US gagging orders in Lockerbie case

[On this date in 2000, Lamin Fhimah’s solicitor wrote to Dr Richard Fuisz. The account that follows is excerpted from an item on John Ashton’s website Megrahi: You are my Jury. The documents which are referred to can be read here.]

Dr Richard Fuisz was an international businessman and deep-cover CIA spy,  who worked in the USSR and across the Middle East during the Eighties and Nineties. As well as having a very successful medical technology company, he ran training programmes for the Saudi military, supplied computers with a secret spying capability to the unwitting Soviets (via Raisa Gorbachev) and had a model agency that supplied the first Miss USSR.

In May 2000, not long after the start of the Lockerbie trial, the defence lawyers got wind of Fuisz, via an associate of his, Susan Lindauer, who said that he had been based in Syria in 1988 and had irrefutable intelligence that Lockerbie was the work of the PFLP-GC. Lindauer also said that he was the subject of a gagging order, a breach of which would result in a significant prison sentence.

On 31 May [2000], defence solicitor Eddie MacKechnie wrote to the US department of justice’s Lockerbie prosecutor Brian Murtagh to ask if Fuisz was indeed prevented from speaking (Document 1). Six weeks later Murtagh wrote back. He confirmed that Fuisz was the subject of a gagging order in relation to another case, which involved the supply of military equipment to Iraq by a company called Terex, however, he claimed that Fuisz was free to talk about Lockerbie, writing: “I found no factual basis to the allegation that any representative of the US Government has taken any action to deter Dr Fuisz from talking to anyone about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.” (See Document 2)

Fuisz insisted that this was not true and that he was the subject of another gagging order that was quite independent of the Terex litigation. Furthermore, he claimed that Murtagh and another DoJ lawyer had advised him that he was not in fact free to talk about Lockerbie. (See Document 3)

Murtagh again denied it, telling MacKechnie: “You ask whether or not you can assume that the defense is at liberty to ask Dr Fuisz any questions in relation to Pan Am 103, and further whether he is fully at liberty to answer any questions relating to Pan Am 103? The answer to both questions as far as I am concerned is “yes”. The problem here is with Dr Fuisz himself, and not with any court order or attempt by the Government to keep him from talking to the defense about the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103.” (See Document 4)

MacKechnie replied: “Dr Fuisz insists that it is not the Department of Justice or even the Attorney General herself which possess the authority to release him from what he refers to as his statutory obligations of secrecy.  It has been suggested to us that the President himself, but perhaps more sensibly the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, would be able to release him from any possible remaining inhibitions so that he could provide a statement in relation to Pan Am 103 and the alleged perpetrators of the bombing.” (See Document 5)

CIA lawyer Robert Eatinger then wrote to Murtagh: “Dr Fuisz has been informed that neither the CIA nor the DoJ pose any objection to his discussing with the defense, or anyone else for that matter, his knowledge of the Pan Am flight 103 bombing. There is and has been no impediment to his being interviewed on this matter… As you and I have discussed, there simply is no court order of which we are aware that in any way limits Dr Fuisz from revealing his knowledge of who bombed Pan Am flight 103. (See Document 6)

The following day, 13 October 2000, Eatinger wrote to Fuisz. Although the letter downplayed Fuisz’s knowledge of Lockerbie, it is highly significant, because it acknowledged de facto that Fuisz was, indeed, involved with the CIA. Moreover, it conceded that he had been briefed by the CIA about Lockerbie and that they had told him that Jibril was to blame. It also tacitly admitted that, contrary to earlier assurances, he was restricted in what he could say. The key passage read:

“Now that you have clarified that you have no personal knowledge of who is responsible for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, we can provide you more specific guidance. You may freely identify the number of briefings you received by CIA officials the dates on which you received them. You may identify whom the CIA briefers said was responsible for the bombing of Pan flight 103. However, you may not reveal the identities of the CIA officers, nor the purpose for which you were receiving these security briefings.” (See Document 7)

Finally, on 6 December 2000, Fuisz was deposed. As well as his own lawyer, a DoJ lawyer and two unnamed CIA officials were also present at the first depositio and three at the second. Fuisz’s story was covered briefly in a few media reports, which suggested that he had been effectively prevented from saying anything that he knew about Lockerbie. However, earlier this year I learnt that this was not true. I came across a lawyer’s note of the first of his two depositions (Document 8) and a transcript of the second (Document 9). Although he was very restricted in what he could say, he nevertheless went on the record with two extraordinary revelations. Firstly, he confirmed that he received multiple briefings from CIA agents in 1989 in which they told him, inter alia, that the PFLP-GC was responsible for Lockerbie. Secondly, and even more significantly, he said that between 1990 and 1995 he was told separately by around 10-15 high level Syrian officials that the group was to blame.  These officials, he said, interacted with the group’s leader, Ahmed Jibril “on a constant basis”.

Lockerbie: the CIA drug-running scenario

[On this date in 2011, Susan Lindauer’s article Lockerbie Diary: Gadhaffi, Fall Guy for CIA Drug Running was published on the Scoop website. The following are excerpts:]

From May 1995 until March 2003, I performed as a back channel to Tripoli and Baghdad, supervised by my CIA handler, Dr Richard Fuisz, who claimed from day one to know the origins of the Lockerbie conspiracy and the identity of the terrorists. http://issuepedia.org/1998-12-04_Susan_Lindauer_Deposition He swore that no Libyan participated in the attack.

Armed with that assurance, our team started talks with Libya's diplomats for the Lockerbie Trial, and I attended over 150 meetings at the Libyan Embassy in New York. After the hand over of Libya's two accused men, our team engaged in a concerted fight to gain permission for Dr. Fuisz to give a deposition about his primary knowledge of the conspiracy, during the Lockerbie Trial In a surprise twist, the US Federal Judge in Alexandria, Virginia imposed a double seal on a crucial portion of Dr Fuisz's deposition. The double seal can only be opened by a Scottish judge. In my opinion, that should be a priority, as testimony hidden by the double seal maps out the whole Lockerbie conspiracy. Most significantly, it identifies 11 terrorists involved in the attack. Dr Fuisz's testimony could put the whole matter to rest forever.

There's good reason for my confidence. Much to my surprise, during the Lockerbie talks, Dr Fuisz's allegations of CIA opium running in Lebanon received unusual corroboration. One day, as I left the office of Senator Carol Moseley-Braun on my lunch break, an older spook caught up with me in front of the US Supreme Court. From out of nowhere, he stepped in my path and invited me to lunch. With extraordinary candor, he debriefed me as to what motivated the CIA's actions. I remember it as one battle-hardened old spook sharing the perils of fieldwork with a gung ho young Asset, anxious to get started on great adventures.

It was a morality tale for sure. According to him, the CIA infiltrated opium and heroin trafficking in Lebanon as part of a crisis operation to rescue AP reporter Terry Anderson and 11 other American and British hostages in Beirut, including CNN bureau chief Jeremy Levin and Anglican envoy Terry Waite. The hostage crisis was a legitimate CIA concern. The CIA Station Chief of Beirut, William Buckley, was also kidnapped by Islamic Jihad and brutally tortured to death, his body dumped in the street in front of CIA headquarters. The rescue was protracted and complicated by Lebanon's Civil War—ultimately, Terry Anderson's captivity lasted seven years. Many of the hostages suffered beatings, solitary confinement chained to the floor, and mock executions.

The older spook who refused to identify himself swore that the CIA considered it urgently necessary to try every possibility for recovering the hostages. The concept of infiltration into criminal networks cuts to the murky nature of intelligence itself. Drug enforcement frequently rely on the same strategies. Where the CIA went far wrong was in pocketing some of those heroin profits for itself along the way. The dirty little secret is that the CIA continued to take a percentage cut of opium and heroin production out of Lebanon well into the 1990s.

As for the hostage rescue itself, considering the operation took years to accomplish, it's always been whispered that a corrupted CIA officer enjoying those opium profits might have swallowed reports on the hostages' locations, or otherwise diverted his team in order to protect his narcotics income.

That appears to have become a serious fear at the time, among other US officers jointly involved in the rescue.

In December 1988, infuriated Defense Intelligence agents issued a formal protest, exposing CIA complicity in Middle East heroin trafficking. When teams from both agencies got summoned back to Washington to attend an internal hearing, they boarded Pan Am 103. A wing of militant Hezbollah led by Ahmed Jibril, his nephew Abu Elias, Abu Talb and Abu Nidal took out both teams in order to protect their lucrative cartel.

Classified Defense Intelligence records show that Jibril and Talb had been toying with a conspiracy to bomb a US airplane during the 1988 Christmas holidays anyway. They planned to bomb a US airliner in revenge for the USS Vincennes, which shot down an Iranian commercial airliner loaded with Hajiis returning from Mecca in July, 1988. However the Defense Intelligence threat to expose their heroin network put the bombing plan into action. Islamic Jihad's ability to discover actionable intelligence on the flight schedules would definitely confirm that somebody at CIA was operating as a double agent, keeping Islamic Jihad a step ahead of the rescue efforts.

That's the dirty truth about Lockerbie. It ain't nothing like you've been told. (...)

But the bottom line is that Libya had nothing to do with the bombing of Pan Am 103, which exploded over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland. We should care about Lockerbie because of the serious problem that it exposed. Opium trafficking out of the Bekaa Valley provides a major source for global heroin production. In turn, the global pipeline of narco-dollars keep militant operations alive world-wide from the Middle East to Indonesia, Colombia, Burma and the Far East.

Conviction of Megrahi "very shaky indeed"

[The media today contain many reports on the various events that took place yesterday to mark the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster.  The following is a selection:]

From The Independent:

'Megrahi was my friend. He did not kill my daughter': Lockerbie father says the British government is not telling the truth about the bombing

The father of one of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing has asked mourners to pray for the "innocent family" of the only person convicted of the worst mass murder in British history, as the nation marked its 25th anniversary.

In his address to a memorial service at Westminster Abbey yesterday evening attended by relatives of the victims, Dr Jim Swire also accused the British government of failing to tell "all the truth they know about this terrible tragedy".

Before the service, the UK, US and Libyan governments in a joint statement promised to work together to "reveal the full facts of the case", saying that they wanted "all those responsible for this most brutal act of terrorism brought to justice, and to understand why it was committed".

Dr Swire said the Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – jailed for life for mass murder but released after eight years in prison on compassionate grounds, as he had terminal cancer – had "died my friend". He also repeated his claim that a convicted terrorist, an Egyptian now living in Sweden, was involved in the bombing.

Dr Swire said he had recently tried to confront that man. "All day long the curtains were drawn shut and the blinds down. Inside was a man who has spent his whole life as a terrorist. I believe he played a key role in the Lockerbie atrocity," he said. "Too afraid to answer the bell himself, he sent his wife to an upstairs window to threaten [me]."

Although he did not name the man, it is understood he was referring to Mohammed Abu Talb, jailed for life for carrying out terrorist bombings in 1985 in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, but since released.

Dr Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora was a passenger on the plane, has previously described Talb as "a life-long, proven terrorist". By contrast, Dr Swire said he once received a Christmas card from Megrahi: "In it, he had written, 'Dr Swire and family, please pray for me and my family.' He died my friend.

"Over Christmas, if you pray, please pray for his innocent family, but also for all those who wrestle with hatred, that they may be healed by God's love. Please pray also that we who will sit down at a Christmas table with chairs forever empty may find peace."

Dr Swire also denounced successive British governments. "I claim habeas corpus as I say in this ancient Abbey that I do not believe that our governments have told us all the truth they know about this terrible tragedy," he said.

Speaking yesterday to The Independent on Sunday, Dr Swire reiterated his call for a public inquiry. "If we are not granted an inquiry – and for goodness' sake we've been trying for 25 years to force an inquiry out of them with no results at all – we'll have to go to the European courts and take our own government to court for not meeting their obligations under human rights legislation," he said.

Megrahi's release in 2009 came after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission gave him leave to appeal for a second time, citing six reasons why there were serious concerns about his conviction.

Doubts about his guilt were fuelled on Friday, when it was revealed that Dr Richard Fuisz, a businessman and CIA asset, gave a sworn statement implicating Palestinian militants.

Under oath in 2001, Dr Fuisz told the original defence team that senior Syrian officials had told him that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which was based in Syria, had carried out the bombing. This evidence has never been used in a court.

John Ashton, author of Megrahi: You are my Jury, discovered the deposition by Dr Fuisz buried in the defence team's files. He said it was "hugely significant" and further undermined the case against Megrahi. "It's absolutely scandalous there's never been a public inquiry," he said.

Megrahi's brother, Abdel-Hakim Al-Megrahi, told the BBC that the family planned a posthumous appeal, and hoped the Libyan government would help fund it. "We wish for the truth to be revealed, and this is not just for our own benefit but also for the benefit of the families of the victims and for public opinion," he said. "We need to know who committed this horrible crime."

Professor Hans Koechler, the UN observer at the trial that convicted Megrahi, also called for an inquiry, but feared that "power politics [had] made it impossible for the families to find out what really happened". 

From The Sunday Herald:

Dr Jim Swire, the public face of the British families of the Lockerbie victims, has described Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the attack, as his friend and urged people to pray for the Libyan's family at Christmas.

Speaking at a memorial service in Westminster Abbey yesterday on the 25th anniversary of the atrocity, Swire, who also announced his intention to stand down as the UK's leading Lockerbie campaigner, described the bombing that killed 270 people, including his 23-year-old daughter Flora, as a "revenge attack".

His comments came as the British, American and Libyan governments pledged to work together to uncover "the full facts" of the bombing.

Megrahi was convicted in January 2001 and was given a life sentence. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2008, leading to a decision to free him under compassionate release rules. He died in Tripoli, Libya in May last year.

Swire said: "Nelson Mandela made forgiveness look easy. But even a truth and reconciliation commission cannot work unless first the truth is known.

"When I first met the late al-Megrahi face to face in Greenock prison, though he was a practising Muslim, he had bought me a Christmas card in the prison shop. In it he had written, 'Dr Swire and family, please pray for me and my family'.

"He died, my friend. Over Christmas, if you pray, please pray for his innocent family but also for all those who wrestle with hatred, that they may be healed by God's love. Please pray also that we who will sit down at a Christmas table with chairs forever empty may find peace."

Swire added: "In our family, Flora was our beautiful, vivacious first-born of three wonderful children. We are the lucky ones, in the UK and USA. Not only do we live in two of the most free and safe countries in the world but we relatives also had the joy of living with those we loved until their untimely deaths." (...)

Megrahi's family have said they plan to appeal against his conviction. Megrahi died last year protesting his innocence. Now his family hope the Libyan government can help fund the appeal process. His brother Abdel-Hakim al-Megrahi, said: "We want to appeal and we wish for the truth to be revealed. This is not just for our own benefit but also for the benefit of the families of the victims and for public opinion.

"We need to know who committed this horrible crime. But, as you know, we as a family cannot afford to pay for the appeals process.

"God willing, the Libyan government will do this, but it has to be launched by the family first."

Earlier this week, some of the British relatives of Lockerbie victims said they were considering making another appeal against Megrahi's conviction.

Swire, now 77, also told the Sunday Herald about his plans to step back from leading the British families' campaign for justice.

The retired GP said: "I never thought for a moment that we would be in this position 25 years later. We still don't have the truth. And, unfortunately, I can't campaign to get my daughter back. I've always tried to do what Flora would be proud of, she was a seeker after truth herself.

"But I have got to the point where I really have to cut back on it. It's time to relax and leave it to a younger person. The time has come for someone else to take over."

Swire added: "The 25th anniversary is no more poignant than any other, this is a loss we have to live with every day. Flora will never come back. But what makes this loss even harder is that - 25 years on - we still don't have answers."

He admits that the campaign has been a way of coping with the grief for his daughter.

Swire believes that the case against Megrahi was flawed, and has even referred to Megrahi as the "271st victim": "For 25 years, our calls for an inquiry into why Lockerbie was not prevented have been ignored and blocked at every stage. I believe that, eventually, yes, the Megrahi verdict will be overturned."  

From the BBC News website:

Former hostage Terry Waite has said he believes the conviction of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was "very shaky indeed" and has called for a further investigation into the atrocity.

Mr Waite spent nearly five years in captivity after being kidnapped by a cell linked to the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah.

It has been claimed that Libya was wrongly blamed for the Lockerbie bombing, as part of a secret deal to ensure his release from captivity.

Speaking after a memorial service to mark 25 years since the bombing, he told the BBC: "I'm not sure we've got to the truth yet." 

From the Truth Frequency Radio website:
Today is the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing on Dec 21, 1988 – and a surprising mellow day of personal vindication for your host, Susan Lindauer! Today the Telegraph in London published the first mainstream press admission that the CIA has always known the PFLP headed by Ahmed Jibril was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103. I recounted the 25 year fight to expose the truth, including the sacrifices of Lester Coleman, author of the incredible book, Trail of the Octopus. After battling for years, today we triumphed.

Al-Megrahi was only Libyan in identity parade

[This is the headline over an article by Paula Murray in today's edition of the Sunday Express. It reads in part:]

The Lockerbie bomber was the only Libyan in the crucial identity parade before his trial in the Netherlands, the Sunday Express can reveal.

Secret documents prepared by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s lawyers show Dutch officials struggled to find volunteers who resembled the terror suspect.

The pool of lookalikes included white Europeans, men who were significantly taller or shorter than Megrahi and one who would have been 14 at the time of the atrocity.

Even so, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci – the Crown’s key witness who was paid £1.2 million to testify – still struggled to pick out Megrahi.

The revelations cast further doubt on the Libyan’s conviction over the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, which killed 270 people. in December 1988.

Yesterday, details of a secret report emerged showing that there were seven major flaws in the evidence. (...)

First Minister Alex Salmond and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, writing in today’s Sunday Express, have defended their decision. [RB: I cannot find an article by Mr MacAskill on the newspaper's website, though a short one appears in the print edition.]

Yesterday, Mr Salmond said the new evidence “could and should have been judged in a court of law” but added that he “did not doubt” Megrahi’s guilt. (...)

A dossier for Megrahi’s appeal – which was dropped days before his release – claim the ID parade in April 1999 “fell short of what was fair”. Gauci, who sold clothing that was later packed in a suitcase with the bomb, said he could not be sure if any of the men were the same individual who had visited his shop a decade earlier.

Eventually, he picked out Megrahi as the one who “looked a little bit like exactly” the purchaser.

The report claims the parade was carried out after “an extraordinary length of time” using “stand-ins” who were not “sufficiently similar”.

It also points out that Megrahi’s photograph had widely published.Police reports from the parade are described as “incomplete and confusing”.

Professor Steven Clark, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, states: “At no time did [Gauci] ever clearly and definitively assert that Mr. Megrahi was the man who came into his store.

“Rather, in each identification procedure, he stated that Mr. Megrahi was ‘similar’ or ‘resembled’ the man.” [RB: Professor Clark's report on the identification evidence relating to Megrahi can be read here.]

Another eyewitness identification expert, Professor Tim Valentine, of Golsmiths University of London, said: “I do have concern of the quality of the identification evidence. I wouldn’t want to be convicted on identification evidence of that quality.” [RB: Professor Valentine's report on the identification evidence relating to Megrahi can be read here.]

Scottish campaigner Iain McKie, a member of the Justice for Megrahi committee, added: “The identification process of Megrahi was totally and utterly flawed and wrong. Yet the conviction rests on that identification. The whole process was rotten.”

[On the Express website Susan Lindauer posted the following comment on this story:]

Megrahi deserves to die a free man. As the primary negotiator w/Libya for the trial, I want to state as forcefully as possible and without equivocation: the CIA started talks for the trial with full knowledge of Megrahi's innocence. Unhappily, we recognized the US and Britain were so obsessed with Libya's guilt. It was decided that politicians and family members could not accept the truth of Megrahi's innocence, until they saw the (lack of) evidence on the table. There would have to be a trial.

However everyone expected an immediate acquittal. The CIA stood alert in the wings, ready to reconfigure the attack and arrest the real culprits. So ironically, the Lockerbie families would have achieved real justice 10 years ago, if only the Courts had behaved honorably in acknowledging Megrahi's innocence in the first place. It was obvious to anyone who examined the case.

[A comment from Susan Lindauer on an earlier Express story can be read here.]

Not so fast, Mr President! How Obama got it (all) wrong on Libya and how to fix it

[This is the headline over an article by Susan Lindauer published today on The Intel Hub and various other websites. The section headed The Lockerbie bombing reads as follows:]

Gadhaffi haters like to throw out Lockerbie to remind Europeans and Americans of Libya’s dark past long ago. In March 1999, after 7 years of UN sanctions, Gadhaffi’s government handed over two Libyans for Trial in the bombing of Pan Am 103, which exploded over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. Regardless, Gadhaffi fiercely denied any involvement in the Lockerbie conspiracy.

As with so many other terrorist cases, appearances of Libya’s guilt prove deceiving. Two star witnesses against Libya have now recanted their testimony, and confessed to receiving $4 million dollar payments each from the US and Britain. It’s an ugly stain on the International Criminal Court. [RB: The court that convicted Megrahi (and acquitted Lamin Fhimah) was a Scottish court, albeit sitting in the Netherlands.]

The good news for truth seekers is that last week the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee moved to launch a new inquiry into the Lockerbie case. Christine Grahame said: “There are so many conspiracy theories around now that I think it’s time that we had a clean, clear look at the role of Scottish justice in this.

The issue is not whether Libya, or any other country, was guilty. The issue is, was Abdelbaset al-Megrahi rightly convicted, and we have not heard the answer to that yet.”

That decision should be strongly applauded by everyone who champions integrity in government oversight. If American leaders would show the same concern for reexamining 9/11, it would go a long way to restoring confidence in our government.

In fact, there’s a lot of fresh leads for a Scottish inquiry to pursue. The Justice Committee could start by opening the deposition of my own CIA handler, Dr Richard Fuisz, sworn under oath in the US District Court of Virginia, in the closing days of the Lockerbie Trial. It’s got some eye popping information, for sure.

At my very first meeting with Dr Fuisz in September, 1994 — and throughout our years together — he gave me the real skinny on Lockerbie. Dr Fuisz swore that Pan Am 103 was a false flag operation to hide a rogue CIA team’s involvement in heroin trafficking out of the Bekaa Valley during the Terry Anderson hostage crisis in Lebanon.

Dr Fuisz explained that when Defense Intelligence officer, Maj Charles Dennis McKee and CIA officer, Matthew Gannon, stationed in Beirut, complained that a double agent was compromising efforts to rescue the hostages, the CIA and FBI sent a team to Lebanon for a fact-finding investigation.

Investigators were flying back to Washington on Pan Am 103 with evidence exposing the heroin ring when a bomb exploded on the plane. Intriguingly, shortly before, the State Department issued an internal travel warning to US Embassies that Pan Am 103 would be targeted for bombing on that day, and everybody should get off the plane.

The sudden exodus of government personnel freed up seats for students from Syracuse University, flying home stand by for the Christmas Holidays. The college students died.

Dr Fuisz frequently swore that he could identify every terrorist involved in the attack. Because he is such high ranking CIA operative, he has been forbidden from speaking publicly about his role in events leading up to the bombing. Throughout the 1990s, he was repeatedly threatened with 10 years in prison if he broke his silence.

Imagine then the herculean effort on my part to force the CIA to permit Dr Fuisz to give closed door testimony in front of Judge White in Virginia. In the process of speaking out myself, I made a lot of enemies at the Justice Department, who proved they had a long memory during my 5 year indictment on the Patriot Act.

My desire to call Lockerbie attorney, Edward MacKechnie as my chief witness to prove my relationship with Dr Fuisz and my standing as an Intelligence Asset played a significant role in why the Justice Department fought my demand for a Trial.

A Trial would have reopened questions about the Lockerbie conviction and Libya’s guilt. It also would have exposed the CIA’s continued role in heroin trafficking to finance black ops through the 1990s.

The CIA was fighting to protect itself. When my efforts succeeded in forcing the CIA to allow the deposition to go forward, the CIA stipulated that Dr. Fuisz’s deposition must be sealed in the United States, so that Americans would have zero knowledge that his testimony existed or what it contained.

True to his word, inside the deposition, there’s a double seal that contains a list of 11 names of the Lockerbie conspirators and a map outlining the conspiracy.

It would be supremely valuable for the Scottish Justice Committee to open that double seal and review the full deposition. At that point, a decision could be made whether Dr Fuisz should be subpoenaed again to answer further questions.

However already there’s a substantial body of evidence that has never been viewed by Scottish Judges at all.

If Scottish families want justice in Lockerbie, that’s the best way forward. As for the rest, there’s nothing to fear. Gadhaffi’s arm does not reach into Europe. He’s got no ties to terrorism whatsoever.

Will NATO resurrect Operation Gladio to frame Gaddafi?

[This is the headline over an article published today on the Prison Planet website. It reads in part:]

Libyan leader’s threat to attack Europe could provide NATO with the perfect pretext to launch a full ground invasion

Given the fact that NATO itself was one of the pioneers of false flag terror to frame political enemies under Operation Gladio, a CIA-supported terror campaign that was responsible for a series of bloody attacks in Europe throughout the cold war years, we shouldn’t be surprised if NATO ressurects the legacy of Gladio in its desperation to justify a final decapitation strike to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi’s threat to attack Europe in retaliation for the NATO bombing campaign in Libya prompted the establishment media to react with contrived outrage, eliciting sharp intakes of breath at the mere thought that Gaddafi, whose country has been under constant bombardment for over three months, would dare to even speak about fighting back. (...)

Gaddafi himself is no stranger to being the focus of international condemnation for bloody terror attacks blamed on his government.

Although Libyan government agents working at the behest of Gaddafi were accused of carrying out the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Scotland, evidence that emerged both before and after the 2001 trial and conviction of alleged former intelligence office Abdelbaset al-Megrahi strongly indicates that the attack was a false flag event.

“Former Labor MP Tam Dalyell and Edinburgh law professor Robert Black urged the Scottish and UK governments to answer reports there is evidence Abu Nidal, aka Hasan Sabri al-Banna, was a US agent,” The Scotsman reported on October 27, 2008. “They have long believed Abu Nidal, who died in Iraq in 2002, and his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command were responsible for co-ordinating the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988 with the loss of 270 lives.”

“Intelligence reports, said to have been drawn up for Saddam Hussein’s security services, said Kuwaitis had asked Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, to find out if al-Qaeda was present in Iraq,” David Maddox wrote for the newspaper. The reports referred to Abu Nidal’s “collusion with both the American and Kuwaiti intelligence apparatuses in co-ordination with Egyptian intelligence.” [RB: A comment on this story that I wrote at the time can be read here.]

MP Dalyell said the reports added weight to the theory that Lockerbie was a “tit-for-tat” attack for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger airliner by the warship USS Vincennes in 1988, and was allowed by the US administration. (...)

In May of 2000, a gag order added weight to the theory that Libya was not behind the Lockerbie bombing. Dr Richard Fuisz, a CIA agent and a potential key trial witness, was gagged by the US government under state secrecy laws and faced 10 years in prison if he revealed any information about the terrorist attack, the Sunday Herald reported. Fuisz, a multi-millionaire businessman and pharmaceutical researcher, was, according to US intelligence sources, the CIA’s key operative in the Syrian capital Damascus during the 1980s where he also had business interests.

“One month before a court order was served on him by the US government gagging him from speaking on the grounds of national security, he spoke to US congressional aide Susan Lindauer, telling her he knew the identities of the Lockerbie bombers and claiming they were not Libyan,” Neil Mackay wrote. “Fuisz’s statements to Lindauer support the claims of the two Libyan accused who are to incriminate a number of terrorist organizations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which had strong links to Syria and Iran,” in short Abu Nidal.

Nidal was either killed by the Iraqi secret police for his role as an American double agent or he committed suicide after the Iraqis learned of his betrayal, according to The Independent. (...)

At the foundation of the Lockerbie fiction is the claim that Gaddafi had Pan Am flight 103 blown of the sky as revenge for Reagan’s 1986 bombing of Triopli, allegedly in response to the bombing of a night club in West Berlin that killed one US soldier. Reagan’s illegal attack on October 18, 1985, was at the time the largest air assault since the Vietnam War. 120 aircraft rained destruction on points around the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. At least 100 civilians were killed, including Gaddafi’s 15-month-old adopted daughter, Hana.

Former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky revealed the truth behind the bombing in his 2002 book, By Way of Deception: The Making of a Mossad Officer — it was orchestrated by Israel.

A special communications device, Ostrovsky claims, was planted by naval commandos deep inside Libya by the Mossad. “The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP, and intended to be received by American and British listening stations,” write Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy. “The listeners would have no doubt they had intercepted a genuine communication” and “the content of the messages, once deciphered, would confirm information from other intelligence sources, namely the Mossad.”

“After the bombing of Libya, our friend Qadhafi is sure to stay out of the picture for some time. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are the next target. We’re starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time, but in the end, there’s no doubt it’ll work,” a Mossad agent told the author. (...)

Gaddafi steadfastly refused to accept responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing for over a decade and made it a condition of Libya’s $2.7 billion payout to the families affected in 2002 that it was “the price of peace” and not an admission of guilt.

The story of how Libyan patsies were framed for the Lockerbie attack should give Gaddafi pause for thought and remind him to be a little more sophisticated in his rhetoric. Should there be a staged event in Europe that gets blamed on Libya, NATO powers will confidently point to Gaddafi’s own public statement as evidence for his culpability.

A message from Susan Lindauer

[The following message was posted yesterday on Facebook by Susan Lindauer.]

The current situation creates an unexpected opportunity for the Pan Am 103 families to demand that the Scottish courts review the sealed deposition of Dr Richard Fuisz, in the closing days of the Lockerbie trial. The deposition was given in the US Federal Court of Alexandria, Virginia in January, 2001, and sworn before Judge White. Curiously, the deposition was sealed in the US and could only be read overseas, putting it out of reach to the US families concerned with Lockerbie. However, within the sealed portion of the deposition is a Double Seal. Attorneys for Butera & Andrews in Washington were prohibited from advising Edward MacKechnie [RB: solicitor for Fhimah during the Zeist trial and later solicitor for Megrahi] about its contents. However, as Dr Fuisz's former asset of many years, I have privileged access to know what that contains: a list of 11 names of the individuals involved in the attack, and the map laying out their conspiracy.

By gathering together now, while attention's hot on this Libyan defector, [Moussa] Koussa, we can force the issue, and compel the Scottish courts to examine the double seal.

[More on Susan Lindauer can be read here and by inserting her name in this blog's search facility.]

Barack Obama orders Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi be seized

[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of the Sunday Mirror. It reads as follows:]

Barack Obama will ­demand the Lockerbie bomber as the price of supporting a new government in Libya.

The US President says the ­deportation of freed Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi is a condition of him backing the rebels if they win power.

Mr Obama wants ­Megrahi to be tried in the States for putting a bomb on the New York-bound jet that blew up over Lockerbie, ­Scotland, in 1988, a crime for which he was convicted by a Scottish court.

Cancer-stricken Megrahi has disappeared in Libya where he has been living after being released from jail because he supposedly had only months to live.

Intelligence sources fear he has been taken into ruler Colonel Muhamar Gaddafi’s own compound - and that Libyan leader would rather kill him than let his Lockerbie secrets be revealed.

Megrahi is believed to know the full story of the bombing in which 270 died and can name everyone involved - including Gaddafi.

The Sunday Mirror understands that top US officials have held talks with rebel leaders and demanded Megrahi be handed over.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a conference on Wednesday with FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney-General Eric Holder about how bring Megrahi and Gaddafi to justice.

A Washington source said: “This is seen as a real chance to get hold of the bomber who killed 189 American citizens.

“He may have spent a few years in a Scottish prison but in the eyes of the American people he has never faced justice.

"The US Justice Department said the indictment of Megrahi and another suspect remained pending and the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 remains open.”

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez said the deportation of al-Megrahi should be a condition of the US recognising a new Libyan government.

[The United States Government, along with that of the United Kingdom, proposed the UN Security Council resolutions that set up the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist. Both governments thereby undertook internationally binding obligations to comply with the legal processes thus set in motion. The United States cannot lawfully renounce those obligations either unilaterally or in conjunction with whatever new government it chooses to recognise in Libya. To have Abdelbaset Megrahi lawfully handed over to the US would require a further UN Security Council resolution. The United States, as a permanent member of the Security Council could, of course, propose such a resolution. But would the other members support it? The US could also, naturally, simply ignore international legality (as it did, with the UK's supine support, in launching the invasion of Iraq) and seize Megrahi by force (with or without the connivance of a new Libyan regime).

The IntelliBriefs website yesterday published an interesting article entitled Libya, Kaddafi and Lockerbie. It incorporates articles from Tam Dalyell, Robert Fisk and others.

An article by Susan Lindauer on Lockerbie and Libya can be read here on The People's Voice website.]

Susan Lindauer's book published in USA

Susan Lindauer's book Extreme Prejudice, an account of her travails at the hands of the US criminal justice system, has just been published. On her website, the book is described as follows:

"What if the government decided to invent a great lie to sell a disastrous war and a questionable anti-terrorism policy? What would happen to the Assets who know the truth?

"Former CIA Asset, Susan Lindauer, provides an extraordinary first-hand account from behind the intelligence curtain that shatters the government’s lies about 9/11 and Iraq, and casts a harsh spotlight on the workings of the Patriot Act as the ideal weapon to bludgeon whistle blowers and dissidents. A terrifying true story of “black budget” betrayals and the Patriot Act, with its arsenal of secret evidence, indefinite detention and threats of forcible drugging, Extreme Prejudice reveals one Asset’s desperate struggle to survive the brutal cover ups of 9/11 and Iraq. Extreme Prejudice delivers a high tension expose of the real facts surrounding the CIA’s advance warnings of 9/11 and Iraq’s contributions to the 9/11 investigation. For the first time, it discloses the existence of a comprehensive peace framework before the War, which would have accomplished all major U.S. objectives in Baghdad without a single casualty. A true life spy thriller that goes inside the Iraqi Embassy and prison on a Texas military base, Extreme Prejudice reveals the depths of deception by leaders in Washington and London to promote a questionable image of their successful anti-terrorism policy, and the shocking brutality used to suppress the truth of their failures from the American people and the world community."

There are chapters in the book that relate to Pan Am 103 and the Lockerbie disaster. I provided a blurb which reads:

“Susan Lindauer deserves unreserved admiration for this brave and moving account of her steadfast refusal to crumble under the shameful abuses to which she was subjected. She has provided us with an overdue exposure of the depths to which governments are all too prepared to descend to prevent disclosure of their dishonesty and malfeasance, her knowledge having been gained through bitter personal experience.”

The book is available through the US Amazon website.

From Susan Lindauer

[I have been asked by Susan Lindauer to post the following on this blog.]

I urgently request that you post the following information on your Lockerbie blog.

As the Scottish Courts study the possible release of Mr. Megrahi, the families of Pan Am 103 should be advised that without doubt, Libya gave sanctuary to at least one of the terrorists involved in that bombing.

Until 1998, LIbya gave sanctuary to Abu Nidal, who has been identified by Arab and US sources as one of the masterminds of that attack. His family and friends have confessed it, and he confessed it, too, before his death.

During negotiations for the Lockerbie [?trial?] -- which I started in New York with Libya's diplomats at the UN -- I saw documents* which prove Abu Talb and Ahmed Jibril orchestrated the attack. Abu Nidal was the third head of the hydra.

That means Libya would not be entitled to rescind its apology, or to expect any compensation for the financial damages paid to the Lockerbie families. All of that would remain intact. The only thing that would change is that an innocent man would go home to his family to die shortly. That's most crucial of all.

On those grounds, I urge the families of Pan Am 103 to accept the release of Mr. Megraghi on compassionate grounds. Send him home immediately. He is fully innocent of this crime.

[*In a further e-mail Ms Lindauer writes:]

In late 1997, I gave those documents to Gadhafi's diplomats in New York. That's what persuaded Gadahfi to go forward with talks for the handover of the two men. In back-channel talks, I assured his government that his two men would have access to witnesses and documents to prove their innocence..

That's what changed everything. It wasn't sanctions, and it wasn't appeals from the families that changed Gadhafi's mind. It was those documents.

[Note by RB: If all that Libya can be proved to have done was to provide sanctuary to one of the bombers, that would not under the law of Scotland make that country an accessory to the crime. Nor has Libya made any apology. It has acknowledged responsibility for the acts of its citizens. If Mr Megrahi's conviction is overturned there is then no Libyan citizen convicted of anything for which the state has accepted responsibility.]

Susan Lindauer: Secret Charges and The Patriot Act

In the course of a lengthy interview conducted by Michael Collins and reported on the Scoop Independent News website, Susan Lindauer discloses that charges (now dropped) were brought against her under the Patriot Act. Relevant to the Lockerbie case is the following brief extract:

'I had my entire legal strategy mapped out in the first couple of hours after my arrest. I could see mistakes in the indictment, and I quickly identified which witnesses and evidence would be necessary to repudiate the whole lot.

'My witness list was outstanding. It included international attorneys from the Lockerbie Trial, former Congressional staffers, even a couple of international journalists. One of Scotland's finest Solicitors, Edward MacKechnie, who won acquittal for his Libyan client in the Lockerbie Trial, immediately promised to travel at his own expense to testify for me as to the identity and credentials of Dr. Richard Fuisz, my CIA handler. I have the emails to prove it. His participation was beyond dispute.'

The full interview can be read here.

Susan Lindauer interview

The Intelligence Daily today carries an extended interview by Michael Collins with Susan Lindauer. One section reads as follows:

'Collins: What first triggered your concern about a possible attack involving airplanes and the World Trade Center? How did Lockerbie figure into the 9/11 warning?

'Lindauer: The Lockerbie Trial in the year 2000 got us thinking of what the next terrorist scenario would look like. The bombings of Pan Am 103 in December, 1988 and UTA (French airlines) in September, 1989 were the last attacks involving airplanes prior to September 11, 2001. Our team worried openly that the Trial of the two accused Libyans would inspire a sort of "tribute attack" to the success of Lockerbie.

'The problem is that while most Americans have refused to accept that Libya's man, Mr Megraghi was innocent of the crime, it happens to be true. And terrorists groups know that. They know very well who was responsible for planting the bomb on Pan Am 103, and they know that those individuals have never been brought to justice. Indeed, throughout the Trial, when the US made such a poor showing of forensic evidence against the accused Libyans, that US failure was gossip throughout the Middle East. As Dr Fuisz used to say, terrorist groups thought that for all the mighty resources of U.S. Intelligence, the US was either too stupid to catch them. Or we were afraid because the real terrorists are "too big."

'Either of those beliefs stood to create a huge and irresistible provocation to the younger generation of jihadis. It was an easy step to anticipate that younger terrorists would be inspired to launch a tribute attack to the "heroes" who came before them. On that basis, we drew up an extreme threat scenario that the next major attack would most likely involve airplane hijackings or airplane bombings.

'That is exactly what happened by the way. Back in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden called Ahmed Jibril "a hero" and "the greatest fighter against Israel who ever lived."

'Sure enough, my own extensive sources in the Middle East have repeatedly told me that Ahmed Jibril was the true mastermind of Lockerbie - and so we find the 9/11 puzzle fits together exactly.'

The full interview can be read here.

More on the Susan Lindauer saga

The PhoeniciaPhoenix blog today publishes a lengthy post headed "Former CIA asset speaks out after criminal charges dropped." It reads in part:

'Former CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) non-official cover (NOC) asset Susan Lindauer is speaking out after, in one of its final acts, the Bush Justice Department dropped all criminal charges against her for acting as an "unregistered" agent of the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, traveling to Baghdad, and other acts. Lindauer was arrested in March 2004 after she volunteered to testify before a blue ribbon commission on pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Lindauer, the second cousin of George W. Bush White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and the daughter of a one-time Republican gubernatorial candidate in Alaska, approached two commission members, Trent Lott of Mississippi and John McCain of Arizona with her offer of testimony about intelligence. It was after she made her approach that she was arrested on charges of acting on behalf of Iraq's government. (...)

'In her NOC asset role, Lindauer covered the Iraqi and Libyan missions to the United Nations in New York. She refused to discuss details of the non-official cover status under which she worked, saying it remains sensitive information. Neither country had diplomatic relations with the United States and, therefore, had no embassies in Washington, DC. Lindauer was responsible for maintaining "back channel" links between U.S. intelligence and Iraq and Libya, primarily dealing with counter-terrorism matters. (...)

'Lindauer said her CIA handler, Richard Fuisz, a long-time U.S. intelligence agent in the Middle East, said the CIA learned from the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland that terrorists might use hijacked planes as weapons. (...)

'Like CIA NOC Valerie Plame Wilson, who, along with her NOC firm Brewster Jennings & Associates, was outed by the Bush White House, the failure of the Bush administration to protect Lindauer and her contacts had potentially catastrophic consequences. Lindauer said her intelligence work with Iraq and Libya had made her enemy number one for Syrian-based Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, the actual perpetrators, along with Iran, of the Pan Am 103 bombing.'

Case against Susan Lindauer dropped

On 17 October 2007, I posted on this blog an article by Michael Collins about Susan Lindauer and her connection to the Lockerbie case. That post can be read here. In a new article in Scoop Independent News, Collins reports that the US federal Government on 15 January 2009 dropped the charges (of acting as an unregistered agent for Iraq) against Ms Lindauer. One paragraph reads:

'Lindauer offered an affidavit concerning the Lockerbie bombing in 1998. Her statement was based on her discussions with Dr Richard Fuisz, whom she named as her CIA handler. Dr Fuisz was said to be "a major operative in the Middle East in the 1980s." Since then the Scottish Criminal Cases [Review] Commission has since uncovered irregularities in the evidence against the two Libyans convicted of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.'

More on the Susan Lindauer saga

On 17 October 2007, I reproduced on this blog an article by Michael Collins about Susan Lindauer and her involvement in the Lockerbie affair: see "American Cassandra -- Susan Lindauer's Story". For further developments in this fascinating tale, see this recent article on Michael Collins's blog.

American Cassandra - Susan Lindauer’s Story

The fascinating story of Susan Lindauer and her connection to the Lockerbie case, as told by Michael Collins in Scoop Independent News at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0710/S00266.htm

By Michael Collins
“Scoop” Independent News
Washington, D.C.

Above all, you must realize that if you go ahead with this invasion, Osama bin Laden will triumph, rising from his grave or seclusion. His network will be swollen with fresh recruits, and other charismatic individuals will seek to build upon his model, multiplying those networks. And the United States will have delivered the death blow to itself. Using your own act of war, Osama and his cohort will irrevocably divide the hearts and minds of the Arab Street from moderate governments in Islamic countries that have been holding back the tide. Power to the people, what we call “democracy,” will secure the rise of fundamentalists. Susan Lindauer’s last letter to Andrew Card, January 6, 2003*

Susan Lindauer sent her eleventh and last letter on the Iraqi political situation to then Bush chief of staff Andrew Card on January 6, 2003, just two months before General Franks gave the command to invade on March 20, 2003. She’d sent ten other letters on Iraq to Card, her second cousin, over a two year period.

In her final letter she made a prophetic plea to head off the war. Through Lindauer’s back channel contacts at the Iraqi United Nations mission, Lindauer said that she’d gathered a great deal of information. She had good reasons to believe that the Iraqis were ready to offer huge concessions on inspectors and on other United States demands.

As the opening quotation shows, she correctly predicted what other knowledgeable observers believed. While the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan had al Qaeda on its knees, an Iraqi military defeat would lead to a civil chaos. This would provide the basis for a resurrection of bin Laden’s operation and then revive the al Qaeda terrorist risk to the United States.

Lindauer was arrested on March 17, 2004, fifteen months after the last letter to Andy Card and two years after the trip to Baghdad referenced in the indictment. She was charged with “conspiring to act and acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq” and “forbidden financial transactions” with Iraq totaling $10,000 relating to those acts. The charges cover the period of October, 1999 through February 2004.

She denies acting as an Iraqi agent and says that she’d been recruited by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency to open a back channel for contact with Middle Eastern nations that lacked formal diplomatic ties the U.S. She asserts that CIA was overseeing her contacts with Iraq and that the U.S. government was fully informed of her activities.

She was very specific when she said that she had no knowledge of or contact with the two Iraqis named in her indictment. In his final ruling on the case, Judge Mukasey observed that:

It bears emphasis here that it was never the government's theory that Lindauer participated in such conduct, or indeed that she even knew the Al-Anbuke brothers. Rather, she and they were charged together only because both allegedly conspired with IIS. Judge Michael B. Mukasey, Opinion and Order, September 6, 2006.

At her preliminary hearing, she was remanded for trial in federal court, Southern District, New York, and placed on $500,000 bail

Another 18 months passed without action until the prosecution requested that Lindauer undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The prosecution argued that she was unfit to stand trial for two reasons: she believed that she was not guilty and she was therefore unable to contribute to her defense since she didn’t understand that she might be convicted. Her failure to accept guilt by denying what the prosecution called delusions somehow proved mental incompetence.

Based on the psychiatric evaluation, Judge Mukasey ordered Lindauer to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Federal Medical Center (Carswell FMC), Ft. Worth, located on the grounds of Carswell Air Force Base. Lindauer reports considerable distress at confinement and the condition of her fellow female inmates.

Lindauer has consistently maintained her innocence throughout this entire affair. After seven months at FMC Carswell, she had a hearing with Judge Mukasey in early May 2006. The psychiatrists at the federal prison facility wanted to force her to take psychotropic medication, a position strongly supported by the U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case. She vigorously objected to this, which was the basis for the May hearing. The government’s rationale for forced medication and the treatment at Carswell FMC will be discussed in more depth in the second part of this series.

Rather than being sent back to the prison facility, she spent four months at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. Finally, on Sept. 8, 2006 she was released by order of Judge Mukasey. He flatly denied the U.S. Attorney’s request for forced medication, noting contradictory opinions on diagnosis and poor support for the efficacy of the medication recommended by court appointed and prosecution experts.

His opinion and order implied that there was not much of case against her: “There is no indication that Lindauer ever came close to influencing anyone, or could have.” Opinion and Order, Judge Michael B. Mukasey, Sept. 6, 2006

The Judge ordered that Lindauer be released from jail. She remains free to this day. Through former U.S. Attorney Brian Schaunnessy of Washington, D.C., she is seeking a trial on the charges levied and sees that as a public forum to verify her story and clear her name.

Susan Lindauer’s Story

After seeing an article I wrote on Attorney General nominee Mukasey, Susan Lindauer emailed Jeff Tiedrich, publisher of the political web site that carried the story. She complimented my analysis of Mukasey, which had mentioned her case. I received the email, contacted her, and requested an interview. She agreed.

Susan Lindauer and I met on two occasions for a total of about six hours. In addition, there was an additional two hours of phone contact to assure that I accurately represented her story. She says this is the first time anyone contacted her for an in depth interview on her story and experience.

She was engaging, articulate, and energetic during the interviews and follow up calls. In this article, I present her story as she told it to me. In part two of the series, I cover her confinement at FMC Carswell, examine how the initial round of her case was handled, including Judge Mukasey’s dismissive remarks about the merits of the case against her. I will also present information from individuals who support her character and knowledge of Lockerbie and Iraq and offer some speculation on motives and handling of her arrest.

What follows is neither a brief in favor of her case, nor is it a fishing expedition to generate cheap shots regarding her claims. It’s simply her story.

Susan Lindauer seeks a trial on the charges to prove her innocence.

She says that:

• She worked for United States intelligence to create back channel communication with key Middle Eastern states and all of her actions were under the supervision of U.S. intelligence.
• She was recruited by U.S. intelligence to perform this function in 1994 due to her anti sanctions position and the belief that the targeted states would find someone with her position and contacts appealing.
• She made significant contributions through her U.N. diplomatic contacts with Libya for the hand over of accused Lockerbie bombers to Scottish authorities. After Lockerbie, she worked as a back channel to Iraq on resuming weapons inspection.
• She is innocent of all charges filed.

Lindauer reports that her role as a back channel operative for the U.S. resulted from a 1994 meeting with Dr. Richard Fuisz in Chantilly, Virginia. He approached Lindauer who was then on the staff of Representative Ron Wyden (D-OR), now a U.S. Senator. She says that Fuisz, reportedly a CIA operative, wanted to get out information on terrorist threats from Syria and its proxies who he said were responsible for the Lockerbie bombing. Fuisz claimed that he could identify the specific culprits behind the Lockerbie – Pan Am 103 bombing.

She noted that her knowledge of Arab culture and her positions as an anti sanction, pro peace advocate positioned her for service as a conduit to nations hostile to United States. This put her in a position, “to open a back channel to receive terrorism information from those nations under sanctions.”

Lockerbie, Scotland and the Bombing of Pan Am 103

The Clinton administration was interested in using her as an entrée to communicate with Libya officials, according to Lindauer. Her specific task was to help obtain the hand over of two suspects in the Lockerbie bombing to stand trial for the destruction of the Pan Am flight and deaths of 259 passengers and 11 Lockerbie citizens

Lindauer described playing an instrumental role in negotiating the handover of the two suspected bombers from Libya through her Libyan contacts at the U.N. mission. She performed the liaison role through the Libyan mission at the U.N. As a result of her work and other efforts, she reports that Libya turned over two male suspects, al-Megrahi and Fhimah, to Scottish authorities. They were indicted and tried for the bombing and 270 deaths. Scottish prosecutors convicted Al Megrahi but not Fhimah.

During the lead up to the trial, Lindauer had serious questions about the guilt of the Libyans that she helped secure for trial. She says, “Other Arab contacts told me that Mohammed Abu Talb, Abu Nidal, in addition to Ahmed Jibril were the key to this awful crime.”

In 1998, she provided U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan with a deposition containing information that she obtained from Dr. Richard Fuisz. This was prior to Annan’s visit to Libya which Lindauer says was for a meeting to discuss the Lockerbie trial with Gadaffi. In the deposition, she offered this: “(Fuisz) says freely that he knows first hand that Libya was not involved in any capacity whatsoever. It's my understanding that he can provide further details regarding his part in the investigation, or details identifying the true criminals in this case.”

However, Fuisz was the subject of a 1990’s gag order and required specific permission from the U.S. in order to give a sealed deposition for the Lockerbie trial.

Lindauer’s statement on Lockerbie caught the attention of the Scotland’s Sunday Herald:

[In 1994] One month before a court order was served on him (Fuisz) by the US government gagging him from speaking on the grounds of national security, he spoke to US congressional aide Susan Lindauer, telling her he knew the identities of the Lockerbie bombers and claiming they were not Libyan. Sunday Herald May 28, 2000

The Herald discussed her role in negotiations with Libya:

Congressional aide Lindauer, who was involved in early negotiations over the Lockerbie trial, claims Fuisz made "unequivocal statements to me that he has first-hand knowledge about the Lockerbie case". In her affidavit, she goes on: "Dr Fuisz has told me that he can identify who orchestrated and executed the bombing. Dr Fuisz has said that he can confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or executing the bombing of Pan Am 103, either in any technical or advisory capacity whatsoever.” Sunday Herald May 28, 2000

Her position was not that different than an analysis offered in Time Magazine in 2002. Both she and Time speculate that Ahmed Jibril, a Palestinian resistance leader allied with Syria, was responsible for the bombing. Time magazine even suggested that the terrorist act was a “hit” on a special U.S. military group seeking to free American hostages held in Lebanon.

Just recently, Time ran another article on findings by investigators raising factual questions that cast doubt on the guilty verdict of the one suspect actually convicted in the case.

On June 28, 2007, Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) made a referral of the al Megrahi conviction for further review due to a critical flaw in the case. Evidence from a Maltese shopkeeper that helped convict al Megrahi was accepted by trial judges without a “reasonable basis”. The SCCRC is empowered to refer flawed decisions to Scotland’s Supreme Court, which must hear the case.

Just recently, October 2, 2007, The Scotsman reported that “Fresh doubt has been cast over the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber after it emerged a document containing vital evidence about the bomb timer has never been shown to the defense.”

In addition, The Scotsman, Oct. 6, 2007, reported that two key witnesses, the Maltese shopkeeper and the head of the company that manufactured the timing devise for the bomb, were offered $2 million and $4 million respectively by U.S. officials to tilt their testimony for a conviction of al Megrahi.

Lindauer said that her work on Lockerbie started in 1995, “I was being used aggressively at this point for positive things.” She didn’t see any inconsistency between her activism and her work with the intelligence community. She opposed both sanctions by the United States and violence by terrorist states.

Thus, by her logic, her work for U.S. intelligence was no different than her activism – the goals were the same. She said, “From the perspective of my life, I was able to work against sanctions” and also work against terrorism emanating from rogue states. Noting the global reach of the events and the stakes, she now says, “This work makes you know how small you are.”

An Opening to Iraq

After Lockerbie, Lindauer says her work focused exclusively on Iraq, although she’d started contact with Iraqi diplomats at the U.N. in August, 1996. She followed her previous approach and sought out diplomats at the Iraq mission to the U.N. Her assignment was to help gain a resumption of weapons inspections based on the rigorous standards outlined by the U.S. She also made a trip to Iraq one year before the U.S. invasion.

During 2000, Lindauer began her efforts to cultivate Iraqi contacts for better relations with the U.S. She described an extraordinary opportunity that might have changed the entire direction of U.S. - Iraq relations. As the secular dictator of an Arab state, Hussein was not fond of Islamic terrorists. Lindauer reported to her U.S. contacts that the Iraq government would welcome an F.B.I. taskforce into Baghdad. She reported further, that “The F.B.I. would be able to interview witnesses and make arrests.” Further, she says that:

Iraq also offered banking records and proof of financial transfers that would prove Middle Eastern involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing and the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

The program met with a frosty reception from the newly installed Bush administration. Lindauer said, “I was told that the new administration was evaluating its position on Iraq, in light of collapsing international support for sanctions.” There was no action on the plan. In fact, based on what we know now, improved relations with Iraq were not on the agenda from the beginning of the Bush-Cheney era.

This leads to the second phase of her activities regarding Iraq, the events that ended with Lindauer’s arrest, indictment, and incarceration at FMC Carswell, Ft. Worth, Texas.

Cassandra

A year before the invasion, in March 2002, Lindauer took a trip to Iraq to meet with government officials. She smiled broadly as she affirmed the value of that mission: “It would be regrettable if the US government lied about its knowledge of this trip.” She paused and smiled again, “We can prove their total awareness.”

Lindauer sent 11 letters to Card staring in 2001 leading her to pose this question: “If he wanted to discourage me to stop talking to the Iraqis, all he had to do was say so.”

In the final letter sent to Card, Lindauer delivered her accurate prediction of the results of the invasion she worked to avoid – a disaster in Iraq fueling resistance groups hostile to the U.S. along with a revival of al Qaeda.

She accurately estimated the true value of the exile groups cultivated by the Bush administration and, in the case of Ahmed Chalabi, used almost exclusively by New York Times writer Judith Miller as the basis for her discredited claims in New York Times that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Once U.S. bombing starts, the Iraqi exiles will have no credibility as leaders. None whatsoever. They will be hated as pawns of the United States, and my God, let me tell you Arabs can hate. A U.S. victory will never be sweet for long. Lindauer letter to Card, January 6, 2003*

She argued passionately, with dramatic emphasis, that there was a deep well of hostility towards the U.S. as a result of deaths caused by U.S. supported U.N. sanctions from 1990 through March 22, 2003. This is a story not well covered in the U.S. press but one with palpable results for the people of Iraq.

That hatred has kindled deeply because of the sanctions, Andy. Sanctions have killed 1.7 million human beings, including almost one million little children. Stop and think. What would an American father do to the man who killed three of his children, once that father could finally lay hands on the aggressor? Would he throw candy in the streets? No, he’d beat him to death and stab him 100 times until his arms were sore. And then he’d look for the next man, stalking until the right moment. In Baghdad, I met a man who lost 8 members of his immediate family in one year. That’s right, eight dead in ONE year. Multiply that by 20 million people.” Lindauer letter to Card, January 6, 2003*

While the Department of Justice questions Lindauer’s role as a cooperator with U.S. Intelligence and a question was raised about her ability to “influence anybody,” there can be little doubt about her analysis and predictions concerning post-war Iraq. Just in this final letter, she nailed down the myth of the exiles and their role in building a new Iraq, the extreme hostility of Iraqis toward the U.S. presence and personnel, and the resurrection of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Whatever her sources and inspiration, Susan Lindauer is truly an American Cassandra.

Note by RB: The Judge Michael B Mukasey mentioned above is President George Bush's nominee for the position of Attorney General of the United States to replace Alberto Gonzales. He is currently undergoing nomination hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7003532,00.html
and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7047261,00.html
and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-7053610,00.html
He has now been confirmed as Attorney General by the US Senate:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mukasey9nov09,1,3685347.story?coll=la-headlines-nation