The case that won’t go away

[This is the headline over an article by John Wight published on this date in 2010 on the Socialist Unity website. It reads as follows:]

The case of convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, and the controversy surrounding his release on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government last year, refuses to go away.

At time of writing both Kenny McAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary responsible for releasing Mr Megrahi, and Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign secretary at the time, have turned down requests to appear before a US Senate Committee Hearing into Megrahi’s release and whether or not any back door deals between the Libyan and British governments involving BP had any bearing on it.

The stridency and vehemence of the criticism that came from the US at the time of Megrahi’s release, and which continues to this day, reflects the double standards, hypocrisy, and dissembling which denotes US relations with the rest of the world.

Convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2001, 11 years after the bombing was carried out, and after a trial in the Netherlands conducted under the strictures of the Scottish legal system, which for the uninitiated remains separate and distinct from its counterpart in the rest of the UK, Megrahi has consistently protested his innocence of the biggest terrorist attack ever committed in Britain, when 270 people were killed after a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. The victims comprised all 243 passengers and 16 crew members on board, along with 11 residents of the small Scottish town which gave its name to the atrocity thereafter.

Some of the relatives of the victims had consistently cast doubt over Megrahi’s conviction. One of those, relatives Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, told BBC radio at the time of his release. “I don’t believe the verdict is right. It would be an abominable cruelty to force this man to die in prison.” Other relatives remained circumspect and had called for Megrahi’s scheduled appeal hearing, which he dropped a few days before his release, to go ahead. Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter died in the attack, said. “I am not absolutely convinced of Megrahi’s guilt nor of his innocence. We simply at this point do not know enough to be able to make that judgment.”

In contradistinction, victims’ families in the US had called for Megrahi to complete his sentence in Scotland and continue to be convinced of his guilt. In this they’ve been joined by their government, which in the days and weeks leading up to the Libyan’s release made strong representation to Kenny MacAskill in the form of public statements, letters from ranking senators, and even a personal phone call from US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

Despite such an outpouring of protest in advance and in the wake of Megrahi’s release, and up to this day, it is well nigh certain that he was convicted and imprisoned for something he didn’t do.

During the original trial no material evidence was presented linking the Libyan to the bombing, let alone any evidence that he put the bomb on the plane or that he handled any explosives. Even the prosecution subsequently questioned the credibility of its star witness.

The central pillar of the prosecution’s case was that Megrahi wrapped the bomb in clothes before checking it on to an aircraft in Malta without boarding the aircraft himself. The bomb, the prosecution alleged, was subsequently transferred at Frankfurt on to the flight to London, and then loaded on to the flight to New York. Two years after the bombing Granada Television made a documentary of the event which included a dramatic reconstruction. In it a bag containing a bomb was loaded on to an Air Malta flight by a sinister-looking Arab, who then sloped off without boarding. Upset by the damage to its reputation, Air Malta sued Granada. The airline’s solicitors compiled a dossier of evidence demonstrating that all the bags checked on to the flight which Megrahi was supposed to have planted the bomb were accompanied by passengers and that none of those passengers travelled on to London.

The evidence was so compelling that Granada settled out of court.

Since the Crown never had much of a case against Megrahi, it was no surprise when the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) found prima facie evidence in June 2007 that the Libyan had suffered a miscarriage of justice and recommended that he be granted a second appeal.

The truth is that this entire case, from the bombing in 1988 all the way up to Megrahi’s release in 2009, reflects a shift in the geopolitical and strategic interests of the nations concerned. Back in 1988 Libya occupied the status of international pariah in the West. The Libyan government, then as now led by Colonel Gadaffi, at one time funded and supported national liberation organisations and movements as disparate as the Provisional IRA and Black September, as well as various militant groups throughout the developing world. Relations between Libya and the West reached their nadir in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration sought to overthrow the quixotic Libyan president. Indeed, a US airstrike in 1986, carried out from military bases in Britain, almost succeeded in killing Gadaffi, who only narrowly escaped.

The overwhelming view of informed opinion is that Lockerbie was the work of Iran in conjunction with the Syrians. The Palestinian splinter group, PFLP-GC, led by Ahmed Gibril, were contracted to carry out what was an act of retaliation for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz in July 1988 by the USS Vincennes. It came just two years after the story broke that officials within US intelligence and the US Government had conducted secret arms deals with Iran in an attempt to obtain the release of American hostages being held by Iranian backed militias in Lebanon. The money paid for the weapons was used to fund Contra death squads then operating in Nicaragua. In March 1988, Colonel Oliver North and John Poindexter, a former naval officer and National Security Advisor within the Reagan administration, were convicted in relation to the scandal, known to the world and to history as Iran-Contra.

The difference today is that Libya is no longer treated or perceived as a rogue state in the West. In fact, ever since renouncing his weapons of mass destruction programme in the wake of the US and British invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Colonel Gadaffi has been rehabilitated as a leader the West can do business with. Given its prodigious oil and gas reserves the official visits to Libya first by former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in 2004, followed by former US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, in 2008, were as predictable as they were revelatory. It is known that BP in particular was keen for Blair to restore relations with Libya in order to allow access to Libyan oil reserves and lobbied the government to this effect in 2007.

Part of this deal on the Libyan side involved the release of Megrahi, a member of Libyan intelligence, who was sacrificed by his government to the arms of the Scottish Justice System in an attempt to break out of the country’s economic isolation and normalise relations with the West. The expectation was that he’d be found not guilty. The expectation proved wrong.

In 2009 a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) was drawn up between both countries. At the time the only Libyan being held within the UK prison system was Megrahi, thus preparing the ground for his release.

Conveniently, Blair and Straw landed the controversy on the lap of the SNP Scottish Government, citing jurisdiction, whose decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds was made at the expense of his appeal going ahead. It was an appeal hearing which promised to reveal that his conviction had been bogus, a fact known to both the British and Americans at the time he was found guilty and sent to prison. The political fallout from such an eventuality would obviously have been enormous.

Regardless of the geopolitical context surrounding the Megrahi case the Scottish Government has been principled and correct in refusing to bow to US pressure both at the time of the release and now in refusing to appear in front of a Senate Hearing into the case. The issue of sovereignty is involved, as is the issue of jurisdiction.

The release of al-Megrahi was right and just. Relying on medical advice at the time, Kenny McAskill was entitled to believe that the prisoner had only three months to live. It was the decent thing to do to allow him to spend what time he had left with his family in Libya. That he’s survived this long is a moot point under the circumstances.

As for the victims of Lockerbie, justice for them continues to be denied as a result of the geopolitical machinations of their respective governments. Twas ever thus.

The London origin theory

[This morning, by chance, I rediscovered an article dating from July 2010 headed The London Origin Theory by Caustic Logic on his website The Lockerbie Divide. The leading exposition of this theory is now, of course, to be found in Dr Morag Kerr’s superb book Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies. However, Caustic Logic’s piece deserves attention, too. So here it is:]

“I want to know when the bomb was placed on the plane and by whom. We have to look more closely into the "London theory" – that the bomb was placed on the plane at Heathrow and not in Malta.” - Hans Köchler, independent UN observer at Zeist trial, 21 Aug 2009 (Source)

"If I was determined to bring down an airplane, I would have put [the bomb] on in London." - Robert Baer, 'former' CIA agent and weapons expert, who doesn't buy the Libyans-did-it story line.

The London Origin theory has emerged as the most logical explanation for what happened to Pan Am 103 on December 21 1988. The official story, all the most widely-seen revisionist arguments, and even Megrahi's defense team's curious "special defense of incrimination" drew on elements of the drug swap theory, with the bomb coming in from Germany or further afield. Megrahi's counsel William Taylor QC did however give reasons to suspect a  London origin (...) to the trial judges and summarized at trial's end in 2001:  “My submission is that all of the above render the choice of Heathrow a much more likely one [than Malta]. And when that possibility is considered, one finds that there is a compelling body of evidence that points to Heathrow as being the point of ingestion.” [day 82 p9862]

But in the earliest days of the investigation, January and February 1989, British investigators labored to clear Heathrow Airport of any lapses and ensure that the bomb's origin would have to be found elsewhere. Years of confusion ensued... (see "Counter-Arguments" below for more on the dismissal of the London theory).

Direct Evidence For the Theory

Among the first clues came from finding where the plane failed, and what luggage container the blast originated in. Container AVE4041 in forward left cargo hold, position 14L, was decided within a few days. The container's blasted out remains were found and reassembled enough to show the blast was down at the bottom of the container, in the aft outboard corner. It had been in the spot closest to the hull, only 25" from the thin and aged skin of Maid of the seas.

Unfortunately, the exact placement, origin, or even number of suitcases in that box was hard to pin down. Records and witnesses helped decide 4041 was loaded with a few bags (6-8 or so) of (apparently) interline luggage, then filled up with a few dozen cases from the feeder/first leg flight 103A out of Frankfurt. But within this generally imprecise body of memories, one stands out as of amazing possible significance.

The Bedford Suitcase(s)

This was always the hard part to get around in order to reject the initially obvious Heathrow introduction theory. A Pan Am worker mentioned to police right after the attack said he saw two brown hardshell samsonite suitcases, placed on the floor of container 4041. The position of these was side-by-side from the far left of the floor, at the (loading) front of the container. If the bags had been later stacked one on the other and the top bag slid a few inches left, it would be in the perfect spot to match the explosion center - aft outboard corner, second suitcase from the bottom - where just such case detonated.

An amazing lead, investigators almost seem to have tried to not follow this one.  Since the cases Bedford saw were on the floor when he saw them, and the blast seemed to have happened one layer up from that, they decided these cases were a coincidence. They must have been moved across the container, and replaced in that lower corner with an identical case from Germany, on top of some other damaged Frankfurt-originating luggage. The leaps of faith here are simply alarming.

The Bedford story is covered in great detail at this site, with the works so far compiled at the link above.

Break-in Reported

A security guard at heathrow Airport reported a break-in at terminal 3 around 12:30 am on  December 21. Ray Manly's report, of a padlock on the floor "cut like butter" was covered up for over a decade. Even at trial in 2000, the defense was not allowed to know of this. Manly came forward in 2001 with the story, soon verified by the long-suppressed police reports. (...)

Mentioned in: Appeal Court Dismissal of the Heathrow Theory

Circumstantial Evidence For the Theory

The 38-Minute Coincidence

Aside from its crew and perhaps some cargo that (probably) doesn't matter here, the 747 Clipper Maid of the Seas landed empty at London's Heathrow airport mid-day December 21, 1988. There the plane took on a load of 243 passengers and their luggage, and took off at 6:25pm for New York as Pan Am Flight 103. Clearly, the bomb went on the plane at London, but the question that comes quickly behind it is where did it come from before that? A van in the parking lot, or another plane?

Such clues were vital to tracking down the perpetrators, and should be embraced when they're found. The time of explosion itself is a valuable clue - 38 minutes after leaving the ground - is a known hallmark of the altimeter bombs made just weeks earlier by terrorist bomb-maker and "double agent" Marwan Khreesat. He had produced four altimeter-triggered, radio-disguised bombs, set to detonate less than an hour after takeoff. Each of the others was a bit different, but the one that was captured and tested thoroughly would have blown up about 45-50 minutes after takeoff.  

The timing compatibility with a Khreesat bomb loaded at London notwithstanding, it's been officially decided and legally established that was a Libyan-ordered and set MST-13 timer that told the bomb to go off over Lockerbie. Officially, legally, by the evidence led at trial, it's an asbolute coincidence the timing so resembles the method first suspected.

Operational Security

When confronted with the official story of a Malta-Germany-London, the most obvious averse reaction of those who know air travel operations is to ridicule the notion that an airline bomb would make any sense being trusted to so many switches. Any functional security screen or time delay along the way coulld screw up the whole operation with a timer-based device as alleged. A trip from Frankfurt only is often suggested to replace this, but it too has one too many stops for a Khreesat bomb, and still a high chanced of the bomb being delayed or intercepted. If one could pierce security at any of the three airports, and it obviously happened at one of them, Heathrow would give one the best chance for success and the only way for a Khreesat bomb to have done what happened.   

Former head of security for British Airways, Denis Phipps, The Maltese Double Cross:

“If a device had been infiltrated into the system at Malta, it would have been necessary for that device to have been carried in an aircraft in the sector from Malta to Frankfurt, to have gone through a handling process, been carried on an aircraft through the sector from Frankfurt to Heathrow, and then timed to detonate during the final sector, Heathrow to New York, presumably whilst the aircraft was over the ocean to avoid discovery of forensic evidence …  one has to say, um, are - terrorists  - idiots? Don’t terrorists plan to have a reasonable degree of success?"  

Explosive Efficacy

If one places a device at the airport the target leaves from, rather than remotely through multiple flights, a new possibility is opened up - depending on the nature and depth of his penetration, a determined terrorist could place the bag himself and chose where in the container it went. As it happened, the bomb in PA103 was placed in the best spot (for the terrorists), and one of the few that could have even worked - the lower outboard quadrant, more or less on the sloping floor nearest the hull. Figure F13 (below) of the AAIB's report shows the deduced center of explosion that officially was achieved by accident. Considering even there, all that was blows from the hull was a chunk the size of a dinner plate. That's all it took, but it wouldn't happen at all if the bomb had wound up in the upper inboard corner, or even in the middle.

It is true, as some have pointed out, that there'd be no guarantee any cases placed in that deadly corner would stay there. But terrorists simply can't wait for guarantees. Certainly having it in the right spot, for sure, at one point, is better than relying on pure chance. Perhaps with this in mind, famous former CIA agent Robert Baer, who may have direct experience in this for all we know, has said:

"I used to teach explosives. The last thing you want to do is put a bomb on in a place like Malta and have two stops along the way ... you couldn't count on this thing hitting its target. ... Malta would not have been my first choice. It would have been London. If I was determined to bring down an airplane, I would have put it on in London." Flight into Darkness video, part two, 5:25

Counter Arguments Addressed

Forensics and the Frankfurt Link to the Rescue

UK and Germany had both been unsettled by the possibility their security forces had allowed the horror of Lockerbie to pass through. Some of their early wrangling is addressed in the post "What did the Germans Know?" British investigators decided the blast - 10 inches above the container floor - was above any possible non-Frankfurt luggage and therefore had to be some other brown, hardshell Samsonite from the one(s) Bedford described, that must have been from the feeder 103A. It was unsound reasoning and wishful thinking until the Erac printout emerged months later, showing an item apparently coming from Malta, to PA103, via Frankfurt.

The Malta Link to the Rescue

The Erac printout, emerging months after the attack from an employee's locker after all official copies somehow disappeared, sealed the deal for Malta origin. But the tiny island nation had already been mentioned in the evidence, as the place of manufacture for some of it. As it so happened, the Erac (Frankfurt) printout in August 1989 spurred a closer look, and the clothes were traced to a store on Malta where Tony Gauci was found...

Malta-based Libyan defector Abdul Majid Giaka was already on file with the culprits - Megrahi and Fhimah - that some hoped Tony saw one of. By late February 1991, they had a sort of identification of Megrahi from the shopkeeper.  A few months later, Giaka was finally removed to safety and first mentioned the suitcase - possibly the same model Bedford reported - seen on Malta the day before it reappeared on that dubious printout leaving there. The story is clearly false, but formed one basis of the U.S. indictment against Megrahi and Fhimah in November 1991.

And finally, Air Malta has airtight records that the 55 bags on flight 180 were all claimed by its 39 passengers. They've shown this in court, like in their libel suit against Granada television. How the bomb was sneaked around Air Malta's system was never explained or substantiated even back when Fhimah was accepted as an accomplice. Investigators tried to find evidence of Maltese collusion or corruption or incompetence, but came up only with 'well, they must have done it somehow.' After the dismissal of Giaka's Malta stories, the Zeist judges  found that accomplice not guilty, further complicating the feat for Megrahi. They admit it's hard to see just how he did it, but he must have. Guilty.

Lockerbie: would you convict?

[This is the headline over an article in today’s edition of the Maltese newspaper The Times by Robert Forrester, secretary of Justice for Megrahi.  It reads as follows:]

Tragedy is not like smokeless fuel. With tragedy comes victims, it is part of the very essence of the word. The problem with Lockerbie is that the roll call of victims does not begin and end with those who died that night, but with their families and friends, whose suffering never dies.

The manner in which the Scottish criminal justice system dealt with the case actually increased the number of victims.

The very structure of the stage upon which justice performed at Camp Zeist, one where the Crown played the roles of prosecutor, judge and jury, lent itself to potential disaster.

And so it happened their Lordships convicted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi wholly on the basis of surmise: not evidence but conjecture.

They concluded that he had somehow contrived to have an unaccompanied, bronze-coloured, hardshell Samsonite suitcase containing a bomb travel undetected to Heathrow via Luqa and Frankfurt airports. Well, of course it was undetected, in evidential terms it never existed, except in the minds of the three Zeist judges when this scheme of things was planted there by the Crown as prosecutor.

By complete contrast, there is concrete eyewitness and documentary evidence for there having been a break-in at Heathrow, which gave access to 103’s loading bay at Terminal 3, only hours prior to the fateful departure.

Moreover, there is also eyewitness testimony to the effect that an unexplained suitcase answering to the above description was observed lying at the bottom of the container in which the explosion took place before the arrival of the Frankfurt feeder flight. This case was not pulled to be checked.

The evidence concerning the break-in was not made public until after the court had convicted Mr Megrahi, and that concerning the sighting in the container was simply breezed over at Zeist as if some minor irritant hardly worth bothering about.

Added to this of course, once the testimony of Abd al-Majid Giaka on the happenings at Luqa had been thrown out of court, we have the role played by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci. Laying aside the fact that the court was kept in the dark about allegations that he received $2,000,000, and his brother $1,000,000, from the US Department of Justice, the three judges were at pains to make allowances for shortcomings in his evidence.

Respected, academic, psychological tests have demonstrated that the accuracy of eyewitness identification of individuals beyond a period of 11 months from the initial event is reduced to a matter of chance.

While the parade at Zeist came over a decade later, Mr Gauci had been privy to contemporary photographs of Mr Megrahi shortly before it. Even so, the best he could do in court was to say that Mr Megrahi “resembles” the man in question. Hardly the stuff of “beyond reasonable doubt”.

Since the justice campaign went political in 2008, the Scottish Government has provided the judiciary with extraordinary powers which could easily result in any further appeal being rejected.

Having said that though, the likelihood of the Megrahis making an application at the moment is very slim.

The supposedly “live” investigation (previously being run by one solitary police officer) which took Scotland’s Lord Advocate to Libya in the company of the Director of the FBI only to come home with a “no comment”, and which has now embarked on in camera hearings on Malta in an attempt to salvage a conviction, seems to be getting perilously close to unravelling.

Will the Valletta jaunt elicit yet another “no comment” from the Crown?

It is a perfectly natural, defensive, animal instinct for an institution, even for many institutions acting quasi independently of each other, to close ranks to protect themselves and the status quo which feeds them. Although understandable, it is totally wrong. Placing to one side the most obvious victim of Zeist, Mr Megrahi, those who continue to defend the conviction by blocking any attempts to seek redress and justice ought to consider incidental victims: Kurt Maier, X-ray operator at Frankfurt whose evidence was ignored, became an alcoholic and died after being implicated by the Crown’s fantasy; the reputation of all those employees at Luqa Airport in Malta, an airport whose security regime was clearly infinitely superior to that of Heathrow, as Granada Television found to their cost; the Libyan victims of sanctions associated with the US approach to justice, and so on.

Helmut Kohl made it crystal clear there is no evidence for any bomb having been transferred in Germany.

Malta may be small but its government can have an influence out of proportion to its size as a country – even in an environment dominated by realpolitik.

Justice only need be a victim if it is allowed to become one, and campaigners have no intention of allowing that to happen any time soon.

Who Knows About This? Western Policy Towards Iran: The Lockerbie Case

[This is the title of an important article by Dr Davina Miller published earlier this month in the journal Defence & Security Analysis. The following are excerpts.  I sought permission from the copyright holders, the publishers Taylor & Francis, to quote from the article but was told that it would take ten weeks for them to consider the matter.  In the circumstances I have decided to proceed without formal clearance, relying on the fair use and educational use provisions of copyright law.]

Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by an improvised explosive device (IED) at 19.03 whilst over the Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland, 38 minutes after leaving Heathrow, on 21 December 1988. The IED, installed in a Toshiba Bombeat RT-SF16 stereo cassette/radio player, was hidden in a brown hard-shell Samsonite suitcase. All 259 passengers and crew were killed together with eleven people in Lockerbie. More than anything, the issue of responsibility matters to the families of those who died, and the official narrative remains problematic for many.

A number of conspiracy theories surround this awful event. This article puts aside all allegations and speculation and relies only upon legal and governmental papers to examine the evidence. It is in three parts: first, it examines the official narrative that emerged in the course of the prosecution and conviction of  Libyan intelligence officer, Abd-al-Basit al-al-Miqrahi (al-Megrahi) for the Lockerbie bombing; second, it assesses the available evidence that the governments of the US and Britain knew that Iran via the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) bore responsibility for the outrage; and third, it investigates the plausibility of a deal between the US and Iran over Pan Am 103. To reiterate, this article is not definitive, but exploratory.

PAN AM FLIGHT 103: THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE AND ITS PROBLEMS

According to the Trial Court, the circumstantial case against al-Megrahi rested upon four interlocking planks: the presence of an unaccompanied bag from Malta to London; the identification of al-Megrahi as the buyer of the Maltese clothing found in the brown Samsonite suitcase containing the bomb; his presence in Malta under a false name at the time the bomb was placed on a plane; and his association with both Edmond Bollier, the manufacturer of the MST-13 timer, said to have been used in the IED, and members of Libyan Intelligence who purchased such timers.[iv][4]

The case against al-Megrahi depended upon the bomb having originated in Malta (on Flight KM180) since that was where he was on 21 December 1988. In contrast to the theory of the crime presented to the Trial Court, the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, published in May 1990, eighteen months into the investigation, determined that the bomb “probably was placed aboard at Frankfurt”.[v][5] The Trial Court, however, relied upon a Frankfurt airport dispatch record, which could have shown the presence of an unaccompanied bag from Malta. Nonetheless, it noted that, “the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 is a major difficulty for the Crown”, given the “relatively elaborate security system at Luqa airport” and that KM180’s baggage records show “no discrepancy”.[vi][6]

The US Defence Intelligence Agency noted on 30 December 1991 that, “Malta’s position on the Pan Am crisis supports Libya (i.e. Malta stated that it can prove that all the luggage on Pan Am 103 belonged to passengers on the flight)” (emphasis as in the original).[vii][7] Air Malta reached an out-of-court settlement with Granada Television in 1993 for its claim in a television documentary that the bomb had been loaded in an unaccompanied bag at Malta.

Another problem with the theory that the bomb began its journey in Malta concerns a CIA document. On 30 August 1989, the station in Malta noted intelligence from their Libyan agent, ‘Abd al-Majid Gaika, that there had been an External Security Organisation (ESO) survey of Luqa International Airport in 1986, which had found that controls there “ruled out insertion of unaccompanied baggage containing explosives on to onward flights”.[viii][8] In short, and in spite of Libya’s close connections to Malta, Libyan security had ruled out the very act of which it would be accused of having committed just two years later.

[The next section of the article deals with the well-known problems surrounding the “identification” of Megrahi by Tony Gauci.]

The third circumstantial plank of the case against al-Megrahi was his presence in Malta on a false passport at the appropriate time for placing the bomb on board a Maltese flight. Much was made of his use of a passport in a different name. However, as the CIA noted in a contact report on 21 January 1989, it was “common practice among ranking officers wishing to conceal their movements through the use of passports (ppts) bearing variations on their true names”.[xii][12] On 22 December 1988, the CIA reported that al-Megrahi had travelled through Malta earlier, on 7 December. The fact that he was then also travelling on a passport in an assumed name was reported without comment. The CIA also identified al-Megrahi as a “technical communications expert”. Further, its report went on to say that, “it is likely that el-Megrahi (sic) was carrying technical intelligence-gathering equipment with him” and was “involved in some type of technical intelligence operation”.[xiii][13]

[The next section of the article deals with the well known problems regarding the Mebo MST-13 timer fragment and the evidence of Hayes and Feraday.]

AN ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE: THE PFLP-GC AND IRAN

Al-Megrahi’s defence team presented evidence about the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF). In its judgment, the Trial Court argued that, while these organisations were engaged in terrorist activities during the same period, there was not any reasonable doubt - in spite of the Trial Court’s admission - that, “we cannot say that it is impossible that the clothing might have been taken from Malta, united somewhere with a timer from some source other than Libya, and introduced into the airline baggage system at Frankfurt or Heathrow”.[xx][20]

On 26 October 1988, the Federal Criminal Police Office, or Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), arrested members of a PFLP-GC cell in an operation centred on Frankfurt and Neuss and known as ‘Autumn Leaves’. Inter alia, the BKA found explosives, timers, barometric pressure devices, radio cassette players, Lufthansa luggage tags and airline timetables, including Pan Am’s. Most members of the cell, bar Haj Hafez Kassem Dalkamoni, the right hand man of Ahmed Jabril, leader of the PFLP-GC and Abdel Fatah Ghadanfar, a Palestinian associate, were released shortly thereafter.[xxi][21] Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) found later had pressure switches that would trigger about seven minutes after takeoff and timing devices with time elapsed between 35 and 45 minutes.[xxii][22]

Marwan Khreesat, the PFLP-GC Frankfurt cell bomb-maker - and a Jordanian agent - was interviewed on 12 and 13 November 1989 at the Headquarters of the Jordanian Intelligence Service. Khreesat “does not think he built the device responsible for Pan Am 103, as he only built the four devices in Germany” and did not use models with two speakers.[xxiii][23] Only three devices were recovered by the BKA. Khreesat had, however, seen “a not very good” device (the alterations to the radio cassette player could easily be discovered) that he believed Dalkamoni had taken to Frankfurt and handed over to Abu Elias, the PFLP-GC’s security expert. This he identified as being similar to a Toshiba RT-F423.[xxiv][24]

From 19-26 October 1988, Abu Talb, a member of the Palestine Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) in Sweden, who had ties to the PFLP-GC cell in Frankfurt, was in Malta as a guest of Abd El Salam (aka Abu Nada), a Director of the Miska Bakery. Talb took home clothing from Hashem Salem, Salam’s brother. He flew to Sweden on an open return ticket, but had no intention, he told the Court, of returning; it was simply a cheaper ticket than a single. He remained in contact with Abd El Salam.[xxv][25]

In summary, from the evidence presented at the trial, at the time of the bombing of Pan Am 103, there were two groups actively planning to attack Western aircraft and with the capabilities to do so. In addition, both these groups had links to Malta. (...)

Even after the indictments of Libyan co-defendants Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and al-Megrahi, intelligence documents continued to assert the involvement of the PFLP-GC, though it was now linked to Libya, rather than Iran. An information report dated 26 November 1991 assigned blame to Ahmed Jabril “in training the perpetrators and in designing the bomb”. The report goes on to assert that, “the luggage containing the bomb was purportedly intercepted in London by al-Megrahi, who probably claimed the bag, set the timer, then switched luggage tags to route it on to Pan Am flight 103”.[xxix][29] A Defence Intelligence Terrorism Summary on 13 December 1991 also linked Jabril with training the accused and in designing the bomb.[xxx][30]

It is not clear exactly when or why the PFLP-GC and PPSF were dropped as suspects post-1991 to leave a single focus upon Libya as the perpetrator of the Pan Am 103 bombing. (...)

On 24 September 1989, the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), in a secret information report not releasable to foreign nationals and relying on information acquired through the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade’ (i.e. through Foreign Signals Intelligence), asserted that the attack on Pan Am Flight 103, “was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar (Mohtashemi-Pur)”, the former Iranian Minister of the Interior. The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad (Jabri’il), the PFLP-GC leader, for the sum of $1,000,000. The report was highly detailed in describing the organisation of the bombing and claimed that, “the flight was supposed to be a direct flight from Frankfurt to New York, not Pan Am Flight 103”.[xxxii][32]

In October 1989, a further DIA report noted that Iranian “radicals want to be able to retaliate in less time than it took them to carry out the Pan Am 103 bombing”.[xxxiii][33] The CIA’s ‘Terrorism Review’ for 14 December 1989 also noted that liaison between Iran and radical Palestinian groups “was most likely responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103”.[xxxiv][34] The Defence Intelligence Agency in a brief in December 1989, titled “Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation” argued that, “Iran probably was the state sponsor for the PFLP-GC attack on Pan Am 103”. The same report noted:  that the bomb was “a sophisticated, barometrically triggered explosive device probably fabricated by the PFLP-GC”; that “DIA believes the device was placed aboard...in Frankfurt”; and that, “analysis of material confiscated from this PFLP-GC cell has provided strong circumstantial evidence linking the cell to the bombing”. The report further detailed the relationship between Iran and the PFLP-GC, including the initial overtures, payment for Pan Am 103, and the latter’s exploitation of Iran’s “established terror network in Europe”.[xxxv][35]

A Combined Message from the DIA on 22 December 1989 asserted that, “a compelling body of evidence indicates the PFLP-GC placed a sophisticated, altimeter-fused, radio-encased bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103”. The missing improvised explosive device (IED) from the Autumn Leaves Operation was noted: “the fourth device was believed to be a Toshiba radio/cassette player larger than the Bombeat 453” and “may prove to be the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103”. [xxxvi][36] In January 1990, the DIA then argued that, “Iran probably was the state sponsor for the PFLP-GC attack on Pan Am 103”.[xxxvii][37] (...)

A Defence Intelligence ‘Terrorism Summary’, dated 15 September 1990, summarised a discussion about Pan Am 103 and the PFLP-GC during a meeting between the US Secretary of State, James Baker, and the Syrian Foreign Minister. The Summary notes that, “although the US has provided evidence of PFLP-GC complicity, the Syrian government has dismissed it as insufficient”.[xl][40] A Defence Intelligence Terrorism Summary on 16 November 1990 asserted that, “The US has long sought Jibril’s expulsion for his role in the bombing of Pan Am 103”.[xli][41]

(...) in February 1991, eight months after the FBI had supposedly identified the timer which led away from the PFLP-GC and Iran, in an Intelligence Report for Multinational Forces, Desert Storm, the DIA noted Iran’s Interior Minister, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi’s payment of $10 million for “terrorist activities” and that he “was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103”.[xlii][42]

This Report was published in the UK media on 24 January 1995. UK and US officials insisted, however, that there was, “no credible evidence” linking Iran to the bombing and denied the claims made. Libya saw the report as, “exonerating” it of any involvement.[xliii][43] More tellingly, in November 1991, DIA officials commented upon an earlier report on Syria: “We found the article helpful. However ... the statement that the PFLP-GC is accused of bombing Pan Am 103 directly contradicts the recent announcement that Libya was behind the act”.[xliv][44] The anonymous officials did not question the veracity of the assertion; their main concern was about its being leaked.

While US intelligence services were asserting Iranian complicity, they ruled out Libyan and Syrian involvement. As the December 1989, “Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation” Defense Intelligence brief noted, the “DIA continues to discount Libyan or Syrian involvement in the bombing of Pan Am 103 because there is no current credible intelligence implicating either”.[xlv][45] This was consistent with the conclusions contained in other DIA and CIA reports throughout 1989. (...) Both before and after the indictments, there was no discussion in US intelligence records of how to prevent similar future acts of Libyan terrorism.

CHOOSING ONE’S ENEMIES

The United States’ Potential Motives

Given the concerns around the safety of al-Megrahi’s conviction, the evidence pointing to the PFLP-GC and PPSF, as well as the US intelligence community’s apparent conclusion that Iran orchestrated the bombing of Pan Am 103, it is worth examining the circumstantial evidence as to the possibility of a decision, or a deal, to overlook Iranian potential guilt.

The most popular conspiracy theories attribute such a decision to the exigencies of Middle Eastern politics around the period of the first Gulf War of 1990-1. The investigation began to focus on Libya, however, at a much earlier time in September 1989, a year before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. While investigators sought to link Libya to the PFLP-GC, US government agencies retained and adhered to the original theory of the crime. For example, at least until late 1990, the State Department pressed Syria for Jibril’s expulsion, because of his alleged involvement in the bombing of Pan Am 103. Moreover, US intelligence documents continued to speak of PFLP-GC and Iranian involvement long after the public focus upon Libya. (...)

A deal between the US and Iran that involved the issue of Pan Am 103 is not an unreasonable hypothesis, given previous US behaviour and British and French ‘deals’ with Iran for the release of hostages. For example, on 21 March 1991, the CIA criticized Britain for having deported Mehradad Kokabi, an Iranian charged in connection with a bomb attack. While this would, “help Rafsanjani by using an issue used by hardliners to argue against the release of hostages”, it would also reinforce the view in Tehran that, “Washington, like London, will strike a deal favourable to Iran”. Equally, the CIA complained that the French government had earlier done a deal with Iran for the release of nine hostages between 1986 and 1988.[li][51]

Even as the US was contemplating in early 1989 that Iran had a hand in the bombing of Pan Am 103, it was still signalling the hope for a deal with Iran on the hostage issue as expressed in President Bush’s inaugural address. As he said, “There are today Americans who are held against their will in foreign lands and Americans who are unaccounted for. Assistance can be shown here and will be long remembered”.[lii][52] (...)

US/UK indictments of the two Libyan suspects were announced on 13 November 1991. On 16 November 1991, Iranian radio declared that the indictments of Fhima and al-Megrahi represented, “the start of a new psychological and propaganda war by Washington against Libya”.[lviii][58] A DIA report on 23 November, from intelligence acquired from Fort Meade, (that is, from Foreign Signals Intelligence) noted, however, that the “Iranian President voiced his pleasure in seeing the recent press attribute the blame to Libya for the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 bombing”.[lix][59]

On 18 November 1991, the American, Thomas Sutherland, and the Briton, Terry Waite, were freed by Islamic Jihad in Beirut.[lx][60] Later that month, there was a comprehensive exchange of hostages and human remains on one side and, on the other, prisoners in Israeli jails. On 2 December, the US also paid compensation to Iran some $278,000,000 for weapons confiscated in 1979.[lxi][61] On 10 December, a UN report found that Iraq’s invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980, and the occupation of Iranian land that followed, were unjustified and illegal.[lxii][62]

While many elements comprised the hostages deal, it could be argued that Pan Am 103 was necessarily part of the comprehensive settlement that involved, inter alia, money, prisoners, and international judgments about the Iran-Iraq War. It was necessary because, as the CIA commented on 1 June 1989, the Iranians “believe that the presence of Western hostages in Lebanon will help deter retaliation” for the bombing of Flight 103.[lxiii][63] It follows that Iran could not feel safe from US retaliation for Pan Am 103 (whether the retaliation was justified or not) if the hostages were freed without some guarantee. Thus, the eventual indictment of a rival state, it could be argued, provided that guarantee and was thus the necessary condition for the deal that followed.

Even before the final settlement, it is possible to argue that the US and Iran reached a tentative agreement about Pan Am 103. If Mohtashemi were the architect, as US intelligence seemed firmly to believe, using the back channels already established through ‘Irangate’, and relying on the policy of searching for moderates with whom to do business, it is possible that the US sought the isolation of Mohtashemi in exchange for a policy of non-retaliation. (...)

CONCLUSION

This article is not definitive. Rather, given the persistence of counter-narratives, it seeks to explore the available reliable evidence. That there remain some problematic issues around the conviction of al-Megrahi is evidenced in the referral of his case to a further appeal by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007. That appeal was never heard because of al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds in 2009. The Crown’s case rested upon four inter-locking circumstances, each and all of them problematic. Security at Luqa was ‘a major difficulty’ for the Crown’s case that the bomb originated in Malta. Moreover, Libyan intelligence, according to CIA reports, seemed to have ruled Luqa out as an airport for the insertion of IEDs because of said security.

The identification of al-Megrahi as the purchaser of the clothes found in the bomb case was, as the Trial Court acknowledged, ‘not absolute’. Subsequently it has been revealed that Gauci was paid for his evidence. Al-Megrahi’s presence in Malta on a false passport does not seem to have caused the CIA concerns in the late 1980s. A false passport was common among Libyan security personnel and the CIA had defined al-Megrahi as a ‘technical communications expert’. Finally, in terms of the bomb and its timer, the Trial Court noted problems in the evidence chain and subsequently the central US and British forensics staff involved have been discredited.

Turning to the defence’s theory of the crime, it is known that the PFLP-GC and PPSF had both the intention and capability for an attack on an airliner. In addition, they can be connected to Malta. Looking at the investigation, the PFLP-GC continued to be suspects, but with attempts from 1989 to link them to Libya. US intelligence spoke of “a compelling body of evidence” that “the PFLP-GC placed a sophisticated, altimeter-fused, radio-encased bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103” in December 1989 and the US was lobbying Syria, at Secretary of State level, for Jabril’s expulsion for Pan Am 103 in late 1990. The conviction that the PFLP-GC committed the bombing seems to have been widely held and long-lasting within the US government. Why there was an attempt first to link the PFLP-GC to Libya and then to abandon the “compelling evidence” against this group are interesting questions.

Given the attack on [sic; presumably "by" is meant] the USS Vincennes, less than six months before the bombing of Pan Am 103, Iran had, on the one hand, an obvious motive for retaliation against the US – and, indeed, US intelligence anticipated such action. On the other hand, Libyan motives were unclear, given that the anticipated date for an attack against the US was April (the anniversary of the Tripoli bombing in 1986). It is well known that the West had both a history of, and reasons for, backchannel deal-making with Iran, chief among those reasons the hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iran groups. Given the belief by some factions that the hostages were deterring US retaliation for Pan Am 103, it would be necessary for any hostage deal to entail a guarantee on said retaliation. It is possibly telling both that Rafsanjani took private pleasure at the Libyan indictments and that US intelligence reported it. (...)

Given the current mix of circumstances in the Middle East and South Asia, it has never been more important that the West gets its policy towards Iran right. It is equally important for democratic politics and the human rights of those who must live under such regimes that there is honesty about the foreign policy choices that the West is making.

This article and its references are the copyright of  Taylor and Francis, which must be acknowledged   ©Taylor and Francis 2011.

NOTES
[iv][4]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.87-89, http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[v][5]  Report to the President by the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, GPO, Washington DC, May 1990, p. ii.
[vi][6] I n the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.38-39, http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[vii][7]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Combined Message, 30 December 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[viii][8]  Central Intelligence Agency, Contact Report, 30 August 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 9 July 2010.
[xii][12]  Central Intelligence Agency, 20 January 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp , 13 July 2010.
[xiii][13]  Central Intelligence Agency, ’Travel of Libyan External Security Organisation Officers through Malta in December 1988’, 22 December 1988, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 9 July 2010.
[xx][20]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, para.82, http:/www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[xxi][21]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.73-4,  http:/www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[xxii][22]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Evidence, Rainer Gobel, physicist, BKA, pp. 8793-8796.
[xxiii][23]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Evidence, Edward Marshman, FBI Special Agent, p. 9268 and p. 9298.
[xxiv][24]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Evidence, Edward Marshman, FBI Special Agent, p. 9300.
[xxv][25]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.78-9, http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[xxix][29]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 26 November 1991, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxx][30]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Terrorism Summary, 13 December 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxii][32]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 24 September 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010
[xxxiii][33]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 7 October 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxiv][34]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 14 December 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 19 March 2010.
[xxxv][35]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Brief, ‘Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation’, December 1989, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxvi][36]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Combined Message, 22 December 1989, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxvii][37]  Defence Intelligence Agency, January 1990, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xl][40]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Terrorism Summary, 15 September 1990, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xli][41]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Terrorism Summary, 16 November 1990, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xlii][42]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Report, February 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xliii][43]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 41, January 1995, Libya, p. 40380.
[xliv][44]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Memorandum, November 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xlv][45]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Brief, ‘Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation’, December 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[li][51]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 21 March 1991, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 19 March 2010.
[lii][52]  President George bush, Inaugural Address, 20 January 1989, http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/, 20 March 2011.
[lviii][58]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 37, November 1991, Libya, p.38599
[lix][59]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 23 November 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[lx][60]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 19 November 1991, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[lxi][61]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 37, December 1991, Lebanon, p.38694.
[lxii][62]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 37, December 1991, Iran, p. 38697.
[lxiii][63]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 1 June 1989