Libya and Pan Am flight Lockerbie

[Peter Lemkin]

If it wasn't for the fact that no human being deserves the fate of Gaddafi I would say Blair deserves the same fate. How much blood is on that mans hands. All the hail marys in the world will not save his soul.

Ah, but he was (and still is) a great 'con man'....with such a winning smile, manner and voice. W wouldn't have been able to do as much harm as he did had he not had the 'cover' of the better spoken, more professional 'looking', seemingly more 'moral' Tony Bliar behind his every move. However, Lockerbie and the release of the Libyan patsy for a lucrative arms deal, seems to have been Blair on his own.

[Jan Klimkowski]

An earlier discovery by the Sunday Telegraph shows, in letters and emails, that Blair held hitherto undisclosed talks with the Colonel in April 2009, four months before al-Megrahi's release. (iii)
Again he was flown at the expense of the Colonel, in his private jet: "In both 2008 and 2009, documents show Mr Blair negotiated to fly to the Libyan capitol … in a jet provided by Quaddafi." Blair's Office denies the claims, saying they were transported in a Libyan government plane.

Maybe Russbacher was the pilot.

Oh sorry, No, he'd been locked away in an Austrian psychiatric hospital by then.........

[Peter Lemkin]

The false Imprisonment of Susan Lindauer


SusanLindauer was a liberal, activitist who worked and protested against the ten years of sanctions on Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991. Because of these sanctions, Iraq could not import medical supplies, food, and other stuff and as a result, [B]some million Iraqis, mostly children and older people, died because the US wanted to punish Saddam Hussan, but these sanctions only hurt the Iraqi people. [/B]

[B]An alleged US government intelligence agency talked Susan Lindauer into volunteering to work for them. I say alleged because all it takes is money and anyone can claim they are CIA or DIA and convince someone to work as an agent or confidential informant. In fact in the past rich Americans and/or US corporations have been doing covert operation in support of their foreign policy objectives.[/B]

[B]Inlate August 1993, Susan Lindauer got a phone call from [B]Mrs. Pat Wait. Wait was chief of staff to Congresswoman Helen Bentley, R-MD and she invited Susan Lindauer to lunch. Without first informing Lindauer, Pat Wait had invited [B]Paul A. Hoven as well. Wait told Lindaurer that Hoven works for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). This was the only confirmation Lindauer ever got about Hoven was working for the DIA. Paul Hoven's name was mentioned in the book Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades (1994) by David Corn, noting Hoven had connections to the CIA in the past in Laos during the Vietnam war. [/B][/B][/B]

[B][B]Lindauer states that after several meetings with PaulHoven and another alleged former CIA officer, [B]Dr. Richard C. Fuisz. Both Hove and Fuisz told her theywere working for DIA. [/B][/B][/B]

[B][B]Theonly other proof Lindauer had that Dr. Fuisz was a US government intelligence officer was the fact that a court had issue a permanent gagging order on him in 1994 during legal proceedings about illegal exports of military equipment to Iraq. Allegedly Fuisz played a central role in the 1992 Congressional investigation of a US corporation that supplied SCUD mobile missile launchers to Iraq before the first Gulf War.[/B][/B]

[B][B]The gag order claims that the information held by Fuisz is vital to the"nation's security or diplomatic relations" and cannot be revealed "no matter how compelling the need for, and relevance of, the information." Details of Fuisz's gagging have been passed to the United Nations, including UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Russia's UN ambassador Sergey Lavrov and the Libyan UN ambassador, as well as representatives of France and China. One senior UN diplomat said: "In the interests of natural *justice, Dr Fuisz should be *released from any order which prevents him telling what he knows of the Pan Am bombing." [/B][/B]

[B][B]Lindauer agreed to work with them as a back channel to Libya, and in May 1995 Lindauer was tasked to go to the Libyan Embassy in New York to make friends with them. An issue of concern was the Pan AM 103 crash in Lockerie, Scotland in1988 allegedly carried out by Libya. She told them up front that she was acting as a back channel for a US intelligence agency. [/B][/B]

[B][B] I don't know if she was paid during the eight or nine years she says she work for or with DIA (1994 to 2003). Susan Lindauer worked as a journalist and congressional staff member for various Congress people. I don't know what work she did from about 1994 to the day she was arrested or when she was out on bail. [/B][/B]

[B][B] It should be noted that DIA is not authorized to run agents (or assets) inside the US. Only the FBI can lawfully to that. But that is a side issue that needs some investigation by Congress. [/B][/B]

[B][B]In [B]August 1996 Lindauer began working as an alleged US back channel to Iraq and so she just showed up at their Embassy and/or their UN office. She also told them up front that she was speaking for a US government intelligence agency and wanted to end the sanctions against Iraq that had killed over a million Iraqis due to the lack of medical supplies, food, and other things they need to import. [/B][/B][/B]

[B][B]Hoven and Fuisz most likely recruited Lindauer because of her political activism against the sanctions would help them build trust with the Iraqis. Lindauer says she drove from her Takoma Park, Maryland home to New York about every three weeks and met these Libyans and Iraqis over150 times. She alleges she met with Hoven and Fuisz 700 to 800 times. They allegedly tasked her about what to discuss with the Libyans and Iraqis and she reported what these diplomats told her.[/B][/B]

[B][B]On March 11, 2004, Lindauer was arrested after a grand jury indictment on charges under the PATRIOT Act of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The indictment alleged that she accepted $10,000 from the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 2002. Lindauer denied receiving the money, but confirmed taking a trip to Baghdad. The real secret charges were based on secret evidence. She was freed on $500,000 bond.[/B][/B]

[B][B]An Assistant US Attorney told Federal Judge Susan Gauvey that a family member had told Pre-Trial Services that Lindauer had threatened suicide several weeks before her arrest. [/B][/B]



[B][B] So the judge had no objection to her release, but they wanted her to undergo a psychological evaluation. A Baltimore forensic psychiatrist Dr. Roskes, stated Lindauer was not suicidal and was her cognition was grossly intact. This means she could understand and was competent to stand trial. [/B][/B]



[B][B]A second psychological evaluation was done two days later by [B]Dr. John S.Kennedy, MD a psychiatrist at the Family Health Service in Hyattsville, MD. He prescribed psych medication because Lindauer was having panic attacks from the stress of her arrest and past work for the US government. She took this off and on for the next 18 months. [/B][/B][/B]

[B][B]Dr. Kennedy said he never faced such political pressure to deliver a negative evaluation on any defendant in his whole career anxious to impress him about her need for psychiatric intervention. Dr. Kennedy recommended weekly counseling for 4 to 12 weeks and Lindauer agreed to this condition of her release on bail.[/B][/B]

[B][B]On March 13, 2004 Dr Kennedy concluded that her:[/B][/B]

[B][B]"… thought content was free of hallucinations,delusions, homicidality, or suicidality. She expressed confidence in anacquittal. Judgment and insight were fair. Cognition was grossly intact. … I don't not believe there are grounds for a psychosis diagnosis." [/B][/B]



[B][B]"There is a consistent pattern of assessed psychological stability in every single monthly summary. A frequent theme is expressed over time is that Lindauer, "appears to maintain psychological stability and shows no signor symptom of mania or psychosis." Her treatment was concluded on April 7, 2005 with the note, "So far she has shown no signs of mania or depression and any symptoms of psychosis that would require additional intervention."[/B][/B]





[B][B]Lindauer attended psychological counseling from May 2004 to March 2005 with Dr. (Bruke?) Tadesse (orTaddesseh) a psychologist at the Family Health Center in Gaitherburg and Spencerville, MD. He stated after this counseling Lindauer, that she " showed no sign of mania or depression, nor symptom of any psychosis that may require additional intervention." Translated, she was not incompetent to stand trial. [/B][/B]



[B][B]At the instance of Lindauer's court appointed defense attorney, she volunteered to another psych evaluation on January 18, 2005 by [B]Sanford L. Drob, a psychologist and he issued a report declaring her incometent to stand trial. Drob stated something to the affect/effect that Susan Lindauer was delusional because she insists that she was working DIA and she refused follower her defense attorney's advice to pursue a defense of mental illness.[/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B]With the backing of Assistant US Attorney [B]Ed O'Callaghan, US District Court Judge Michael B. Mukasey ordered Lindauer to be jailed in at the Carswell Federal Mental Health Hospital near Fort Worth, TX for four months until February 3, 2006. Lindauer ended up staying seven months at Carswell. [/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B]Carswll[B] Dr. James Shadduck, a forensic psychologist established from observations that Lindauer was not suffering hallucinations, depression, hysteria, was not threatening violence toward herself or others. All the staff notes in her 120 days at Carswell were positive with every monthly report declaring that she "socialized well." showed "good intelligence functioning," and had good physical health and there was no "delusional disorder." [/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]The several Carswell psychiatrists ended up telling Judge Mukasey that Lindauer should be [B]detained indefinitely. That it might take a couple years or itmight take 10 years. Lindauer was later transferred to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, New York City, and after being jailed for eleven months she was released. Judge Mukasey questioned whether Lindauer's actions rose to the level of criminal activity at all, and he doubted the Assistant US Attorney was serious about trying her case. [/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]In June (unknown year) Federal Judge Preska was forced to grant Lindauer's request for a hearing to challenge the finding of incompetence to stand trial. At this hearing an investigative journalist Kelly O'Meara testified that she had known Paul Hoven for more than 20 years and they were very close friends. Hoven had previously lied tothe FBI in saying that he had only met O'Merra once or twice at dinner parties. O'Meara when asked about his statement,she said he was lying. O'Meara stated Hoven worked for US intelligence for years and that Hoven talked about Lindauer"all the time." O'Meara stated she knew Lindauer for many, many years and she did not consider Lindauer mentally unstable.[/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]Also at the hearing Parke Godfrey, associate professor of computer science at York University in Toronto, testified that he was a close friend of Ms. Lindauer since 1990. He visited Lindauer's home and spoke with him several times a week. He swore that henever observed any signs of mental illness or instability in all those years. He testified that Lindauer had warned him in late 2000 of a terrorist attack at the World Trade Center and to stay away fromthe southern part of New York City (Manhattan). And Lindauer's warnings became more emphatic and explicit in the spring and summer of 2001 and this attack would involve airplane hijacking and/or airplane bombs. In August 2001, she said the attack was imminent. He said Lindauer told him that she was meeting with consulate folks with different Middle East countries. Godfrey said he had told the FBI special agent Suzan LeTourneau about her warnings in September 2004. Godfrey said he never observed mental instability or illness in her behavior, she "is now, and always was competent to stand trial."[/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]On January 16, 2009, the US Justice Department decided to not continue with the prosecution saying"prosecuting Lindauer would no longer be in the interests of justice."[/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B][SUP]------------------------------------------[/SUP][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]The following people were willing to testify if and when Susan Lindauer case went to trial acting as an unregistered agent of Iraq.[/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B][B]Ian Ferguson, a former Scottish journalist and co-author of Cover Up ofConvenience: the Hidden Scandal of Lockerie. Ferguson served as Chief Criminal investigator vouched for the connection of Dr. Fuisz and Paul Hoven and Susan Lindauer's close working relationships. Ferguson's sources told him that Hoven was working as a liaison to the Defense Intelligence Agency on the Lockerie case. [/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]Scottish solicitor [B]Edward MacKechnie had confirmed that Dr. Fuisz was connected with US intelligence, noting that Fuisz's central role in the 1992 Congressional investigation of a US corporation that supplied SCUD mobile missile launchers to Iraq before the first Gulf War.[/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]Susan Lindauer's long time boyfriend, [B]JF Fields, a veteran with six years of service in Navy intelligence with a top secret security clearance, a computer technician Takoma Park, Maryland.[/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]The FBI had transcripts from wire taps 28,000 of Lindauer's phone calls, they had copies of 8,000 of her emails, and hundreds of copies of faxes to or from her. [/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]In mid-2002, Susan Lindauer told the staffs of US Sen. Carl Levin, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Sen. Wellstone, US Rep. Elijah Cummings, Rep. Connie Morella, and Rep. Jane Harman. These Congressional staff member should be called to confirm that Lindauer told them. That she told them about peace offers Iraq was making to prevent a US invasion, that Iraq hated Al Qaeda and/or extremist Muslims, that Iraq invited the FBI to come to Iraq in investigation terrorist and even allowed the FBI to arrest them, that wanted the UN inspector to inspect for WMDs, and that Iraq had warned the US about the attack on the USS Cole ten days before it happened. [/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]Accordingt o US intelligence sources, Dr. Fuisz was the CIA's key operative in the Syrian capital Damascus during the 1980s where he also had business interests. [/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]United Nations diplomats were outraged that the US government is apparently suppressing a potential key trial witness in Lindauer's case. [/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]The following diplomats may still be alive and willing to testify on her behalf. [/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]Rani Ismail Hadi Ali: Malayian diplomat[/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]Dr. Saeed Hasan: Iraq's UN Ambassador Nov.2002 [/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]Hasmy Agam: UN Ambassador for Malaysia[/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B]Salih Mahmoud: Iraqi diplomat[/B][/B][/B][/B]





[B][B][B][B][B]Conclusion: Susan Lindauer was denied her Constitutional rights to a speedy jury trial. She was indicted on March 11, 2004 and jailed from Oct. 2005 until Sept.2006, at total of some two and a half years. All total she was under indictment for four years and some eleven months. [/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B][B]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B][B]The [B]Sixth Amendment ([B]AmendmentVI) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. The Supreme Court has applied the protections of this amendment to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B][B][B]Criminal defendants have the right to a speedy trial. In Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S.514(1972), the Supreme Court laid down a four-part case-by-case balancing test for determining whether the defendant's speedy trial right has been violated. The four factors are:[/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B][B][B]Length of delay: A delay [B]of a year or more from the date on which the speedy trial right "attaches"(the date of arrest or indictment, whichever first occurs) wastermed "presumptively prejudicial," but the Court has never explicitly ruled that any absolute time limit applies.[/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B][B][B]And a criminal defendant has the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him and confront his accusers in court.[/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][B][B][B][B]She has grounds to sue the US government on the grounds that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional because she was charge in a secret indictment using secret evidence.

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SomeU...topics/697[/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[Magda Hassan]

Exaro has an interesting piece on how the Lockerbie enquiry was moved off course.

http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5163/l...estigators

[David Guyatt]

Egyptian is the prime suspect for Lockerbie bombing'

1 /

Mohammed Abu Talb was blamed for the bombing in the investigators' 2002 report

IAN JOHNSTON

Sunday 15 December 2013

An Egyptian terrorist should be considered as a prime suspect in the Lockerbie bombing, according to a report by two leading investigators.

Evidence used to convict Libyan agent Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was faked and police may have been misled by a member of the US secret services, the investigators allege. Their report instead blames Mohammed Abu Talb, a terrorist with links to Palestinian militant groups who is currently living in Sweden after serving a prison sentence for bombings in Europe.
Megrahi was given a life sentence for the bombing in 2001. He was released eight years later by the Scottish Government on compassionate grounds as he had terminal cancer, and died last year.
The "Operation Bird" report by Jessica de Grazia, former chief assistant district attorney in New York, and Philip Corbett, a former police officer and ex-security advisor to the Bank of England concluded Talb had bribed a worker at Heathrow to smuggle the suitcase containing the bomb onto the flight.
The report also said a key piece of the evidence part of a circuit board allegedly used in the bomb's timer was faked and a shirt in which it was supposedly found had been tampered with.
Ms de Grazia and Mr Corbett were commissioned to look into the case by Megrahi's defence team while it was working on his second appeal, dropped after his release.
Their report, which was written in 2002 but never published, suggested police were "directed off course" and that this was "most likely" done by a senior official in the CIA.
"We have never seen a criminal investigation in which there has been such a consistent disregard of an alternative and far more persuasive theory of the case," it added.
Talb was jailed for life in Sweden after being convicted of carrying out terrorist bombings in 1985 in Copenhagen, Denmark and Amsterdam, Holland. He did not respond to a request for comment from Al-Jazeera television.
Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora was a passenger on the plane, said Talb was "a life-long, proven terrorist".
"I believe he played a crucial part in causing the Lockerbie disaster," Dr Swire told Exaro, an investigative news website. "My elected government actively prevented me from obtaining my human rights to know why my daughter's life was not protected, and who it was who killed her."
Former MP Tam Dalyell, who helped enlist Nelson Mandela to negotiate the deal that saw Libya surrender Megrahi for trial, told The Independent that Megrahi was an innocent man used as a "sanctions buster" for Libya.
"I was amazed they didn't point the finger at Talb and condemned Megrahi. I was astonished at the outcome," he said.
John Ashton, co-author of Cover-Up of Convenience: The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie, wrote on his blog that the Operation Bird report's claim that Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Council and "fellow travellers, including Hezbollah" carried out the bombing was "likely true".
But he doubted Talb was the bomber, because he had recently been arrested then released by Swedish police and so would have suspected he was being followed.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said Megrahi's relatives could ask for a posthumous appeal, "which Ministers would be entirely comfortable with".

.

[David Guyatt]

I remember watching a late night TV programme that included former Conservative MP and an Iranian politician mullah (can't remember now, but may have been the then prime minister of Iran?), wherein the Iranian openly admitted ordering and paying for a strike against an American aircraft (Pan Am 103) in retaliation against the US Vincennes shooting down of an Iranian airliner.

The fact that the US knowingly transferred blame away from Iran and to Libya still needs a fuller explanation. Why? What had they to gain in doing this?

Revealed: US 'knew of other Lockerbie suspects'

On anniversary of bombing, fresh evidence emerges that Palestinian group was responsible

JAMES CUSICK

POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Friday 20 December 2013



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Previously undisclosed evidence held by the US intelligence authorities backs up long-held suspicions that a Palestinian militant group, rather than a single Libyan national, masterminded the Lockerbie bombing, according to a new investigation broadcast by Channel 4.

On the 25th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which led to the deaths of 270 people, a specially commissioned report by Channel 4 News claims that a CIA agent, Dr Richard Fuisz, was given detailed information from within US intelligence and from 15 high-ranking Syrian officials in the immediate years after the December 1988 bombing.
The Syrians revealed to him that they had been in "constant" contact with Ahmed Jabril, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), over a five year period shortly after the Lockerbie bombing and regarded the group as being behind the bombing.
The CIA briefing to Dr Fuisz, in the months after bombing, also claimed the PFLP-GC, then based in Syria, had organised the mid-air destruction of the Pan Am jet.
A Libyan, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was convicted in 2001 of mass murder in a unique trial before Scottish judges which saw "neutral" territory in the Netherlands converted to a Scottish court.
Megrahi was jailed for 27 years, but was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 suffering from cancer. He died in Libya in 2012 still pleading he was innocent of the worst terrorist atrocity ever to have taken place on European soil.
Despite detailed investigations over the last 20 years on the forensic evidence and circumstance behind Megrahi's conviction, Scottish and UK authorities have refused to open an inquiry that would re-examine the entire case.
The official explanation remains that it was Megrahi who placed a bomb in a suitcase at Luqa aiport in Malta, which later transferred to Frankfurt and then Heathrow. En route to New York flight 103 blew up at 31,000 ft above Dumfries.
Although the Palestinians and Jabril were the early suspects, the US authorities were instrumental in the switch that subsequently focused on Libya and Megrahi.
Declassified US intelligence documents have previously cited the Iranian government as being motivated to avenge destruction of an Iran Air jet which was shot down by a US battleship over the Persian Gulf in the months before Lockerbie. 290 people on board the aircraft were killed.
In the new account by Channel 4 News, Dr Fuisz is described as giving two US court depositions in late 2000 and 2001 detailing the information he had from Syria.
However this information arrived too late to be used in Megrahi's trial. Three CIA officers (not named) and a US Department of Justice lawyer are alleged to have attended hearings where Dr Fuisz revealed what he knew of the PFLP-GC involvement.
Transcripts of the hearings and other linked documents, never before made public, were uncovered by John Ashton, an investigator who worked with Megrahi's legal team between 2006 and 2009. He has written a new book on the bombing called Scotland's Shame: Why Lockerbie Still Matters.
On the new evidence, Mr Ashton said : "This is yet another indication that the real Lockerbie bombers got away and that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted. The British and American governments declared in 1991 that Libya was solely responsible for the bombing, yet for years after senior Syrians were saying that the PFLP-GC was responsible, It seems it was an open secret that the real bombers lay outside Libya."

[David Guyatt]

The three governments pledge to "work together to reveal the full facts of the case" and "to understand why it happened." Omg, it really is a puke worthy statement. ::vomit::

As if they don't all already know the entire facts and reasons for this.

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

On the 25th anniversary of the atrocity, Dr Jim Swire accuses the Government of covering up key facts about the bomb that killed 270 in 1988

IAN JOHNSTON


Sunday 22 December 2013



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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".
At a wreath-laying ceremony in Lockerbie yesterday, the Rev John MacLeod told mourners: "We, the people of Lockerbie … welcome you once again to this place where you know you are always welcome. In doing so we seek to comfort and console you."
The bombers, he said, "chose to set aside their humanity and destroy the lives of 270 people… [and] not only their lives but also those who survived, families and friends".

[Peter Lemkin]

The Bombing of PanAm Flight 103: Case Not Closed

By William Blum Published March 2001
The newspapers were filled with pictures of happy relatives of the victims of the December 21, 1988 bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. A Libyan, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, had been found guilty of the crime the day before, January 31, 2001, by a Scottish court in the Hague, though his co-defendant, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted. At long last there was going to be some kind of closure for the families.
But what was wrong with this picture?
What was wrong was that the evidence against Megrahi was thin to the point of transparency. Coming the month after the (s)election of George W. Bush, the Hague verdict could have been dubbed Supreme Court II, another instance of non-judicial factors fatally clouding judicial reasoning. The three Scottish judges could not have relished returning to the United Kingdom after finding both defendants innocent of the murder of 270 people, largely from the U.K. and the United States. Not to mention having to face dozens of hysterical victims' family members in the courtroom. The three judges also well knew the fervent desires of the White House and Downing Street as to the outcome. If both men had been acquitted, the United States and Great Britain would have had to answer for a decade of sanctions and ill will directed toward Libya.
One has to read the entire 26,000-word "Opinion of the Court", as well as being very familiar with the history of the case going back to 1988, to appreciate how questionable was the judges' verdict.
The key charge against Megrahi the sine qua non was that he placed explosives in a suitcase and tagged it so it would lead the following charmed life:

1. loaded aboard an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt without an accompanying passenger;
   
2. transferred in Frankfurt to the PanAm 103A flight to London without an accompanying passenger;
   
3. transferred in London to the PanAm 103 flight to New York without an accompanying passenger.
   

To the magic bullet of the JFK assassination, can we now add the magic suitcase?
This scenario by itself would have been a major feat and so unlikely to succeed that any terrorist with any common sense would have found a better way. But aside from anything else, we have this as to the first step, loading the suitcase at Malta: there was no witness, no video, no document, no fingerprints, nothing to tie Megrahi to the particular brown Samsonite suitcase, no past history of terrorism, no forensic evidence of any kind linking him or Fhimah to such an act.
And the court admitted it: "The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 [Air Malta] is a major difficulty for the Crown case."
Moreover, under security requirements in 1988, unaccompanied baggage was subjected to special X-ray examinations, plus because of recent arrests in Germany the security personnel in Frankfurt were on the lookout specifically for a bomb secreted in a radio, which turned out to indeed be the method used with the PanAm 103 bomb.
Requiring some sort of direct and credible testimony linking Megrahi to the bombing, the Hague court placed great nay, paramount weight upon the supposed identification of the Libyan by a shopkeeper in Malta, as the purchaser of the clothing found in the bomb suitcase. But this shopkeeper had earlier identified several other people as the culprit, including one who was a CIA agent. When he finally identified Megrahi from a photo, it was after Megrahi's photo had been in the world news for years. The court acknowledged the possible danger inherent in such a verification: "These identifications were criticised inter alia on the ground that photographs of the accused have featured many times over the years in the media and accordingly purported identifications more than 10 years after the event are of little if any value."
There were also major discrepancies between the shopkeeper's original description of the clothes-buyer and Megrahi's actual appearance. The shopkeeper told police that the customer was "six feet or more in height" and "was about 50 years of age." Megrahi was 5'8" tall and was 36 in 1988. The judges again acknowledged the weakness of their argument by conceding that the initial description "would not in a number of respects fit the first accused [Megrahi]" and that "it has to be accepted that there was a substantial discrepancy."
Nevertheless, the judges went ahead and accepted the identification as accurate. Before the indictment of the two Libyans in Washington in November 1991, the press had reported police findings that the clothing had been purchased on November 23, 1988. But the indictment of Megrahi states that he made the purchase on December 7. Can this be because the investigators were able to document Megrahi being in Malta (where he worked for Libya Airlines) on that date but cannot do so for November 23?
There is also this to be considered if the bomber needed some clothing to wrap up an ultra-secret bomb in a suitcase, would he go to a clothing store in the city where he planned to carry out his dastardly deed, where he knew he'd likely be remembered as an obvious foreigner, and buy brand new, easily traceable items? Would an intelligence officer which Megrahi was alleged to be do this? Or even a common boob? Wouldn't it make more sense to use any old clothing, from anywhere?
Furthermore, after the world was repeatedly assured that these items of clothing were sold only on Malta, it was learned that at least one of the items was actually "sold at dozens of outlets throughout Europe, and it was impossible to trace the purchaser."
The "Opinion of the Court" placed considerable weight on the suspicious behavior of Megrahi prior to the fatal day, making much of his comings and goings abroad, phone calls to unknown parties for unknown reasons, the use of a pseudonym, etc. The three judges tried to squeeze as much mileage out of these events as they could, as if they had no better case to make. But if Megrahi was indeed a member of Libyan intelligence, we must consider that intelligence agents have been known to act in mysterious ways, for whatever assignment they're on. The court, however, had no idea what assignment, if any, Megrahi was working on.
There is much more that is known about the case that makes the court verdict and written opinion questionable, although credit must be given the court for its frankness about what it was doing, even while it was doing it. "We are aware that in relation to certain aspects of the case there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications," the judges wrote. "We are also aware that there is a danger that by selecting parts of the evidence which seem to fit together and ignoring parts which might not fit, it is possible to read into a mass of conflicting evidence a pattern or conclusion which is not really justified."
It is remarkable, given all that the judges conceded was questionable or uncertain in the trial not to mention all that was questionable or uncertain that they didn't concede that at the end of the day they could still declare to the world that "There is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of [Megrahi]".
The Guardian of London later wrote that two days before the verdict, "senior Foreign Office officials briefed a group of journalists in London. They painted a picture of a bright new chapter in Britain's relations with Colonel Gadafy's regime. They made it quite clear they assumed both the Libyans in the dock would be acquitted. The Foreign Office officials were not alone. Most independent observers believed it was impossible for the court to find the prosecution had proved its case against Megrahi beyond reasonable doubt."

Alternative scenario

There is, moreover, an alternative scenario, laying the blame on Palestinians, Iran and Syria, which is much better documented and makes a lot more sense, logistically and otherwise.
Indeed, this was the Original Official Version, delivered with Olympian rectitude by the U.S. government guaranteed, sworn to, scout's honor, case closed until the buildup to the Gulf War came along in 1990 and the support of Iran and Syria was needed.
Washington was anxious as well to achieve the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by groups close to Iran. Thus it was that the scurrying sound of backtracking became audible in the corridors of the White House.
Suddenly or so it seemed in October 1990, there was a New Official Version: It was Libya the Arab state least supportive of the U.S. build-up to the Gulf War and the sanctions imposed against Iraq that was behind the bombing after all, declared Washington.
The two Libyans were formally indicted in the U.S. and Scotland on Nov. 14, 1991.
"This was a Libyan government operation from start to finish," declared the State Department spokesman.
"The Syrians took a bum rap on this," said President George H.W. Bush.
Within the next 20 days, the remaining four American hostages were released along with the most prominent British hostage, Terry Waite.
The Original Official Version accused the PFLP-GC, a 1968 breakaway from a component of the Palestine Liberation Organization, of making the bomb and somehow placing it aboard the flight in Frankfurt.
The PFLP-GC was led by Ahmed Jabril, one of the world's leading terrorists, and was headquartered in, financed by, and closely supported by, Syria. The bombing was allegedly done at the behest of Iran as revenge for the U.S. shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, which claimed 290 lives.
The support for this scenario was, and remains, impressive, as the following sample indicates:
In April 1989, the FBI in response to criticism that it was bungling the investigation leaked to CBS the news that it had tentatively identified the person who unwittingly carried the bomb aboard. His name was Khalid Jaafar, a 21-year-old Lebanese- American. The report said that the bomb had been planted in Jaafar's suitcase by a member of the PFLP-GC, whose name was not revealed.
In May, the State Department stated that the CIA was "confident" of the Iran-Syria-PFLP-GC account of events.
On Sept. 20, The Times of London reported that "security officials from Britain, the United States and West Germany are totally satisfied' that it was the PFLP-GC" behind the crime.
In December 1989, Scottish investigators announced that they had "hard evidence" of the involvement of the PFLP-GC in the bombing.
A National Security Agency electronic intercept disclosed that Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, Iranian interior minister, had paid Palestinian terrorists $10 million dollars to gain revenge for the downed Iranian airplane. The intercept appears to have occurred in July 1988, shortly after the downing of the Iranian plane.
Israeli intelligence also intercepted a communication between Mohtashemi and the Iranian embassy in Beirut "indicating that Iran paid for the Lockerbie bombing."
Even after the Libyans had been indicted, Israeli officials declared that their intelligence analysts remained convinced that the PFLP-GC bore primary responsibility for the bombing.
In 1992, Abu Sharif, a political adviser to PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, stated that the PLO had compiled a secret report which concluded that the bombing of 103 was the work of a "Middle Eastern country" other than Libya.
In February 1995, former Scottish Office minister, Alan Stewart, wrote to the British Foreign Secretary and the Lord Advocate, questioning the reliability of evidence which had led to the accusations against the two Libyans. This move, wrote The Guardian, reflected the concern of the Scottish legal profession, reaching into the Crown Office (Scotland's equivalent of the Attorney General's Office), that the bombing may not have been the work of Libya, but of Syrians, Palestinians and Iranians.
We must also ask why Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, writing in her 1993 memoirs about the US bombing of Libya in 1986, with which Britain had cooperated, stated: "But the much vaunted Libyan counter-attack did not and could not take place. Gaddafy had not been destroyed but he had been humbled. There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years."

Key Question

A key question in the PFLP-GC version has always been: How did the bomb get aboard the plane in Frankfurt, or at some other point? One widely disseminated explanation was in a report, completed during the summer of 1989 and leaked in the fall, which had been prepared by a New York investigating firm called Interfor. Headed by a former Israeli intelligence agent, Juval Aviv, Interfor whose other clients included Fortune 500 companies, the FBI, IRS and Secret Service was hired by the law firm representing PanAm's insurance carrier. The Interfor Report said that in the mid-1980s, a drug and arms smuggling operation was set up in various European cities, with Frankfurt airport as the site of one of the drug routes. The Frankfurt operation was run by Manzer Al-Kassar, a Syrian, the same man from whom Oliver North's shadowy network purchased large quantities of arms for the contras. At the airport, according to the report, a courier would board a flight with checked luggage containing innocent items; after the luggage had passed all security checks, one or another accomplice Turkish baggage handler for PanAm would substitute an identical suitcase containing contraband; the passenger then picked up this suitcase upon arrival at the destination.
The only courier named by Interfor was Khalid Jaafar, who, as noted above, had been named by the FBI a few months earlier as the person who unwittingly carried the bomb aboard.
The Interfor report spins a web much too lengthy and complex to go into here. The short version is that the CIA in Germany discovered the airport drug operation and learned also that Kassar had the contacts to gain the release of American hostages in Lebanon. He had already done the same for French hostages. Thus it was, that the CIA and the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA, Federal Criminal Office) allowed the drug operation to continue in hopes of effecting the release of American hostages. According to the report, this same smuggling ring and its method of switching suitcases at the Frankfurt airport were used to smuggle the fatal bomb aboard flight 103, under the eyes of the CIA and BKA.
In January 1990, Interfor gave three of the baggage handlers polygraphs and two of them were judged as being deceitful when denying any involvement in baggage switching. However, neither the U.S., UK or German investigators showed any interest in the results, or in questioning the baggage handlers. Instead, the polygrapher, James Keefe, was hauled before a Washington grand jury, and, as he puts it, "They were bent on destroying my credibility not theirs" [the baggage handlers]. To Interfor, the lack of interest in the polygraph results and the attempt at intimidation of Keefe was the strongest evidence of a cover-up by the various government authorities who did not want their permissive role in the baggage switching to be revealed.
Critics claimed that the Interfor report had been inspired by PanAm's interest in proving that it was impossible for normal airline security to have prevented the loading of the bomb, thus removing the basis for accusing the airline of negligence.
The report was the principal reason PanAm's attorneys subpoenaed the FBI, CIA, DEA, State Department, National Security Council, and NSA, as well as, reportedly, the Defense Intelligence Agency and FAA, to turn over all documents relating to the crash of 103 or to a drug operation preceding the crash. The government moved to quash the subpoenas on grounds of "national security", and refused to turn over a single document in open court, although it gave some to a judge to view privately.
The judge later commented that he was "troubled about certain parts" of what he'd read, adding "I don't know quite what to do because I think some of the material may be significant."

Drugs Revelation

On October 30, 1990, NBC-TV News reported that "PanAm flights from Frankfurt, including 103, had been used a number of times by the DEA as part of its undercover operation to fly informants and suitcases of heroin into Detroit as part of a sting operation to catch dealers in Detroit."
The TV network reported that the DEA was looking into the possibility that a young man who lived in Michigan and regularly visited the Middle East may have unwittingly carried the bomb aboard flight 103. His name was Khalid Jaafar. "Unidentified law enforcement sources" were cited as saying that Jaafar had been a DEA informant and was involved in a drug-sting operation based out of Cyprus. The DEA was investigating whether the PFLP-GC had tricked Jaafar into carrying a suitcase containing the bomb instead of the drugs he usually carried.
The NBC report quoted an airline source as saying: "Informants would put [suit]cases of heroin on the PanAm flights apparently without the usual security checks, through an arrangement between the DEA and German authorities."
These revelations were enough to inspire a congressional hearing, held in December, entitled, "Drug Enforcement Administration's Alleged Connection to the PanAm Flight 103 Disaster".
The chairman of the committee, Cong. Robert Wise (Dem., W. VA.), began the hearing by lamenting the fact that the DEA and the Department of Justice had not made any of their field agents who were most knowledgeable about flight 103 available to testify; that they had not provided requested written information, including the results of the DEA's investigation into the air disaster; and that "the FBI to this date has been totally uncooperative".
The two DEA officials who did testify admitted that the agency had, in fact, run "controlled drug deliveries" through Frankfurt airport with the cooperation of German authorities, using U.S. airlines, but insisted that no such operation had been conducted in December 1988. (The drug agency had said nothing of its sting operation to the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism which had held hearings in the first months of 1990 in response to the 103 bombing.)
The officials denied that the DEA had had any "association with Mr. Jaafar in any way, shape, or form." However, to questions concerning Jaafar's background, family, and his frequent trips to Lebanon, they asked to respond only in closed session. They made the same request in response to several other questions.
NBC News had reported on October 30 that the DEA had told law enforcement officers in Detroit not to talk to the media about Jaafar.
The hearing ended after but one day, even though Wise had promised a "full-scale" investigation and indicated during the hearing that there would be more to come. What was said in the closed sessions remains closed.
One of the DEA officials who testified, Stephen Greene, had himself had a reservation on flight 103, but he canceled because of one or more of the several international warnings that had preceded the fateful day. He has described standing on the Heathrow tarmac, watching the doomed plane take off.
There have been many reports of heroin being found in the field around the crash, from "traces" to "a substantial quantity" found in a suitcase. Two days after the NBC report, however, the New York Times quoted a "federal official" saying that "no hard drugs were aboard the aircraft."

The film

In 1994, American filmmaker Allan Francovich completed a documentary, "The Maltese Double Cross", which presents Jaafar as an unwitting bomb carrier with ties to the DEA and the CIA. Showings of the film in Britain were canceled under threat of law suits, venues burglarized or attacked by arsonists. When Channel 4 agreed to show the film, the Scottish Crown Office and the U.S. Embassy in London sent press packs to the media, labeling the film "blatant propaganda" and attacking some of the film's interviewees, including Juval Aviv the head of Interfor. Aviv paid a price for his report and his outspokenness. Over a period of time, his New York office suffered a series of break-ins, the FBI visited his clients, his polygrapher was harassed, as mentioned above, and a contrived commercial fraud charge was brought against him. Even though Aviv eventually was cleared in court, it was a long, expensive, and painful ordeal.
Francovich also stated that he had learned that five CIA operatives had been sent to London and Cyprus to discredit the film while it was being made, that his office phones were tapped, that staff cars were sabotaged, and that one of his researchers narrowly escaped an attempt to force his vehicle into the path of an oncoming truck.
Government officials examining the Lockerbie bombing went so far as to ask the FBI to investigate the film. The Bureau later issued a highly derogatory opinion of it.
The film's detractors made much of the fact that the film was initially funded jointly by a UK company (two-thirds) and a Libyan government investment arm (one-third). Francovich said that he was fully aware of this and had taken pains to negotiate a guarantee of independence from any interference.
On April 17, 1997, Allan Francovich suddenly died of a heart attack at age 56, upon arrival at Houston Airport. His film has had virtually no showings in the United States.

Abu Talb

The DEA sting operation and Interfor's baggage-handler hypothesis both predicate the bomb suitcase being placed aboard the plane in Frankfurt without going through the normal security checks. In either case, it eliminates the need for the questionable triple-unaccompanied baggage scenario. With either scenario the clothing could still have been purchased in Malta, but in any event we don't need the Libyans for that.
Mohammed Abu Talb fits that and perhaps other pieces of the puzzle. The Palestinian had close ties to PFLP-GC cells in Germany which were making Toshiba radio-cassette bombs, similar, if not identical, to what was used to bring down 103. In October 1988, two months before Lockerbie, the German police raided these cells, finding several such bombs. In May 1989, Talb was arrested in Sweden, where he lived, and was later convicted of taking part in several bombings of the offices of American airline companies in Scandinavia. In his Swedish flat, police found large quantities of clothing made in Malta.
Police investigation of Talb disclosed that during October 1988 he had been to Cyprus and Malta, at least once in the company of Hafez Dalkamoni, the leader of the German PFLP-GC, who was arrested in the raid. The men met with PFLP-GC members who lived in Malta. Talb was also in Malta on November 23, which was originally reported as the date of the clothing purchase before the indictment of the Libyans, as mentioned earlier.
After his arrest, Talb told investigators that between October and December 1988 he had retrieved and passed to another person a bomb that had been hidden in a building used by the PFLP-GC in Germany. Officials declined to identify the person to whom Talb said he had passed the bomb. A month later, however, he recanted his confession.
Talb was reported to possess a brown Samsonite suitcase and to have circled December 21 in a diary seized in his Swedish flat. After the raid upon his flat, his wife was heard to telephone Palestinian friends and say: "Get rid of the clothes."
In December 1989, Scottish police, in papers filed with Swedish legal officials, made Talb the only publicly identified suspect "in the murder or participation in the murder of 270 people"; the Palestinian subsequently became another of the several individuals to be identified by the Maltese shopkeeper from a photo as the clothing purchaser. Since that time, the world has scarcely heard of Abu Talb, who was sentenced to life in prison in Sweden, but never charged with anything to do with Lockerbie.
In Allan Francovich's film, members of Khalid Jaafar's family which long had ties to the drug trade in Lebanon's notorious Bekaa Valley are interviewed. In either halting English or translated Arabic, or paraphrased by the film's narrator, they drop many bits of information, but which are difficult to put together into a coherent whole. Amongst the bits … Khalid had told his parents that he'd met Talb in Sweden and had been given Maltese clothing … someone had given Khalid a tape recorder, or put one into his bag … he was told to go to Germany to friends of PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jabril who would help him earn some money … he arrived in Germany with two kilos of heroin … "He didn't know it was a bomb. They gave him the drugs to take to Germany. He didn't know. Who wants to die?" …
It can not be stated with certainty what happened at Frankfurt airport on that fateful day, if, as seems most likely, that is the place where the bomb was placed into the system. Either Jaafar, the DEA courier, arrived with his suitcase of heroin and bomb and was escorted through security by the proper authorities, or this was a day he was a courier for Manzer al-Kassar, and the baggage handlers did their usual switch. Or perhaps we'll never know for sure what happened.
On February 16, 1990, a group of British relatives of Lockerbie victims went to the American Embassy in London for a meeting with members of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism. After the meeting, Britisher Martin Cadman was chatting with two of the commission members. He later reported what one of them had said to him: "Your government and our government know exactly what happened at Lockerbie. But they are not going to tell you."

Comments about the Hague Court verdict

"The judges nearly agreed with the defense. In their verdict, they tossed out much of the prosecution witnesses' evidence as false or questionable and said the prosecution had failed to prove crucial elements, including the route that the bomb suitcase took." New York Times analysis
"It sure does look like they bent over backwards to find a way to convict, and you have to assume the political context of the case influenced them." Michael Scharf, professor, New England School of Law
"I thought this was a very, very weak circumstantial case. I am absolutely astounded, astonished. I was extremely reluctant to believe that any Scottish judge would convict anyone, even a Libyan, on the basis of such evidence." Robert Black, Scottish law professor who was the architect of the Hague trial
"A general pattern of the trial consisted in the fact that virtually all people presented by the prosecution as key witnesses were proven to lack credibility to a very high extent, in certain cases even having openly lied to the court."
"While the first accused was found guilty', the second accused was found not guilty'. … This is totally incomprehensible for any rational observer when one considers that the indictment in its very essence was based on the joint action of the two accused in Malta."
"As to the undersigned's knowledge, there is not a single piece of material evidence linking the two accused to the crime. In such a context, the guilty verdict in regard to the first accused appears to be arbitrary, even irrational. … This leads the undersigned to the suspicion that political considerations may have been overriding a strictly judicial evaluation of the case … Regrettably, through the conduct of the Court, disservice has been done to the important cause of international criminal justice." Hans Koechler, appointed as an international observer of the Lockerbie Trial by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan

So, let's hope that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is really guilty. It would be a terrible shame if he spends the rest of his life in prison because back in 1990 Washington's hegemonic plans for the Middle East needed a convenient enemy, which just happened to be his country.
This essay is a chapter in the book, Everything You Know Is Wrong, a sequel to the book You Are Being Lied To. Both books are published by Disinformation Books.

2

Notes

• "Opinion of the Court", Par. 39
  
• Mark Perry, Eclipse: The Last Days of the CIA (Wm. Morrow, New York, 1992), pp.342-7.
  
• "Opinion of the Court", Par. 55
  
• "Opinion of the Court", Par. 68
  
• See, e.g., Sunday Times (London), Nov. 12, 1989, p.3.
  
• For a detailed discussion of this issue see, "A Special Report from Private Eye: Lockerbie the Flight from Justice", May/June 2001, pp.20-22; Private Eye is a magazine published in London.
  
• Sunday Times (London), December 17, 1989, p.14. Malta is, in fact, a major manufacturer of clothing sold throughout the world.
  
• "Opinion of the Court", Par. 89
  
• Ibid.
  
• The Guardian (London), June 19, 2001
  
• New York Times, Nov. 15, 1991
  
• Los Angeles Times, Nov. 15, 1991
  
• New York Times, April 13, 1989, p.9; David Johnston, Lockerbie: The Tragedy of Flight 103(New York, 1989), pp.157, 161-2.
  
• Washington Post, May 11, 1989, p. 1
  
• New York Times, December 16, 1989, p.3.
  
• Department of the Air Force Air Intelligence Agency intelligence summary report, March 4, 1991, released under a FOIA request made by lawyers for PanAm. Reports of the intercept appeared in the press long before the above document was released; see, e.g.,New York Times, Sept. 27, 1989, p.11; October 31, 1989, p.8; Sunday Times, October 29, 1989, p.4. But it wasn't until Jan. 1995 that the exact text became widely publicized and caused a storm in the UK, although ignored in the U.S.
  
• The Times (London), September 20, 1989, p.1
  
• New York Times, November 21, 1991, p.14. It should be borne in mind, however, that Israel may have been influenced because of its hostility toward the PFLP-GC.
  
• The Guardian, Feb. 24, 1995, p.7
  
• Reuters dispatch, datelined Tunis, Feb. 26, 1992
  
• Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York, 1993), pp.448-9.
  
• National Law Journal, Sept. 25, 1995, p.A11, from papers filed in a New York court case.
  
• Barron's (New York), December 17, 1990, pp.19,22. A copy of the Interfor Report is in the author's possession, but he has been unable to locate a complete copy of it on the Internet.
  
• Barron's, op. cit., p.18.
  
• The Times (London), November 1, 1990, p.3; Washington Times, October 31, 1990, p.3
  
• Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, December 18, 1990, passim.
  
• Ibid.
  
• The film, "The Maltese Double Cross" (see below).
  
• Sunday Times (London), April 16, 1989 (traces); Johnston, op. cit., p.79 (substantial). "The Maltese Double Cross" film mentions other reports of drugs found, by a Scottish policeman and a mountain rescue man.
  
• Financial Times (London), May 12, 1995, p.8 and article by John Ashton, leading 103 investigator, in The Mail on Sunday (London), June 9, 1996.
  
• Ashton, op. cit.; Wall Street Journal, December 18, 1995, p.1, and December 18, 1996, p.B2
  
• The Guardian (London), April 23, 1994, p.5
  
• Sunday Times (London), May 7, 1995.
  
• Francovich's former wife told the author that he had not had any symptoms of a heart problem before. However, the author also spoke to Dr. Cyril Wecht, of JFK "conspiracy" fame, who performed an autopsy on Francovich. Wecht stated that he found no reason to suspect foul play.
  
• Re: Abu Talb, all 1989: New York Times, Oct. 31, p.1, Dec. 1, p.12, Dec. 24, p.1; Sunday Times (London), Nov. 12, p.3, December 5; The Times (London), Dec. 21, p.5. Also The Associated Press, July 11, 2000
  
• Cadman in "The Maltese Double Cross". Also see The Guardian, July 29, 1995, p.27
  
• New York Times, Feb. 2, 2001
  
• Ibid.
  
• Electronic Telegraph UK News, February 4, 2001
  
• All quotations are from Koechler's report of February 3, 2001, easily found on the Internet
  

[Peter Lemkin]

The Downing of Flight 103 Over Lockerbie: Was it the Uranium? ::darthvader::

By Patrick Haseldine / Global ResearchJanuary 24th

• 
  

Mystery continues to surround the 1988 downing of Panam Flight 103 at Lockerbie. Who did it, how, and why? UN Assistant Secretary-General and Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson Died in the Crash

Patrick Haseldine is a former British diplomat who was dismissed by the then foreign secretary, John Major, in August 1989. He is often referred to as the "Emeritus Professor of Lockerbie Studies". After 25 years study of the topic Patrick Haseldine reveals the shocking truth.
A little over two weeks ago, my wife and I were seated beside the flower bedecked pulpit in a packed Westminster Abbey.

There was an eerie hush as Big Ben's muffled chimes tolled 7:00 pm the exact moment 25 years earlier when Pan Am Flight 103 was sabotaged over Lockerbie in Scotland on 21st December 1988.
All 259 passengers and crew were killed, as were 11 people in the town. The names of the 270 Lockerbie bombing victims were listed alphabetically in the Order of Service, and five relatives took it in turns to read them out.
Thus it was Jane Swire, mother of victim Flora and wife of Dr Jim Swire, who read the name of the 43rd victim on the list: Bernt Wilmar Carlsson.
United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was Lockerbie's highest profile victim, yet the authorities and the media never mention him. Why?
As comedian Kenneth Williams used to say: "I think the answer lies in the soil."
More specifically, I believe the answer lies in the processed uranium ore (Yellowcake) that was illegally extracted from Namibia in the period 1976 to 1989. A TV documentary film in March 1980 described succinctly what was going on:

"World In Action investigates the secret contract and operations arranged by British-based Rio Tinto Zinc Corp to import into Britain uranium (Yellowcake) from the Rössing Uranium Mine in Namibia, whose major shareholders are the governments of Iran and South Africa.
"This contract having received the blessing of the British government is now compromising the UK's position in the United Nations negotiations to remove apartheid South Africa from Namibia, which it is illegally occupying."

[B]Thatcher "proud to be British"[/B]

Within four months of the Lockerbie disaster, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to make a whistle-stop tour of southern Africa, and found time to visit Namibia's Rössing Uranium Mine where she was accompanied by David Cameron, then a youthful Conservative Central Office researcher.
Mrs Thatcher was so impressed by the Rössing Uranium Mine that she declared it made her "proud to be British".
While Mrs Thatcher was in Namibia, she put improper pressure on the UN's man, Martti Ahtisaari, head of the United Nations Transition Assistance Group, to permit the South African Defence Force (SADF) to take action against SWAPO soldiers who were peacefully returning to Namibia to vote in the November 1989 independence elections.
As a result, as many as 308 SWAPO soldiers were killed "shot in the back" according to former SADF major Nico Basson.
Whether Mrs Thatcher could have persuaded UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, to agree to such treachery we shall never know since Mr Carlsson was assassinated fifteen weeks earlier, on 21st December 1988.
[B]Illegal mining[/B]

In 1974, the UN Council for Namibia issued Decree No. 1 prohibited the extraction and distribution of any natural resource from Namibian territory without the explicit permission of the UNCN (United Nations Council for Namibia).
It also provided for the seizure of any illegally exported material, and warned that violators could be held liable for damages. Projected to be Namibia's largest mining operation, Rössing became the primary target of Decree No. 1.
However, many Western governments (including the US and Britain) refused to accept Decree No. 1 as binding, with lawyers and government officials disputing whether the decree was juridically sound, whether and how it might apply, and which courts might enforce its application.
But the bottom line was that Rössing aimed to supply at least 10 percent of the global uranium market which translated into one-third of Britain's needs, and probably more for Japan.
Decree No. 1 therefore sparked a lengthy international struggle over the legitimacy of Rössing uranium. The UNCN sent out numerous delegations to convince governments to suspend their dealings with Namibia.
[B]Only one country pledged to respect Decree No. 1[/B]

They heard many expressions of support for the independence process, but prior to the mid-1980s only Sweden (among the large Western uranium consumers) pledged to boycott Rössing's product.
Activists stepped up the pressure in a wide variety of forums. In the UK and the Netherlands, they joined forces with the anti-nuclear movement, resulting in organisations like the British CANUC (Campaign Against the Namibian Uranium Contract).
The UNCN held a week-long hearing in July 1980, during which experts and activists from Europe, Japan, and the United States gave presentations on Rössing's operations and contracts, and the TV documentary Follow the Yellowcake Road was screened.
Testimony focused on the relationship between southern Africa and the Western nuclear industry, arguing that all purchases of Namibian uranium effectively supported the colonial occupation via the taxes paid by the Rössing mine.
In 1981, Namibia's government-in-waiting (SWAPO) helped organise a seminar for West European trade unions as well as presentations on living and working conditions at Rössing and on the mine's paramilitary security forces, which appealed to the loyalties of the International Socialist movement, where Bernt Carlsson was Secretary-General.
The seminar detailed the secret movements of Rössing uranium through European planes, ships, docks, and roads, noting that European transport workers had unknowingly handled barrels of radioactive substances.
A 1982 seminar organised by the American Committee on Africa on the role of transnational corporations in Namibia focused heavily on uranium, reprising many of the arguments mounted by European activists.
[B]UNCN legal action[/B]

In May 1985, the United Nations Council for Namibia (UNCN) began legal action against URENCO the joint Dutch/British/West German uranium enrichment company, with plants in Capenhurst (Cheshire, England), Almelo (Netherlands) and Gronau (West Germany).
Since URENCO had been importing uranium ore from the Rössing Uranium Mine in Namibia, the company was charged with breaching UNCN Decree No. 1.
The case was expected to be ready by the end of 1985 but was delayed because URENCO argued that despite having enriched uranium of Namibian origin since 1980 it was impossible to tell where specific consignments came from.
When the case finally reached court in July 1986, the Dutch government took URENCO's line,claiming not to have known where the uranium had been mined.
Upon the adjournment of the URENCO proceedings, SWAPO's UN representative, Helmut Angula, insisted that other companies, such as Shell, De Beers (Consolidated Diamond Mines), Newmont, and Rio Tinto were also likely to face prosecution for breaching the UNCN Decree.
[B]Bernt Carlsson lays down the law[/B]

The man responsible for Namibia under international law, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, spoke about these prosecutions in aWorld In Action TV documentary "The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds" which was broadcast by Thames Television in September 1987: "The United Nations this year in July started legal action against one such company the Dutch company URENCO which imports uranium."
When asked if he would be taking action against other companies such as De Beers, the diamond mining conglomerate, Bernt Carlsson replied:

"All the companies which are carrying out activities in Namibia which have not been authorised by the United Nations are being studied at present. As far as De Beers is concerned, the corporation has been trying to skim the cream which means they have gone for the large diamonds at the expense of the steady pace. In this way they have really shortened the lifespan of the mines.
"One would expect from a worldwide corporation like De Beers and Anglo-American that they would behave with an element of social and political responsibility. But their behaviour in the specific case of Namibia has been one of profit maximation regardless of its social, economic, political and even legal responsibility."

[B]Delay in closing the UF6 loophole[/B]

In 1988, US Congressional Democrats began working to close the UF6 loophole. The State Department's Office of Non-proliferation and Export Policy did as well, declaring: "It is not possible to avoid the provisions of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act by swapping flags or obligations on natural uranium physically of South African origin before it enters the USA."
Nevertheless, Rössing managed to delay the implementation of restrictions which could have put it out of business. And in the end that delay sufficed: apartheid South Africa and other negotiating parties signed an independence accord on 22nd December 1988.
It was on his way to the signing of the agreement at UN headquarters in New York, that UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson became the highest profile victim of the Pan Am Flight 103 crash at Lockerbie on 21st December 1988.
[B]URENCO case dropped[/B]

Following Bernt Carlsson's untimely death in the Lockerbie bombing, the case against URENCO was inexplicably dropped and no further prosecutions took place of the companies and countries that were in breach of the United Nations Council for Namibia Decree No. 1.
Despite this fairly obvious evidence that Bernt Carlsson was the prime target on Pan Am Flight 103, there has never been a murder investigation conducted by the CIA, FBI, Scottish Police or indeed by the United Nations.
Instead, fabricated evidence has been used to frame and wrongfully convict the Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the crime of Lockerbie.
[B]URENCO privatisation[/B]

On 22 April 2013, David Cameron's coalition government announced plans to sell its share in URENCO the uranium enrichment company owned by Britain, Germany and the Netherlands unleashing a new wave of privatisations in an attempt to cut the public debt.
The UK government's one-third share in URENCO could fetch up to £3bn, making it one of the biggest privatisations in the UK in years.
Headquartered in the semi-rural Buckinghamshire village of Stoke Poges where, appropriately enough given its atomic plot the James Bond film "Goldfinger" was partly shot URENCO has a 31% share of the world's uranium enrichment market.
This provides the fuel for nuclear power utilities and URENCO has enrichment plants in the US and the three investor countries, including one in Capenhurst, Cheshire.
"It's a ridiculous idea", says the GMB union's national secretary for energy Gary Smith, who earlier this week complained to The Independent of the prospect of the Chinese investing in the nuclear new-build programme. "We're flogging off precious nuclear assets instead of developing a strategy around nuclear. It's absolute madness."
But there is a logic to the move: by privatising URENCO, the British government hopes to bring closure to the Lockerbie affair, and put a distance between itself and the Thatcher administration's criminal behaviour in processing Namibian Yellowcake contrary to United Nations Council for Namibia Decree No. 1.
[B]United Nations Inquiry[/B]

In November 2013, I created this e-petition calling upon HM Government (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) to: "Support a United Nations Inquiry into the deaths of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and UN Assistant Secretary-General Bernt Carlsson"
Dag Hammarskjöld was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1953 to 1961. On the night of 17-18 September 1961, in the course of a UN mission to try to bring peace to the former Belgian Congo, Hammarskjöld's Swedish-owned and crewed plane crashed near Ndola airport in the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All the passengers and crew died.
It now appears that his plane was shot down in order to protect western mining interests in Belgian Cngo's mineral rich Katanga province, to this day a major source of cobalt, copper, tin and diamonds not to mention radium and uranium.
On 9 September 2013, the London-based Hammarskjöld Commission reported that there was"significant new evidence" about the plane crash that killed United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and recommended that the adjourned 1962 UN Inquiry should now be reopened.
UN Assistant Secretary-General Bernt Carlsson was the highest profile victim on Pan Am Flight 103 which was sabotaged over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.
Since Bernt Carlsson's death has never been investigated, the British Government should propose extending the remit of the new UN Inquiry to cover the deaths of both senior diplomats: Dag Hammarskjöld and Bernt Carlsson.
His e-petition is open for signature by UK citizens and residents from 13 November 2013 to 13 May 2014, and can be signed here.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-downing...um/5364222

[David Guyatt]

Yep, old, old becomes new, new.

The Iranian retaliation for the US warship Vincennes shooting down the Iranian Airbus off the coast of Iran.

One might be tempted to ask why the US trusted the truth so much by redirecting blame to Libya? It's a question that still hasn't been answered.

Iran ordered Lockerbie bombing', claims ex-Iranian intelligence officer






Abolghassem Mesbahi also says bomb was planted at Heathrow, not Malta

IAN JOHNSTON
Tuesday 11 March 2014

Iran ordered the Lockerbie bombing in revenge for the accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet by a US navy ship, according to a former Iranian intelligence officer who defected to Germany.

An al-Jazeera documentary, Lockerbie: What Really Happened?, claims the attack was carried out on Tehran's behalf by the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
It also says that the bomb was planted on Pan Am flight 103 at Heathrow Airport, not at Malta as suggested during the trial that convicted Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Megrahi, the only person convicted in relation to the attack, was jailed for life over the deaths of 270 people in the plane and on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. However he was released by the Scottish Government after eight years on compassionate grounds because he had terminal cancer.
The Iranian intelligence officer, Abolghassem Mesbahi, told the programme that Iran had decided to "retaliate as soon as possible" after Iran Air flight 655 was shot down by the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf in July 1988 with the loss of 290 lives. The Lockerbie bombing happened in December of that year.
"The decision was made by the whole system in Iran and confirmed by Ayatollah Khomeini," he said.
"The target of the Iranian decision-makers was to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian Airbus. Everything exactly the same, minimum 290 people dead."
Mr Mesbahi once reported to a former Iranian president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora, 23, was killed, told The Daily Telegraph that relatives of the victims "have a right to know who killed their loved ones and why they were not protected".
"I became convinced that Megrahi was not involved during his trial. It was so obviously a set-up," he said.
"It seemed to me that the Syrian [bomb-making] technology fitted perfectly, and I'm not surprised to hear there is evidence that Iran was responsible."
However the documentary also says the attack was organised in Malta at meetings attended by Iranian, Syrian and Libyan officials, suggesting that Libya may have had some kind of involvement.
The programme alleges a convicted terrorist now living in Sweden may have been the person who put the bomb on the plane.