married to a Maltese. At that time he was being considered as the star witness. I investigated further and obtained classified documents from the USA, claiming that he was in the Witness Protection Programme and he had met US agents more than 10 times before the Lockerbie bombing! So if he knew what was happening he should have supplied all necessary warnings so that the terror act would have been prevented.” (...)

But if the Libya connection is in doubt, what other explanation could there be for a terrorist act claiming 270 lives?

“Secret service sources suggest that the Pan Am disaster was an act of revenge for another air disaster. On 3 July 1988 a United States warship, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iran Air civilian airliner killing 290 people. As a result of this action and of increased tension in the Middle East it was generally expected that the United States would be the subject of reprisals. There was widespread concern about the threat to United States civilian aircraft at the time.”

As for the insistence on prosecuting Libyan suspects, Mifsud suspects a case of “blame shifting”:

“Pointing fingers to the bad guys of the moment – Libya was known for their support to movements linked to terror, including the IRA, Abu Nidal and others.”

In view of the doubts now cast on the trial proceedings, Mifsud believes the time has come for an independent enquiry.

“During the past years I have spoken to Jim Swire who lost his daughter in this tragedy. He always urged the British government to appoint an inquiry to investigate the case. This should have been done immediately after the tragedy. I agree with his suggestion; better late than never. I still remember the representatives of British victims telling me that questions about the tragedy went unanswered in the trial. They said the trial had not answered the huge number of questions asked over the last years. In my opinion the trial only served to add to this list of questions. A United Nations initiative in the form of a tribunal can act as an independent inquiry...”

What further details could such an inquiry reveal that have so far not come to light?

“The bomb which caused the Pan Am 103 tragedy on Lockerbie did not start its journey from Malta, as the Crown suggested during the trial and during the early stages of the investigations, but from another destination. Where? This is the first question that needs to be answered.

“The bomb device could have been introduced into the working area of Frankfurt by being flown on board any airline, interline tagged or on-line tagged for PA 103. The luggage could have been sent from the Damascus airport in Syria.

“Regarding Heathrow airport, where it is certain that the bomb was loaded onto the Pan Am flight, the three-judge panel itself said that there was also a possibility that an extraneous suitcase could have been introduced by being put onto the conveyor belt outside the interline shed, or introduced into the shed itself or into the container when it was at the built-up area...”

The second unanswered question concerns who mandated the act of terror and who executed the plan. To answer this, Mifsud argues we have to go back to the shortcomings of the initial investigations – among them, the process that led Tony Gauci to identify Megrahi as the person who bought the incriminating clothes from his shop.

“Two points that should have been noted in Tony Gauci’s testimony are: If the person who bought the items from his shop was living at the Holiday Inn Hotel as the prosecution claimed, and this is less than five minutes away from the shop, was it wise for the person who bought the items to walk to the taxi stand which is the same distance from the hotel and in the opposite direction? If Megrahi was the head of the security service and planning a terrorist attack, would it be wise for him to go and buy the clothes himself? This point is very puzzling and confusing. Scottish judges came to a conclusion even without coming to Malta and conducting an on-site inquiry in order to become acquainted with places mentioned in the trial.”

In the final analysis, Mifsud suggests it may have been in the interest of other countries to implicate Malta, albeit indirectly.

“At that time the German authorities were highly criticised for the fact that just some time before the tragedy they had in custody a number of persons involved in terrorist acts, who were very close to the Palestinian faction of Ahmed Jibril, the PFLP-GC, whose base is in Syria. (...)

“Germany was also criticised by security services as how a person suspected of involvement in the Lockerbie case, Hafez Kasem Dalkamoni, was allowed to depart from Germany to Syria without being interrogated about the Lockerbie case.”

Donald Goddard and Lester Coleman

[What follows is excerpted from an obituary written by Tam Dalyell that was published in The Independent on this date in 2003:]

Donald Goddard, writer and antiques dealer: born London 7 February 1928; married 1953 Pamela Goss (three sons, marriage dissolved), 1970 Natalie Donay (died 1991), 1996 Carol Dulling; died Wivelsfield, East Sussex 3 August 2003.

A Londoner by birth and a New Yorker by adoption, who spent the second part of his life in rural Sussex, Donald Goddard's formative experience was as an editor at The New York Times between 1962 and 1970, when he developed an intense interest in the then unfashionable subject of the New York underworld. (...)

Goddard's last book, which brought me into close contact with him over the last 10 years of his life, was Trail of the Octopus: from Beirut to Lockerbie - Inside the Defence Intelligence Agency (1993). This was the story of Lester Knox Coleman, the first American citizen since the Vietnam war to seek political asylum in another country. Hounded by the FBI, the drug enforcement administration and Middle East heroin traffickers, Coleman seemed to Goddard to be a victim of one of the biggest international cover-ups in modern times.

In the spring of 1988, Coleman was on a mission for the world's most secretive and well-funded espionage organisations - the Defence Intelligence Agency. Coleman had been ordered to spy on the DEA (the Drug Enforcement Administration) in Cyprus which, along with the CIA, was running a series of "controlled deliveries" of Lebanese heroin through the airports of Frankfurt and London en route to America. Coleman discovered that the security of this "sting" operation had been breached and warned the American Embassy that a disaster was waiting to happen. He was ignored. Seven months later, Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie. Among the dead was a DEA courier.

Since then, Washington has claimed that the blame for the bombing rests with Libyan terrorists and negligent Pan Am officials. With Pan Am and their insurers fighting this version all the way, it was never likely that Coleman's experience in Cyprus would go unnoticed. In 1991, American state security apparatus - what Goddard called the "Octopus" - made its move. His book is a gripping investigation into the causes of the Lockerbie disaster and the subsequent manipulation of the evidence.

Although Trail of the Octopus was not considered relevant in the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, where Abdel-Basset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment in February 2001, despite the many unanswered questions surrounding the bombing, it would be highly relevant to the public inquiry on Lockerbie that the relatives of those killed want, and that the British and American governments don't want. Goddard was a supreme seeker after truth. If history ever reveals the truth about Lockerbie, I'll wager that Goddard will be one of the unsung heroes in reaching it.

The Heathrow baggage-handling evidence

[What follows is excerpted from the report of proceedings at the Lockerbie trial on 25 August 2000 published by the University of Glasgow’s Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit:]

Mr [Sulkash] Kamboj, a security agent with Alert Management in 1988, based at Terminal 3 in Heathrow, gave evidence. In December 1988 he worked in the interline shed and was responsible for scanning the baggage from connecting flights other than Pan Am flights. In the interline shed was situated a scanning machine. After baggage had passed through the scanning machine a security tag was placed on the bag. The scanning machine was an x-ray which was black and white. Both airline and security workers were in the interline shed. The airline staff gave the baggage to the security staff for scanning. If the suitcase was destined for a Pan Am flight sometimes either Alert Security or Pan Am staff would take the bag off the belt. Following scanning the airline worker would put the bag into a container. There would normally be 2 staff members from Alert in the interline shed. 1 worker would watch the screen and the other placed a sticker on the bag. The witness said that Alert staff would sometimes place bags into containers if it was a quiet time or the airline worker was in the rest room or away, but this was not the normal routine. Mr Palmer was working in the interline shed with Mr Kamboj that day.

The witness did not remember Mr Bedford working in the interline shed that day. He remembered that a Pan Am flight was due to leave for New York that afternoon.  By late afternoon it was quiet in the interline shed. Mr Palmer and the witness finished at the same time. The witness was asked to accept that Mr Bedford was working that day and he then confirmed that it was Mr Bedford's job to load the Pan Am luggage that afternoon. The witness said it was possible that he had helped Mr Bedford by loading 2 bags but that he didn't remember. He accepted that if Mr Bedford said this he would accept it, but that the bags would have gone through the appropriate security procedures. Mr Kamboj confirmed that the luggage in the interline shed was from different airlines which were connecting to various flights.

The Advocate Depute [Alan Turnbull QC] asked if the scanning machine allowed the witness to see electrical items e.g., tape recorders or radios. The witness said it was hard to distinguish radios and tape recorders but that you could tell that there was an electrical item. It was not easy to identify a suspicious item using the machine. If an item looked normal no action would be taken. If abnormal it would be sent to the gate to be investigated. He also said it would be normal to see an electrical item every day.

In cross-examination Mr [Jack] Davidson [QC, for Fhimah] asked the witness if he recalled having a break that afternoon and on his return to the shed Mr Palmer left for the day. He said he did not. He confirmed it would be usual for a container to be loaded in the interline shed with bags bound for New York and then that container would meet the Frankfurt flight. Mr Davidson then asked if it was normal for the container to be taken first to baggage build up for some time before going to meet the Frankfurt flight. Mr Kamboj said he was not sure. He confirmed that the interline area was open and was not sure if it was locked at night. He could not recall if he was the last person to leave the interline shed that night. He confirmed that the bags reached the machine on a belt which started outside the shed and that he had not seen security there. He denied that he had been aware of the 'Toshiba Warning' before December 1988 or that he had been asked to look out for a fake Toshiba radio. He was asked again whether he ever loaded luggage onto a container. He said he remembered being interviewed by the police but did not recall what he said. A police interview on 6 January 1989 was referred to wherein the witness said that Mr Bedford had brought a metal tin into the interline shed to transport luggage for flight PA 103. He told the Police that he did not place any luggage in that tin. In a statement made to Police on 28 December 1988 the witness did not refer to putting any bag in the container on 21 December 1988 and stated that this would not be done as it was not part of his job. The Fatal Accident Inquiry transcript revealed that when giving evidence at that time, the witness said he would not have put bags into the tin container. Mr Davidson referred to the statement by the witness during the examination in chief by the Advocate Depute where he indicated that if Mr Bedford's account of 21 December included that he, Mr Kamboj placed 2 bags into container 4041 that he would accept this. This clearly contradicts statements given around the time of the disaster to the Police and the court at the Fatal Accident Inquiry.

Mr Kamboj did not recall what shift Mr Bedford worked that day or seeing the container leaving the shed. He did not recall being asked by Police officers how many bags came through Interline that day or how many were in Mr Bedford's container that day. Previous statements were referred to where the witness said he thought that there were 5 cases in Mr Bedford's container when he drove it away but that this was just a guess.

Mr Bill Taylor [QC, for Megrahi] , [in] cross-examination, referred to the lack of security at the interline shed which would have allowed anyone to drop a bag onto the belt which carried luggage into the shed to be x rayed. The witness accepted that this was the case. The witness stated that the information he gave to the police and the Fatal Accident Inquiry was truthful and accurate.

The judges asked Mr Kamboj if only Pan Am bags would come into the interline shed. The witness said that bags for all airlines would be carried on the same conveyor belt. Pan Am flights are identified by the Pan Am tag and these are picked off by the airline employees and sometimes security employees when they are beside the x-ray machine. Mr Kamboj said he did not remember seeing Mr Bedford leaving the shed with the container.

Mr [John] Bedford then gave evidence that bags were loaded by a company White onto the conveyor belt that carried them into the shed. A Pan Am employee would then take those bags bound for a Pan Am flight and give them to Alert Security staff to be x rayed. Some of the other airlines did x ray but this was not done by the Alert workers. The shed was reasonably quiet in the afternoon. The people who worked for Alert sometimes helped to identify which bags were bound for a Pan Am flight. Once x rayed the bags were put into containers and occasionally Alert staff helped to do this.  Flight 103 was the last Pan Am flight to be dealt with that day. By 2pm he was the only Pan Am employee in the shed. Messrs Kamboch and Palmer, Alert employees, were also there. The baggage for flight 103 was put into container 4041 but the witness cannot remember how many bags were put into the container and said it was a few rather than many. He told the court he loaded these bags into the back of the container, spine down with handle up.

After putting bags into the container that afternoon the witness said he went to Mr Walker's office, his supervisor who gave evidence yesterday, and had a cup of tea.  He left the container in the interline area for approximately half an hour while he was away. When he returned to the interline area the container had 2 more bags at the front of the container laying down. Mr Kamboj said that he had put these 2 bags in the container. The container was taken from the interline shed to the build up area to his supervisor Mr Walker. The witness said he expected that the container would be taken to the 103 inbound flight from Frankfurt, loaded up and then to the 103 outbound flight to New York. He said that on container AVE 4041 he filled out a record sheet on the side of the container with the flight number, the container number and the type of bags. The witness could not recall what he had entered for the type of bags. He said that the container was not full when it left the interline shed and he estimated there were 8 or 10 bags. He told the court that he had not placed any bags on top of the two bags at the front.

The judges asked Mr Bedford if a photograph, which is a production, showed his usual method of loading a container. He said that it did and from his recollection this is how the container was loaded on 21 December 1988. This photograph was taken on 9 January 1989 and shows Mr Bedford beside a container similar to 4041 containing luggage stacked the way he described 4041 having been stacked.

Mr Davidson referred to this photograph in his cross-examination of Mr Bedford. He put to the witness that the method of loading would vary and that the witness has no recollection of the precise number of bags put into container 4041. The witness accepted this and that no record of this was kept by either himself or the interline shed and recollection of such details would be difficult. Mr Davidson referred to 2 bags in the photograph being in the 'angle' area of the container (where it is believed the case containing the bomb was located). Mr Davidson asked how the witness could be so sure that he did not put any bags on top those at the front of the container. Mr Bedford said when he returned from tea with Mr Walker he took the container to baggage build up. Mr Bedford was unable to explain why Mr Kamboj had denied putting the cases into the container to Police Officers and the Fatal Accident Inquiry.

Mr Davidson referred to a police statement given on 9 January 1989 where Mr Bedford said that the bags at the front of the container were 2 Samsonite type suitcases one of which was brown and the other was of a similar colour.  Mr Bedford said he did not recall saying it but accepted that he did.

UK and US cave in over neutral venue Lockerbie trial

On this date in 1998 the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States, succumbing to international pressure, announced that they had reversed their stance on the matter of a "neutral venue" trial, such as I had proposed (and the Libyan Government, and the Libyan lawyer for Megrahi and Fhimah, had accepted) in January 1994.  In a letter of 24 August 1998 to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, the British and American Acting Permanent Representatives to the United Nations stated:

"....  in the interest of resolving this situation in a way which will allow justice to be done, our Governments are prepared, as an exceptional measure, to arrange for the two accused to be tried before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.  After close consultation with the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, we are pleased to confirm that the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands has agreed to facilitate arrangements for such a court.  It would be a Scottish court and would follow normal Scots law and procedure in every respect except for the replacement of the jury by a panel of three Scottish High Court judges.  The Scottish rules of evidence and procedure, and all the guarantees of fair trial provided by the law Scotland, would apply."

The full text of the letter can be read here. A statement by the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, can be read here; and one by the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, can be read here.

Abu Nidal 'behind Lockerbie bombing'

[This is the headline over a report published on this date in 2002 on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]

A former aide of Abu Nidal says the militant Palestinian leader, who was found dead in Iraq this week, was behind the 1988 bombing of a passenger plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

In an interview, Atef Abu Bakr says Abu Nidal told a meeting of his Fatah-Revolutionary Council that he had organised the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people.

He told London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat that Abu Nidal had threatened to kill anyone who revealed his responsibility for the attack.

A special Scottish court in the Netherlands convicted a former Libyan government agent, Abdelbaset ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, of the Lockerbie bombing and sentenced him to life in prison.

Mr Abu Bakr, a former spokesman for the group, split with Abu Nidal in 1989, a year after the bombing.

"Abu Nidal said during an inner-circle meeting of the leadership of the Revolutionary Council, 'I will tell you something very important and serious, the reports which link the Lockerbie act to others are false reports. We are behind what happened'," Mr Abu Bakr is quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Abu Nidal told the meeting that if anyone leaked what he had said, "I will kill him even if he is in the arms of his wife".

Al-Hayat did not make clear when or where the meeting took place, or who attended apart from Abu Nidal.

A senior British parliamentarian has urged the Foreign Office to investigate the claims "as a matter of the utmost urgency".

Tam Dalyell, a left-wing Labour MP, has long argued that the Libyans were not responsible for the attack and that it was carried out by Abu Nidal.

"If these allegations are true they blow everything relating to Lockerbie out of the water, including the trial in Holland," he said.

The group led by Abu Nidal, one of the world's most wanted men before Iraqi authorities announced that he had killed himself in his Baghdad apartment, has been blamed for attacks in which hundreds were killed or wounded in the 1970s and 1980s.

Abu Nidal set up his headquarters in the Libyan capital Tripoli in 1987. He was put under house arrest when Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi came under pressure to crack down on militants after the Lockerbie bombing.

Mr Abu Bakr has given a series of exclusive interviews to the Saudi-owned, London-based al-Hayat since the first accounts of Abu Nidal's death emerged.

The Crown and the CIA

[This is the title of an article that I wrote for The Lockerbie Trial website in August 2000. It reads as follows:]

When the trial resumed on Tuesday 22 August, the defence teams complained to the Court that they had just learned the previous day that certain CIA cables relating to the Libyan defector Abdul Majid Giaka, which they had thought had been made available to both the prosecution and the defence only in a censored or redacted form, had in fact been seen by members of the prosecution team on 1 June 2000 in uncensored or unredacted form.  The defence contended that the principle of equality of arms enshrined in article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights required that the defence should have similar access to this material.  The Crown opposed the defence's application.  They conceded that it is the duty of a Scottish prosecutor to supply to the defence any material available to the prosecution which advances the defence case or is relevant to a defence attack on the credibility of a prosecution witness. However, in the course of the Crown's lengthy submissions, it was stated by the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, that the deletions from the versions of the cables supplied to the defence related only to matters which were (a) irrelevant both to the facts in issue in the Lockerbie trial and to the credibility of the witness Majid Giaka or (b) related to sensitive matters of United States national security.  Indeed, it was for the purpose of ensuring that the Crown were in a position to fulfil their disclosure obligations that members of the Crown team inspected the unredacted cables on 1 June.  To quote the Lord Advocate:

"First of all, they considered whether or not there was any information behind the redactions which would undermine the Crown case in any way.  Secondly, they considered whether there was anything which would appear to reflect on the credibility of Mr Majid.  They also considered whether was anything which might bear upon the special defences which had been lodged and intimated in this case.

"On all of these matters, the learned at Advocate Depute reached the conclusion that there was nothing within the cables which bore on the Defence case, either by undermining the Crown case or by advancing a positive case which was being made or may be made, having regard to the special defence... 

"There is nothing within these documents which relate to Lockerbie or the bombing of Pan Am 103 which could in any way impinge on the credibility of Mr Majid on these matters."

The Court was unimpressed by the arguments of the Lord Advocate and instructed him to use his best endeavours to secure the release by the CIA to the defence of the unredacted or uncensored cables.

These cables were in due course made available to the defence, and on Tuesday 29 August various excerpts from them were read out in open court by defence counsel in an attempt to convince the judges that further CIA cables relating to Giaka should be made available to the defence, if necessary by means of a request by the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist to the appropriate Federal Court in the United States of America for an order compelling the CIA to disgorge the relevant material.  The Court, wishing to avoid the delays which would necessarily be caused by any recourse to the American courts, has instructed the Lord Advocate again to use his best endeavours to secure the release by the CIA of these additional cables.  Only if he is unsuccessful will the Scottish Court reluctantly consider the option of a formal request through the American courts. 

The previously blacked-out passages read out to the Court from the cables now in the hands of the defence indicated that, as at 1 September 1989 (more than eight months after the destruction of Pan Am 103), Giaka's CIA handlers were highly critical of him and of the lack of important information supplied by him.  He is described in the now-revealed portions of the cables as a man in the business of selling information for his own benefit; as someone who will never have the penetration of Libyan intelligence services that had been anticipated; as someone who had never been a true member of Libyan intelligence; and as someone whose CIA salary of $1000 per month should be cut off if he supplied no significant information.  It seems to be the natural inference from this that, by 1 September 1989, Giaka had still not informed his CIA masters that his Libyan colleagues in Malta had been responsible for the Lockerbie bombing: if he had done so, it is difficult to see how these criticisms of his value and of the worth of the information supplied by him could conceivably been made. 

But apart altogether from that, if the excerpts read out in court on Tuesday 29 August and summarised in the preceding paragraph accurately reflect passages from the cables which had been blacked out from the versions originally supplied to the defence, it is somewhat difficult to appreciate how it could possibly have been accurate or justifiable for the Crown to state to the Court on Tuesday 22 August that the redacted or censored portions within the documents contained nothing "which could in any way impinge on the credibility of Mr Majid."