A commentary on the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the murder of 270 people in the Pan Am 103 disaster.
Friday 17 June 2016
Flagrantly distorted picture put forward in Camp Zeist
Wednesday 22 June 2016
The dodgy timer fragment
“In his affidavit Mr [Ulrich] Lumpert implicitly admits having committed perjury as witness No. 550 before the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. He states (para 2) that he has stolen a handmade (by him) sample of an ‘MST-13 Timer PC-board’ from MEBO company in Zurich and handed it over, on 22 June 1989, to an ‘official person investigating the Lockerbie case.’ He further states (in para 5) that the fragment of the MST-13 timer, cut into two pieces for ‘supposedly forensic reasons,’ which was presented in Court as vital part of evidence, stemmed from the piece which he had stolen and handed over to an investigator in 1989.”
From The Lumpert Affidavit, posted on this blog on 29 August 2007.
22 June 1990:
“When interviewed for a Dutch TV documentary in 2009 [Richard Marquise] insisted that PT35b had never been taken to the US. This claim was echoed by the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, and by [Scottish Senior Investigating Officer Stuart] Henderson. Henderson then amended his position, saying that the fragment had never been in ‘the control’ of the US investigators. He had chosen his words carefully, because the truth, as he must have known, was that PT35b was taken to the FBI forensic lab in Washington DC on 22 June 1990, in order to compare it with the MST-13 timer held by the FBI’s Tom Thurman; indeed, Henderson was one of the officers who took it there. It was strange that this fact could have slipped the minds of both the head of the FBI investigation and the chief prosecutor responsible for the Lockerbie indictments.
“The Washington visit was crucial, as it enabled Allen Feraday and the Scottish police to confirm that PT35b matched the MST-13 timer…”
From John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury, pp 165,66.
Further details can be found on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer’s PT35B website, particularly The Chronology of PT/35(b): 22 June 1990.
Friday 22 July 2016
The Lockerbie secret doc: Khreesat and the Swiss
Monday 24 April 2017
Can you believe it?
Wednesday 3 November 2021
Lockerbie, Bushnaq, Iran
[This is the headline over a blog by Dov Ivry that was published yesterday evening on the website of The Times of Israel. It reads as follows:]
The takedown of Pan Am 103 at Lockerbie, Scotland was a catastrophe that the US intelligence community could see coming for half a year and no one took the necessary steps to prevent it.
There were 270 people who died in that crash Dec 21, 1988.
On July 3 1988, during a war between Iran and Iraq, a US warship, the Vincennes, sailing in the war zone, shot down an Iranian passenger plane killing all 290 aboard. It should not have happened. It was an unfortunate mistake.
Khomeini, the Iranian leader, immediately issued Iran’s response, which had the force of a binding religious edict, “an eye for an eye.”
Ali Mohtashemipur, the Iranian interior minister, offered $10 million to arch terrorist Ahmed Jibril, head of the PFLP-GC, to blow up an American passenger plane.
Israel knew Mohtashemipur well. He founded Hezbollah in 1982. One of their first major acts was to level the Israeli military headquarters at Tyre killing 91. Yitzhak Shamir, when he came into office, ordered the Mossad to kill him. They send him a holy book, it exploded and stripped away an arm, but he survived. And here he was again.
From the time the Iranians invited Jibril to a meeting July 8 in Teheran until the end, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), a monitoring agency for the US intelligence community, was reporting what the Iranians and Jibril were discussing, the names of the people at their meetings, the complete package, as it happened.
These reports were not released to the public for years, but they demonstrate that anyone who read them was never in the dark. It was like watching a gang preparing a major bank robbery step-by-step.
One example. Rashid Mehmet, a Turkish engineer and Hezbollah member, who worked at the Frankfurt airport in conjunction with two other Turks, attended planning meetings. Those three put the bomb on the plane. The day the plane went down Mehmet flew to Cyprus to make his getaway and was congratulated by the Iranian chargé d’affaires there for having “performed his mission.”
Those Turks were never arrested. James Shaughnessy, lawyer for Pam Am, asked why none of the numerous Turks who worked at Frankfurt airport were investigated. It appears that no one ever read the FBIS reports even after the fact.
The conspirators also announced with the sound of trumpets the day that they decided to act, Dec 15. There was a big pow-wow in Beirut under the cover of a celebration of the Palestinian cause, where they concluded the meeting by saying the “ordained revenge for America” is nigh.
Here were the consequences. Khaled Jaafar, an affluent 20-year-old from Beirut whose father lived in Dearborn, Mich, and he had American citizenship, was tasked with transporting the bomb to the plane. He had been living with a PLPF-GC cell in Dortmund since Nov 8 awaiting the call, but on Dec 14 he booked a flight to Detroit to go home for the holidays.
The next day a Hezbollah operative living in that house with him, Naim Ghannam, got a call from Beirut and he would change Jaafar’s booking to another plane going to Detroit, Pam Am 103. They did it through a travel agent in Dearborn, who also seems to have been a member of Hezbollah.
The FBIS report says that they chose Pan Am 103 after the Iranian embassy in Beirut confirmed that five CIA agents were on that plane. Other sources say they were tipped off by what is described as a “double agent.” He apparently lived in Beirut, his identity was known, and he was never apprehended either.
Jaafar was an experienced world traveller, with never any issues in flying, but in Frankfurt he knew he was about to die. Yasmin Siddique, the woman behind him in line, who would get off the plane at London, could not take her eyes off him. He was having a nervous breakdown right before her eyes.
None of the several people at the Dortmund cell were arrested although the owner of the house was brought to the show trial of the Libyan al-Megrahi, served up as a scapegoat, to testify for what that was worth. The travel agent’s connection to terrorists was exposed by Debbie Schlussel, a nationally known journalist who lives in Michigan. He was never questioned about his role in enabling the Pan Am attack.
The PFLP-GC at that point in time was a large and far-flung organization with bomb makers and activists throughout Europe including Germany, Sweden, and Yugoslavia, as well as the Middle East and Asia, and they were killing Americans in Europe as well as Israelis here. This was the Cold War and those in Yugoslavia especially were given free rein to do whatever they wanted
The PFLP-GC boss in Germany was Dalkamoni. Israel knew him well. Years before he came into the Galilee carrying a bomb to blow up a power plant, it exploded prematurely and took off a leg. He spent 10 years in prison in Israel before released in a prisoner exchange. In October the Mossad notified German intelligence that the PLFP-GC was up to something and they arrested Dalkamoni and 15 others in a roundup called the Autumn Leaves. Dalkamoni was the main planner at that point, but the PLFP-GC did not miss a beat.
The US investigation got off to a rousing start. Within six months Dan Rather was reporting coast-to-coast that the planner for the Pan-Am attack was named Dalkamoni and the plane was brought down by the PLFP-GC.
What happened? Tom Thurman happened. He was a fraudster posing as an explosives expert in the FBI. He would be banned by an inspector-general in 1997 from giving expert testimony having being found to have no scientific background, just made stuff up. But in 1990 he went into attorney-general Bill Barr’s office and fingered Libyans. For the next 30 years the investigation turned into a reprise of the Keystone Kops running hither and yon nabbing Libyans, who had nothing to do with anything.
Here’s what actually happened. Jibril turned over the implementation to his nephew Basel Bushnaq, 25, head of his military. That position Jibril liked to keep in the family. In 2002 his son Jihad was head of his military and Israel assassinated him.
The Syrian-born Bushnaq was also an American citizen, expert in both airport security and bomb making. Both the CIA and the PLO, which also did an investigation — anything to embarrass their bitter rival — named Bushnaq as the bomb maker. He purchased the detonator on the Beirut black market for $60,000.
He went by the name of Abu Elias. The CIA went looking for him under than name and could not find him. Bushnaq is an ethnic Bosnian. The word “Bushnaq” means Bosnian.
The FBI and Scotland Yard interrogated him under his American name Basel Bushnaq. They asked for him for his Syrian passport. He said he had misplaced it. You would too if the name there was Abu Elias or perhaps Khaisar Haddad, another moniker he sometimes used.
We know that Abu Elias is Basel Bushnaq because five former associates of Jibril told that to the defence team of the Libyan scapegoat al-Megrahi in 2000.
Here is the situation today. Bushnaq murdered 190 Americans. That’s the record for an American killing Americans exceeding Timothy McVeigh’s 168. He is still walking free.
It will take a call to arms to get this guy under lock and key. But it’s not too late.
I’ve got a book out on this called Lockerbie, Bushnaq, Iran. The digital is at Kindle. The paperback is at Sweek.
Thursday 22 September 2016
Pan Am 103 case: A study in propaganda service
Friday 18 September 2009
Marquise's response to Peirce
The recent piece written by Gareth Peirce entitled “The Framing of al – Megrahi” had numerous errors of fact and the record needs to be corrected. I will ask her these questions-- How many days of the trial did you attend? How many trial transcripts have you read? What do you know—first hand—about the investigation? I think I know the answer to those questions. If I am right, her credibility should be in doubt. There has been so much misinformation published about the Lockerbie case over the past several years. It is time individuals get information from real sources rather than the internet and bloggers. If one of these people who call themselves historians, architects, observers and experts would spend some time with those of us who were there and know the facts, I think a different record develop.
I found I only agreed with Ms. Peirce on one topic. The release of Mr. Megrahi was based on greed—the wishes of officials in the United Kingdom to access Libyan oil and business ventures. My own Government is no better. In 2004, when Gaddafi “accepted responsibility for the actions of his agents,” the United States allowed that to stand as his formal admission of guilt for the Lockerbie attack. It should be noted that he told a reporter, “off the record,” as far back as 1993 that his government was involved in the plot to blow up Pan Am Flight 103. Unfortunately, this “real” admission has received little publicity.
The rest of Ms. Peirce’s lengthy article had so many errors of fact that I will try and address them in “bullet” form to make it easier to follow:
• Ms. Peirce says the investigation should have been conducted by Scottish police alone without interference from other agencies or countries. Clearly she lacks a basic understanding of the world. There is no way the police in Scotland could or should have carried out the investigation alone. We live (and did in 1988) in a global society. Good police and intelligence relationships are key if we are to protect our society from those who would do us harm. These relationships were not as advanced in 1988 resulting in many missteps but we worked through the process of understanding the nuances of each system. This case would not have been solved without the FBI, Scottish police and officers from Germany, Malta, Sweden, Switzerland and England working together, as a team. No one agency could have done it alone.
• Ms. Peirce indicates this investigation should have been conducted with “utter integrity.” I and my colleagues take great exception to this slander. The investigation was conducted with integrity and we only followed the facts and presented them to a court which found Mr. Megrahi guilty.
• There is discussion of unauthorized people (FBI and CIA) at the crime scene in Scotland. This scene which would encompass over 1400 square kilometers could not effectively be secured and police had to constantly tell local citizens not to pick up debris. However, although much has been reported, not one “confirmed” sighting of an American walking unattended has ever been documented (see trial transcripts). The Americans who would eventually come to the site were those who were helping identify bodies and if one went into the field, they were accompanied by a police officer. To believe that both the CIA and FBI had the bureaucratic ability to send large numbers of people to the scene immediately and then to spirit away luggage (assuming one knew where to look in this massive crime scene) is just incomprehensible. Yes, and then there were the helicopters…..also unbelievable.
• There is much discussion about the “original” suspects—the PFLP-GC. Based on available public source information at the time, they indeed were our original suspects. This suspicion was enhanced when a piece of circuit board of a Toshiba radio was found at the crash site. PFLP-GC terrorists had used a similar (but not the same) brand of radio before. However, although this avenue was pursued for over two years, no evidence of any PFLP-GC involvement was ever found. The key word is evidence and I believe Ms. Peirce, as an attorney, knows, that is what one needs to have a court reach a finding of guilty.
• Although not said specifically, it is implied that the shopkeeper in Malta who sold clothing which had been found in the wreckage (by very capable Scottish officers) identified Abu Talb, a Palestinian terrorist living in Sweden, as the purchaser of the clothing. This is just not true. This shopkeeper only identified one photograph in a police photo array—Mr. Megrahi—in February 1991. When the shopkeeper was interviewed in 1989 he had said the purchaser had a “Libyan accent.”
• Ms. Peirce may recall that although Iran and the PFLP-GC were our original suspects and the media reported as much in early 1989, an (at the time) unidentified individual walked into the US Embassy in Austria (January 1989) and left a message for the Ambassador. In it he said that Libya was responsible for the bombing. His note said he had been in Tripoli in December 1988 and believed that if he could believe what he was reading in the press—we were focused on Iran and Palestinians—then we were wrong and investigators should look at Libya. This man would be identified nearly two years later as Edwin Bollier, the man whose company built the timer which was part of the bomb.
• The investigation would prove that only 20 of these timers had ever been made and all had been delivered to Libyan intelligence officials. A statement made nearly 20 years later by Ulrich Lumpert, a technician who worked for Bollier that he had stolen one of the circuit boards from his company and made it available to “someone who was investigating the Lockerbie case” in 1989, has no credibility. No one associated with the Lockerbie investigation had ever heard of the MEBO Company in 1989. We did not find them until late 1990. Bollier and Lumpert each testified in 1990 that they only purchased a small number of the circuit boards and made 20 or 21 timers. When the Libyans came looking for additional timers in December 1988, Bollier had none. Bollier now says he was offered $4 million to link Libya to the attack. That is not true because by the time he alleges this happened he had already linked Libya to his timers at a magistrate hearing in Switzerland. Lumpert and Bollier’s change of heart became clear in 2008. Bollier said on a BBC special he hoped to get up to $200 million from Libya if he helped free Megrahi. Lumpert, before he filed an affidavit stating he had lied at the trial made it clear that he had sought legal advice and determined he could not be prosecuted for these earlier “false statements.”
• One remark (actually interspersed throughout the piece) stated that the CIA took control of the investigation. When I shared that with my colleagues in Scotland, they were amused because somehow, no one had ever relayed that message to them. The Scottish police were always in charge. Yes, we negotiated and often disagreed about what we would do next, but the FBI and Scottish police worked together, neither side forgetting where the crime scene was and who had “primary” jurisdiction. At no time was the CIA (or any intelligence service) “in charge” of the investigation. They supported the police in Scotland, just as the FBI and the other police agencies around the world did. Vincent Cannistraro did retire in 1990—before the EVIDENCE led us to Libya and he did not come back. In fact, if you speak with any police officer in Scotland, I doubt any of them ever met him and I only recall him being at one meeting involving this case. It was not in a leadership capacity.
• A number of assertions were made about the type of timer which was used at Lockerbie. We had initially assumed it was a barometric timer favored by the PFLP-GC. This timer would have exploded after reaching an altitude above 15000 feet. The timing mechanism was erratic (based on examination of similar devices found in Germany) and could have exploded from 1 minute and as long as an hour after being triggered, if it exploded at all. We believed the timer used as part of the bomb was one manufactured by MEBO and given to Libyan officials.
• Ms. Peirce’s attack on the FBI laboratory had more erroneous information. Tom Thurman was not barred from the FBI laboratory and was used as an expert witness after the IG report was written; however, I have no intention of using this forum to do what I consider a needless defense of him. The issue is the FBI lab. The identification of the fragment which led to the MEBO timer was done by Mr. Thurman based on a photograph. As an investigator—something most lab examiners are not—he was able to figure out where to go to look for a possible match to the fragment recovered by Scottish police officers. Once he identified the fragment, he asked Alan Feraday to come to Washington. Feraday brought the original fragment of the timer with him and they both examined it under a microscope. They independently agreed it was identical to the MEBO timer. The fragment was never out of the control of Mr. Feraday and returned with him to the lab at RARDE.
• I am not an attorney and have no idea what Hans Kochler saw at the trial which caused him to doubt the verdict. I do know he is neither a policeman nor is he an attorney. The case which was presented was circumstantial and these cases are often more reliable than those having eyewitness identification
I have only addressed part of Ms. Peirce’s concerns. However, for all of these “circumstances” to have been true as accepted by the three original trial judges, the overall case must have been credible. In order for it all to be wrong, there would have to have been a conspiracy of the grandest order and I will state without hesitation—that is false! Wrong! To somehow believe that dedicated law enforcement officers would somehow take world politics (US-UK intervention in Kuwait) to make a case against an innocent party does not know what makes us who we are. We followed the evidence. To state or even imply otherwise is an insult to all of us who only sought a righteous solution and justice for the victims.