Lockerbie - yet again the clues lead to a Palestinian terrorist group

[This is the headline over an article posted on Friday by Swedish journalist Anders Carlgren on his website.  It reads in part:]

Just two months before the Lockerbie bombing, West German police had cracked down on a terrorist cell outside of Düsseldorf, apprehending 17 members of none other than PFLP-GC. The most important find was four Semtex bombs build into Toshiba radios.

But a fifth bomb had gone missing, and it turned out that it had been hidden by the bomb builder of the terrorist cell, Marwan Kreeshat. The legendary European correspondent for ABC News Pierre Salinger later interviewed Kreeshat in prison. In that interview Kreeshat said that he was convinced that it was precisely his bomb that had brought down Pan Am Flight 103. It is also documented that during the fall of 1988, great sums were transferred from Iran to the German terrorist cell, in several batches via a variety of Middle Eastern banks.

But the Palestinian-Iranian trail sudden went cold and non-existent in August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. That invasion and the first Gulf war entirely changed the direction of the investigation, documentably at American request. During the preparation for the war, it was important to keep both Syria and Iran calm. The PFLP-GC was now entirely uninteresting and – unexpectedly – the rogue state Libya was pointed to as responsible for the act. The United Nations complied with a request to impose extensive sanctions against Libya.

One of the persons no longer under investigation was the Swedish-Palestinian Mohammed Abu Talb, then a resident of Uppsala. He had entered Sweden on a false passport. Abu Talb probably had ties to the German terrorist cell, as he and three other Swedish-Palestinians repeatedly traveled to places like Frankfurt and Munich. Abu Talb had a background as chief of bodyguard forces in Lebanon and in Syria, and in the Soviet Union he had received training in handling targeting robots.

Today many investigators and relatives of victims are convinced that Abu Talb obtained the fifth Semtex bomb and had it loaded onto the airplane in Frankfurt, where Pan Am 103 had begun its route. It was determined that the bomb-containing suitcase had been loaded without belonging to any passenger.

Three years before the Lockerbie bombing, in 1985, Abu Talb along with three Palestinian co-conspirators were behind the bombing of a synagogue in Copenhagen and similar bombs against airplane companies in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, both of which caused much death and destruction.

In May 1989 the four terrorists were apprehended in Sweden, and December 21st, one year after Lockerbie, Mohammed Abu Talb and Marten Imandi were sentenced to life prison. The two others received significantly milder punishments.

Investigations showed that Abu Talb had been in Malta during the fall of 1988, and that Marten Imandi had stayed in Malta for a longer period. In the Uppsala home of Abu Talb, police also found a calendar with a circle around December 21st. And in a recorded wiretap , the Abu Talb’s wife was heard saying to someone else: ”get rid of the clothes immediately.” A suitcase similar to the one holding the bomb was found at that person’s residence.

Both Abu Talb and Marten Imandi are now free after having had their life sentences converted. Abu Talb was also sentenced to deportation, but is nevertheless still in Sweden, as the government cannot decide which country he is to be deported to – Egypt, Syria or Lebanon. He has repeatedly applied to have his deportation cancelled, most recently last year, but his application was turned down every time. Marten Imandi, however, cannot be deported, as he is a Swedish citizen.

But this Swedish trail to the Lockerbie bombing has never been followed to the end, after the US and Great Britain surprisingly pointed to Libya as the guilty party. After many long and hard negotiations, Moammar Gadaffi agreed to turn over two Libyans to a special Scottish court located at an old military base in the Netherlands. After two rounds of mock trial, one of them, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, was convicted to 27 years of prison. Gadaffi paid 2.7 billion dollars to the relatives of the victims. The sanctions were lifted, and in return, Great Britain obtained profitable oil contracts. Al Megrahi was returned to Libya in 2009, where he died later from prostate cancer.

We know today that the owner of the shop in Malta, Tony Gauci, who sold the clothes found in the bomber’s suitcase, lied when he pointed out Al Megrahi in a confrontation; he had been shown a picture of Al Megrahi in advance. We also know that Tony Gauci received two million dollars from the US for testifying in the two mock trials. There are many other errors and repeatedly changing explanations in his testimony.

Abu Talb was also forced to testify during the trials, but he denied any kind of involvement, and claimed that he had been babysitting in Uppsala at the time. That alibi, however, has never been verified.

A year ago, Scottish newspapers published an 800-page report of the investigation from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which had been classified since 2007. The report pointed out extensive lying, fraud, perjury, bought witnesses and other mistakes during the legal process.

Mohammed Abu Talb and his terrorist associates in Sweden and Germany do not enjoy immunity from the Scottish authorities. Therefore there are good reasons to resume investigation of the Swedish-Palestinian trail.

Extensive lying, fraud, perjury, bought witnesses

[On this date in 2013 Swedish journalist Anders Carlgren published on his website an article headed Lockerbie - Yet Again the Clues Lead to a Palestinian Terrorist Group. It reads in part:]

Just two months before the Lockerbie bombing, West German police had cracked down on a terrorist cell outside of Düsseldorf, apprehending 17 members of none other than PFLP-GC. The most important find was four Semtex bombs build into Toshiba radios.

But a fifth bomb had gone missing, and it turned out that it had been hidden by the bomb builder of the terrorist cell, Marwan Kreeshat. The legendary European correspondent for ABC News Pierre Salinger later interviewed Kreeshat in prison. In that interview Kreeshat said that he was convinced that it was precisely his bomb that had brought down Pan Am Flight 103. It is also documented that during the fall of 1988, great sums were transferred from Iran to the German terrorist cell, in several batches via a variety of Middle Eastern banks.

But the Palestinian-Iranian trail sudden went cold and non-existent in August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. That invasion and the first Gulf war entirely changed the direction of the investigation, documentably at American request. During the preparation for the war, it was important to keep both Syria and Iran calm. The PFLP-GC was now entirely uninteresting and – unexpectedly – the rogue state Libya was pointed to as responsible for the act. The United Nations complied with a request to impose extensive sanctions against Libya.

One of the persons no longer under investigation was the Swedish-Palestinian Mohammed Abu Talb, then a resident of Uppsala. He had entered Sweden on a false passport. Abu Talb probably had ties to the German terrorist cell, as he and three other Swedish-Palestinians repeatedly traveled to places like Frankfurt and Munich. Abu Talb had a background as chief of bodyguard forces in Lebanon and in Syria, and in the Soviet Union he had received training in handling targeting robots.

Today many investigators and relatives of victims are convinced that Abu Talb obtained the fifth Semtex bomb and had it loaded onto the airplane in Frankfurt, where Pan Am 103 had begun its route. It was determined that the bomb-containing suitcase had been loaded without belonging to any passenger.

Three years before the Lockerbie bombing, in 1985, Abu Talb along with three Palestinian co-conspirators were behind the bombing of a synagogue in Copenhagen and similar bombs against airplane companies in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, both of which caused much death and destruction.

In May 1989 the four terrorists were apprehended in Sweden, and December 21st, one year after Lockerbie, Mohammed Abu Talb and Marten Imandi were sentenced to life prison. The two others received significantly milder punishments.

Investigations showed that Abu Talb had been in Malta during the fall of 1988, and that Marten Imandi had stayed in Malta for a longer period. In the Uppsala home of Abu Talb, police also found a calendar with a circle around December 21st. And in a recorded wiretap , the Abu Talb’s wife was heard saying to someone else: ”get rid of the clothes immediately.” A suitcase similar to the one holding the bomb was found at that person’s residence.

Both Abu Talb and Marten Imandi are now free after having had their life sentences converted. Abu Talb was also sentenced to deportation, but is nevertheless still in Sweden, as the government cannot decide which country he is to be deported to – Egypt, Syria or Lebanon. He has repeatedly applied to have his deportation cancelled, most recently last year, but his application was turned down every time. Marten Imandi, however, cannot be deported, as he is a Swedish citizen.

But this Swedish trail to the Lockerbie bombing has never been followed to the end, after the US and Great Britain surprisingly pointed to Libya as the guilty party. After many long and hard negotiations, Moammar Gadaffi agreed to turn over two Libyans to a special Scottish court located at an old military base in the Netherlands. After two rounds of mock trial, one of them, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, was convicted to 27 years of prison. Gadaffi paid 2.7 billion dollars to the relatives of the victims. The sanctions were lifted, and in return, Great Britain obtained profitable oil contracts. Al Megrahi was returned to Libya in 2009, where he died later from prostate cancer.

We know today that the owner of the shop in Malta, Tony Gauci, who sold the clothes found in the bomber’s suitcase, lied when he pointed out Al Megrahi in a confrontation; he had been shown a picture of Al Megrahi in advance. We also know that Tony Gauci received two million dollars from the US for testifying in the two mock trials. There are many other errors and repeatedly changing explanations in his testimony.

Abu Talb was also forced to testify during the trials, but he denied any kind of involvement, and claimed that he had been babysitting in Uppsala at the time. That alibi, however, has never been verified.

A year ago, Scottish newspapers published an 800-page report of the investigation from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which had been classified since 2007. The report pointed out extensive lying, fraud, perjury, bought witnesses and other mistakes during the legal process.

Mohammed Abu Talb and his terrorist associates in Sweden and Germany do not enjoy immunity from the Scottish authorities. Therefore there are good reasons to resume investigation of the Swedish-Palestinian trail.

Pan Am incriminee Talb freed

[Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm has picked up and expanded upon yesterday's story about the release of Abu Talb from prison in Sweden. Its article can be read here. The full text appears below.]

Mohammed Abu Talb, the Palestinian militant implicated in the Pan Am 103 atrocity, is understood to have been freed from jail in Sweden where he had been serving a life term.

The Firm understands Talb was quietly released in early September, only weeks after Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was released from jail in Scotland and returned to Libya.

Talb was named by Megrahi and co-accused Fhimah in their special defence of incrimination during their trial, although no charges were ever brought against him.

In April a Swedish court overturned Talb's life sentence and reinstated a fixed tariff of 30 years, scehduled to expire in 2011 under their convention that only two thirds of the full sentence are actually served. Talb was found guilty of bombing a synagogue and the office of an American-based airline in Denmark in 1985. He was also found guilty of involvement in another airline bombing in the Netherlands.

The Swedish court based their decision on evidence submitted by police and psychiatrists indicating that Abu Talb was unlikely to commit crimes or participate in terrorist activity in the future.

In 2004 Fhimah's [then] solicitor Eddie MacKechnie told The Firm that the accused had little opportunity to exercise their special defence, and that the Crown Office treatment of Talb placed them at a disadvantage.

"The Crown had the Dept of Justice of the USA at their beck and call, and all the weight of the UK and the USA diplomatically. For example, Mohammad Abu Talb, a notable incriminee in this case, declined even to see anyone from the defence at any stage. Yet, Abu Talb travels by special plane, armed guards, the lot, and gives his evidence over a number of days. Interesting." MacKechnie said.

"He also provided evidence and gave a number of statements at great length to Crown representatives. So a clear disadvantage was in operation. Perhaps inevitably, I think the job was actually impossible.”

Professor Robert Black says Talb could be prosecuted under Scots law, having gained no immunity when named as an incriminee.

"A Crown witness gains immunity from prosecution only if he is called as an accomplice to give evidence against those involved with him in the crime charged. Talb was not called by the Crown in this capacity," Black says.

"He had been named by the two Libyan accused as the person who, acting for a Palestinian group, was really responsible for the destruction of Pan Am 103. The Crown called him to obtain a denial of this. He was not called as an accomplice of the Libyans."

A look at Lockerbie: Intiqam, the man who takes revenge

[On 11 January 2016 I blogged on an article entitled A look at Lockerbie: Iran Air Flight 655 that was billed as the first in a projected series. The second article has today been published on the libcom.org website. It is entitled A look at Lockerbie: Intiqam, the man who takes revenge and reads in part:]

In order to determine beyond a reasonable doubt who was responsible for the Lockerbie crime, one must first understand the crucial pieces of evidence that the case hinges on. First of all, forensics experts have identified that the bomb which blew up Pan Am 103 was concealed in a Toshiba radio cassette player packed in a brown hard-shell Samsonite suitcase. Another important point was that the bomb was triggered by a barometric timer, meaning that it was specially designed to only be triggered at a high altitude where the change in air pressure could activate the device. And maybe most importantly of all, it has been proven that a tweed jacket, a green umbrella, and a jumper with the brand name Baby Gro were all packed in the suitcase that contained the bomb.1,2,3

The key pieces of evidence are well established, but what about the motive and intent?

I discussed in my last blog post the criminal attack on Iran Air 655, and the Western media's characterization of those responsible as heroes. In response to this the Iranian leadership promised vengeance. "We will not leave the crimes of America unpunished," Tehran radio announced, "We will resist the plots of the Great Satan and avenge the blood of our martyrs from criminal mercenaries."4 As Robert Bauer, former member of the CIA investigation into Lockerbie, put it, "They thought that if we didn't retaliate against the United States we would continue to shoot down their airliners." Abulkasim Misbahi, a high level Iranian defector who in 1988 was reporting directly to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, would later recall that, "The Iranians decided to retaliate as soon as possible...the target was to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian airbus."5

In order to accomplish this goal the Iranians turned to Ahmed Jibril, a man whose organization was well known for bombing airplanes. Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) was well known for two airplane bombings that took place on the same day in 1970. The first bomb detonated aboard Swiss Air flight 330 bound for Israel. The bomb forced a crash landing in which all 47 of those aboard were killed. The second bomb which exploded later in the day on an Austrian Airlines flight also bound for Israel detonated successfully, but an emergency landing avoided any loss of life. The bombs were notable not only for the tragedy and terror which they inflicted, but also for the fact that they were the first barometric bombs ever used. In addition to the notable use of barometric triggers, the bombs were also both concealed within transistor radios.6

The Iranians turned to Jibril, not only because of his proven abilities as a plane bomber, but also because the PFLP-GC was an organization with close ties to Iran's strong Shia ally, Syria. After being contacted, Jibril put the Iranians in touch with a PFLP-GC member Hafez Dalkamouni who was based in Frankfurt.

Unbeknownst to Jibril and Dalkamouni, the West German police were already suspicious of Dalkamouni and were watching him day and night at his apartment in Frankfurt at 16 Isarstrasse. In October of 1988, the West German police started to notice some highly suspicious activity taking place at the apartment. On October 13th, West German police watched as Marwan Kreeshat arrived at Dalkamouni's apartment. The wife of one of Dalkamouni's accomplices would later testify that Kreeshat was carrying a brown Samsonite suitcase. The next day police listened in as Dalkamouni and Kreeshat called a number in Damascus and Dalkamouni was recorded as saying that soon "everything will be ready." Kreeshat then took the phone and said that he had "made some changes in the medicine," and that it was "better and stronger than before."7 A week later Dalkamouni and Kreeshat went shopping. While shopping they purchased three mechanical alarm clocks, a digital clock, sixteen 1.5-volt batteries and some switches, screws, and glue. A police internal memo made that day noted, "the purchase of the materials under the clear supervision of a PFLP-GC member designated as an explosives expert leads to the conclusion that the participants intend to produce an explosive device which, on the basis of the telephone taps, would be operational within the next few days."8 Fearing an imminent attack, on October 26th West German security services launched Operation Autumn Leaves, intended to round up Dalkamouni and his Frankfurt cell. The police followed Dalkamouni and Kreeshat as they drove in a silver green Ford Taurus and stopped to make a call at a public telephone booth. There the police apprehended them and searched their car, inside they found a Toshiba radio cassette player hidden under a blanket. In Dalkamouni's apartment police found a stopwatch, batteries, a detonator, and both time-delay and barometric fuses. On October 29th, police took a closer look at the Toshiba and discovered 300 grams of Semtex sheet explosive shaped into a cylinder wrapped with aluminum foil with a barometric timer. 9,10 While in custody, Kreeshat revealed that he was actually in the employ of Jordanian intelligence, and that he had made a total of 5 bombs including the one found in the Toshiba cassette player. 11,12 So what of the other 4 bombs?

The fate of three of the four bombs would be revealed in an explosion in April of 1989. At this time West German police had reopened the Dalkamouni case and visited the basement of a grocery store owner who was friends with Dalkamouni at the time of his arrest. In the basement police found two radios that fit the description of the bombs that Marwan Kreeshat had claimed he had made for Dalkamouni. The officers brought the suitcases back to their headquarters and left them lying around for a few days. Eventually a technician was ordered to inspect them 4 days later. Soon after he began inspection they began ticking. He quickly ran the suitcases through an x-ray machine and saw that they looked suspicious. Two explosives experts were called in, and while they were working on opening the suitcases the bomb was triggered killing one and severely injuring the other. German police went in force back to the grocery store basement and uncovered 400 grams of plastic Semtex explosive and a detonator wired to a barometer.13

So that explained four of the five bombs, but what of the fifth?

Flashback to October of 1988, while the West German police were watching Dalkamouni's apartment at 16 Isarstrasse. On October 14th, a man named Martin Imandi visited and parked a car with a Swedish license plate outside Dalkamouni's apartment. Imandi and two others were then seen carrying packages and suitcases in and out of Dalkamouni's apartment. The three men returned to Sweden where they and a fourth person by the name of Mohammed Abu Talb had their headquarters in Stockholm. Abu Talb, whose nom de guerre was Intiqam, roughly translated as "man who takes revenge," was a seasoned fighter. He had served in the Egyptian army, had undergone multiple training programs in the Soviet Union, and had served with the PLO in Lebanon. arrested soon after by the Swedish police.

Soon after returning to Stockholm, the West German police tipped off the Swedish police about the danger the four men posed, but by the time of their arrest, Abu Talb and the rest of the Swedish group had hidden any incriminating evidence and were soon released from police custody for lack of evidence. A Swedish police investigation in 1989 would later uncover a plane ticket in Abu Talb's apartment that showed that after his release in 1988, Abu Talb flew to Malta on November 19th. It was in Malta that he stopped to purchase a jumper, a tweed jacket, and an umbrella at a store called Mary's House.14,15

Unfortunately for Abu Talb his purchases had not gone unnoticed. After the bombing it would be deduced from the unusual brand name of the jumper that it had been purchased at Mary's House. When questioned in April of 1989, the store owner, Tony Gauci, remembered Abu Talb's purchases very clearly as Abu Talb had purchased a tweed jacket that Gauci had been trying to sell for 7 years. Gauci provided to police at the time a perfect description of Abu Talb despite it not being common knowledge that he was a suspect.16 [Emerson, 245] Gauci then repeatedly picked Abu Talb's picture out of a photo lineup (before being coaxed and pressured into picking a man named al-Megrahi as I will discuss more in my next post).17 Abu Talb then returned with the clothes to Sweden on November 26th.

From what can be pieced together the story picks back up in London at Heathrow airport, at 2pm on December 21st, 1988. It was at this time that a baggage handler named John Bedford and two other workers began loading luggage for Pan Am flight 103. The flight was scheduled to take off at 6pm and was destined for New York's JFK airport. Bedford began loading the luggage of transfer passengers upright into a large metallic container. At about a quarter after four as things began to slow he took a tea break. When he came back 30 minutes later his partner, Sulkash Kamboj, informed him that he had put two more suitcases into the container during his absence. Bedford looked into the container and saw two suitcases lying flat, not upright. "In a statement given to the police on 9th January 1989 he was able to describe it--'a brown hard-shell, the kind Samsonite make.'" This statement was made just three weeks after the bombing, at which time there was no indication that a brown Samsonite was the bomb suitcase.18
At 7:02pm, 38 minutes after take off, at an altitude of 31,000 feet, the bomb went off in the Samsonite creating a hole in the plane which caused it to disintegrate. Those on board were sucked out of the plane where they fell to their deaths, some still strapped in their seats. All 259 people aboard were killed, and falling wreckage killed an additional 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.

• 1. Lockerbie: What Really Happened? Al Jazeera English (AJE), 2014. Web.
• 2. Emerson, Steven, and Brian Duffy. The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation. New York, NY: Putnam, 1990. Print.
• 3. Kerr, Morag G. Adequately Explained by Stupidity?: Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies. Print.
• 4. Fisk, Robert. The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Fourth Estate, 2004. Print.
• 5. AJE.
• 6. Emerson, Steven, and Brian Duffy. The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation. New York, NY: Putnam, 1990. Print.
• 7. Emerson, 130
• 8. Emerson, 130
• 9. Emerson, 168-169
• 10. AJE
• 11. Wines, Michael. "Portrait of Pan Am Suspect: Affable Exile, Fiery Avenger." The New York Times. The New York Times, 1989.
• 12. Emerson
• 13. Emerson, 208
• 14. Wines, NYT
• 15. Emerson, 249
• 16. Emerson, 223
• 17. Kerr, 241-262 18. Kerr, 89-90

The cross-examination of Abu Talb

[What follows is the text of the report by Glasgow University’s Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit on the proceedings at Camp Zeist on this date in 2000. It can be accessed here:]

The Lockerbie trial continued today with the cross examination of Abu Talb. Talb who is mentioned in the special defence of incrimination which has been lodged by the two accused denied being involved with the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front since the end of 1982. He admitted that he is currently serving a prison sentence in relation to his conviction for bombing a Danish synagogue in 1985 but denied having committed the crime. He had denied any involvement in the Lockerbie disaster during his examination in chief on Friday.

Bill Taylor also asked Talb about terrorist activity by members of his family. Talb told the court that his sister-in-law had been killed while she carried out an assassination attempt in Israel. He said she may have been killed by the current Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, who was then a senior army officer. Talb described his sister-in-law as a martyr. He denied knowledge of Taylor's suggestion that his brother-in-law had carried detonators in the handle of a suitcase from Syria to Sweden.

The cross-examination continued with Richard Keen suggesting that Talb had collected a bomb from a house in Germany shortly before the Lockerbie disaster. Talb said this was a lie. Talb also denied spitting in the face of an investigator when he was visited in prison.  He said that as a Muslim he would not have done such a thing.  On September 28 Harold Hendershot, a special agent with the FBI was asked if Talb had spat in his face when he interviewed him in connection with the Lockerbie disaster. Hendershot said he did not remember this.

The afternoon proceedings came to an abrupt end when Talb was removed from the Court when he refused to answer Keen's questions. Keen had repeatedly asked questions regarding training received in the Soviet Union. He said Talb was a 'murderer and liar'. Talb was then removed from the Court. Keen told the judges that Talb was a professional terrorist. The court adjourned until tomorrow morning to allow the Judges to decide if they can compel Talb to answer Keen's questions.

[An account of Abu Talb’s first day in the witness box can be read here.]

Crown granted Abu Talb immunity from prosecution

[What follows is the report by Glasgow University’s Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit on proceedings at Camp Zeist on this date in 2000. It can be accessed here:]

Lord Sutherland today confirmed that Abu Talb had been granted immunity from prosecution in relation to the Lockerbie disaster. He said that this immunity did not mean that Talb did not require to answer questions put to him in court or that he could not be prosecuted from contempt of court if he continued to refuse to answer questions. [RB: Abu Talb must have been granted special immunity by the Lord Advocate. He was not called by the Crown as an accomplice of Megrahi and Fhimah, and so did not benefit from the general immunity accorded to prosecution witnesses called as socii criminis.]

Yesterday Richard Keen's cross-examination of Talb had to be suspended when he refused to answer questions. The Judges had to consider whether they could compel Talb to answer questions. They concluded yes.  Alistair Campbell told the court that the Judges had no effective sanction against Talb as he required to be returned to Sweden on the 18 November.

The cross examination by Keen continued with Talb eventually confirming that he was 'not innocent' in respect of the 1985 bombing in Copenhagen for which he is currently serving a life sentence. Talb continued to maintain his innocence in respect of the Lockerbie disaster. He denied sending his brother in Spring 1985 from Sweden to Syria, to learn to make bombs and said that he did not remember his brother returning in June 1985 with $5,000 and instructions that Talb was to bomb US and Jewish targets. He denied that his brother had smuggled 4 detonators in the handle of his case.

Talb had told the court that he had ceased association with the Popular Palestinian Struggle Front (PPSF) when he moved to Sweden in 1983. Talb said that no one had instructed him to carry out the Copenhagen bombing but Keen suggested he was merely unwilling to tell the Court who was implicated or responsible for the terrorist acts he was involved in. Talb answered "yes, because I did not know the person."

Talb denied returning to Malta in November 1988 and sending a radio cassette to a Post Office Box in Malta. The witness, who is named in the special defence of incrimination lodged by the two accused, will now be returned to the Swedish jail where he is serving a life sentence for murder.

Why was terrorist Talb cleared over Lockerbie?

[This is the headline over an article by Lucy Adams in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]

A convicted killer who many believe is the real Lockerbie bomber has been freed from prison in Sweden, prompting calls for a new investigation into Palestinian links to the atrocity.

Mohammed Abu Talb, who was serving a life sentence for other terror attacks in Copenhagen and Amsterdam using explosive devices, was the original suspect for the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 until 1990, when attention switched to Libya.

The Egyptian-born militant then served as a prosecution witness at the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, when he denied defence claims that he was the killer of the 270 people at Lockerbie in 1988.

However, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is understood to have uncovered new evidence that strengthens the case against Talb, who was allegedly funded by Iran to blow up the plane in revenge for the American cruiser USS Vincennes shooting an Iran Air flight out of the sky on July 3, 1988, killing 290 people.

On the first anniversary of Megrahi’s release yesterday, Swedish authorities confirmed publicly for the first time that Talb had been released from Malmo prison after serving 20 years.

Because his whereabouts is now unknown, and he is widely thought to have returned to the Middle East, campaigners who believe Megrahi has been unjustly treated are concerned that a key chance to interview Talb has been lost.

The Herald has previously revealed that Talb could be tried if Megrahi were to be formally cleared. An appeal against Megrahi’s conviction could still be mounted even after the death of the Libyan, who is terminally ill with prostate cancer.

Eddie MacKechnie, Megrahi’s solicitor from 2001-2006, said it was now time to refocus on what really happened, rather than obsessing about Megrahi’s early release. “There was more evidence at the time to implicate Talb and his associates than Megrahi,” he said. “I know that many police officers at the time were concerned that the investigation shifted to Libya when there was no evidence of Libyan involvement.

“The relatives deserve to know whether there has been a cover-up of any kind. We need to have a full and independent inquiry into what happened, and it needs to look at the Palestinian connection.”

Professor Robert Black, QC, the architect of the Lockerbie trial, said: “I support Mr MacKechnie 100%. Clearly the Palestinian connection deserves to be looked at and a full inquiry needs to be held.”

A leading CIA figure also called for the Palestinian connection to be reinvestigated. Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer assigned to the Middle East, told The Herald that an appeal or public inquiry was now needed. “I talked to the SCCRC and they were very clearly focussed on the Palestinians and the Iranian connection,” he said.

“There is no doubt that Abu Talb was an asset controlled by the Iranians and questions need to be asked about how he ended up as a prosecution witness. He was definitely not a reliable witness and what we need now is what the SCCRC report says, what intelligence there was, and what the connections were.”

The SCCRC report refers to the recovery of official records from various organisations in Italy. These are thought to relate to Talb, who travelled between Cyprus, Rome, Malta, and Frankfurt in the run-up to the bombing.

Evidence not heard at the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands has revealed that the CIA thought Talb was the man responsible, and that police found clothes, including a blue babygro similar to one found at Lockerbie, when they raided his flat in Germany.

Police also found a calendar with the date “21 December” circled. In addition, Talb’s wife was recorded in a wiretapped telephone call warning another unidentified Palestinian to “get rid of the clothes immediately”.

In May 1989, Talb was arrested in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. At Camp Zeist, defence counsel alleged the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, and the lesser-known Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, were responsible for the Lockerbie bombing. They said Talb was linked to both terrorist groups.

In his testimony, Talb told the court that he ended “all activities relating to Palestine at the end of 1982”. He was jailed along with three other men for the bombings in Denmark and the Netherlands, which killed one man and injured many others, but his life sentence was later commuted to 20 years.

[The release of Abu Talb from prison in Sweden was first reported on 18 October 2009 by Marcello Mega in an article in The Mail on Sunday.]

John Ashton advises circumspection over Operation Bird Lockerbie claims

[Following the flurry of interest engendered today by Exaro News’s disclosures, John Ashton advises circumspection in an article on his website Megrahi: You are my Jury entitled Operation Bird -- some words of caution.  It reads as follows:]

Today’s media contains a number of articles about an investigation codenamed Operation Bird, which was carried out by a firm called Forensic Investigative Associates, on behalf of Abdelbaset’s defence team prior to his first appeal. The main articles, by the excellent John Davison, are published by Exaro news, and can he read here and here. There are follow up pieces in the People and Sunday Mail. The subject was originally covered by the Mail on Sunday on 16 August 2009.

The reports of the Operation Bird investigation claim, in essence, that the Lockerbie bombing was planned by a terrorist coalition led by the PFLP-GC and was carried out by Mohamed Abu Talb. Anyone wishing to familiarise themselves with the detail can find a summary in chapter 16 of the SCCRC’s statement reasons, which can be read here. The SCCRC concluded that many of Operations Bird’s central claims were ‘incapable of being regarded as credible and reliable by a reasonable court.’ However, the commission made no serious effort to investigate them.

The Bird investigators – former New York district attorney Jessica de Grazia and former deputy head of Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Branch Philip Corbett –undoubtedly had a couple good sources within terrorist groups close to the PFLP-GC. The question is, were those sources telling the truth?

Their main claim, that Lockerbie was the work of the PFLP-GC and fellow travellers, including Hezbollah, is very likely true. However, some of their specific claims strike me as unlikely, while others, I believe, are probably invented.

Among the most important of the unlikely claims is that Mohamed Abu Talb travelled to London by on a merchant ship, arriving in the early hours of 21 December 1988 (the day of the bombing), and organised the placing of the bomb on PA103 at Heathrow. The main reason for my scepticism is that on 1 November, less than a week after the Autumn Leaves raids in Germany, Abu Talb was arrested by the Swedish police and questioned about his activities over the previous weeks. Although released the same day, both he and the PFLP-GC must have feared that he was being monitored and therefore could not risk taking a central role in the bombing operation.

Another unlikely claim is that the bomb contained an MST-13 timer that Hezbollah had obtained from the Russian mafia. OK, not so much unlikely as just plain bizarre.

According to the Bird reports, Abu Talb attended two key planning meetings in Malta, the first on 13 March 1988 and the second, crucial one on 20 October 1988. It is not disputed that Abu Talb was in Malta from 19 to 16 October, however, there is good reason to doubt the March trip. The sources alleged that he entered Malta on a stolen Swedish passport in the name of Fred Edwards. When they received this information, Abdelbaset’s defence team instructed Swedish lawyers to investigate the claim. They made inquiries with the Swedish authorities, who said that only four people called Frederic Evans and one called Freddie Evans had ever been registered in the country. Three of the five had never held a Swedish passport, the fourth emigrated in 1953 and his passport expired in 1963, and the fifth was only four at the time of Lockerbie, so had a child’s passport. The passport could, of course, have been forged, but it seems most unlikely that either the forgers or Abu Talb would have chosen such a suspiciously incongruous name.

The primary cause of my scepticism is the claim that the crucial meeting in Malta on 20 October was attended by the leader of the PFLP-GC’s German cell, Hafez Dalkamoni. Dalkamoni was closely monitored by the German federal police, the BKA, throughout most of October, however, as the Bird investigators noted, there seems to be a break in the surveillance from the evening of the 19th until 22October. BKA and Scottish police reports record that on 20 and 21 October he called the PFLP-GC’s bomb-maker Marwan Khreesat in Nuess and fellow group member Bassam Radi from unknown locations. Maybe, then, he was in Malta – or maybe not.

Dalkamoni was last observed by the BKA meeting Bassam Radi at 18.10 on 19 October at the railway station in Giessen. Giessen is close to Frankfurt, which is where he would need to be if he was flying to Malta. However, evidence buried in the translated BKA files suggests that he never left Frankfurt.  The files show that when the BKA searched his car they found a ticket dated 20 October 1988 for the Atelier X-Hot Maxi porn cinema in Frankfurt. It had the number 063336 printed on it. They showed the ticket to the cinema staff, who said that the number indicated that it had been issued between 10.30 and 14.00. That would, of course, leave him time to get to Malta, if there was a flight, however, the ABC world airlines timetable, which was a Crown production at trial, shows that the only direct flight on a Thursday (the 20th was a Thursday) departed at 09.00 and the only indirect one at 10.15 (arriving 14.55). A further reason to doubt the Bird account is that Khreesat told the FBI that Dalkamoni arrived back in Neuss on the late morning of 21 October. Khreesat was a German intelligence mole, so was hardly likely to cover up for Dalkamoni.

The Bird investigation’s sources reported that the bomb was flown from Cyprus to Heathrow by two of Abu Talb’s in-laws from the Moughrabi family, possibly the brothers Ahmed and Mohamed. As was revealed at Abdelbaset’s trial, four people called Moughrabi flew from Cyprus to London on 21 December on Cyprus Airlines flight CY1634. Could they have included the brothers? No, because the flight manifest shows that two of them were women and the other two children.

Detail aside, there is another, more important, reason to treat the Bird claims with caution. Terrorist sources are, by their nature very tricky: anyone who is prepared to take up armed struggle for their cause is unlikely to have qualms about telling a few fibs to investigators in order to serve their ideological or personal agendas. (The personal agendas might include self enrichment. One of the Bird reports states that one of the sources, codenamed Ivan, had been paid as an “operative to develop critical intelligence.” The report does not specify who made the payment.)

Why should we trust the claims of the Bird sources any more than we should trust those of Mobdi Goben, Tunayb, Atef Abu Bakr and any other former terrorists who claim to have inside knowledge of the bombing? The answer is that we shouldn’t, especially as their accounts contain numerous factual conflicts.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the Bird sources were engaged in a classic disinformation exercise: telling a story that was, essentially true, but lacing it with facts that were demonstrably false in order to discredit the whole story. It wouldn’t be the first time that investigators had been led into a wilderness of mirrors.