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July 27, 2010 -- Release of Megrahi for BP oil
concession in Libya was wrong reason for release: Megrahi had nothing to
do with PanAm 103 bombing source: source:
WayneMadsenReport
Washington is yet to experience another "theater of the absurd" as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator John Kerry (D-MA) prepares to hold hearings on Scotland's decision to release Abdel Baset al-Megrahi from a Scottish prison where he was serving a life sentence after being the sole person convicted of planting a bomb on board PanAm 103 in 1988, resulting in the crash of the plane over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Kerry's committee, under pressure from Israel's leading allies in the Senate, is trying to pressure Britain and Scotland to come clean on 2007 negotiations between Tony Blair's government and BP over which Megrahi's release from Scotland to Libya was discussed as a way to improve the oil giant's chances of landing lucrative oil deals with Colonel Qaddafi's government. President Obama feigned anger on more than one occasion over Megrahi's release last August but a recent letter that surfaced from the U.S. embassy in London indicates that the Obama administration was quietly backing Megrahi's release with BP being the ultimate winner. The letter is further proof of BP's influence over the Obama administration, which was painfully obvious to the residents of the U.S. Gulf coast when Obama allowed BP to run the show in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig catastrophe. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has charged that Blair was and continues to be involved in secret negotiations with Libya and BP on the consummation of oil deals. Salmond has told the Senate committee to call Blair to testify about the former prime minister's secret dealings with Colonel Qaddafi's government. The Scottish govenrment denies having any contact with BP over Megrahi's release. However, it appears that Obama had more than a passing interest in Megrahi's prison sentence in Scotland. On August 12, 2009, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in London, Richard LeBaron, sent a letter to Salmond stating that while the U.S. was opposed to Megrahi's transfer to Libya, the United States would not be opposed to his conditional release on compassionate grounds to live in Scotland. LeBaron is a career Foreign Service officer who has mainly served in the Middle East, including a 2001 to 2004 stint as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. In 1988, when PanAm 103 was bombed over Scotland, LeBaron served at the U.S. embassy in Tunis, a stone's throw from Malta, where Megrahi and his Libyan intelligence colleague were said to have arranged for a suitcase bomb destined for PanAm 103 to be placed on a feeder flight to Frankfurt and on to Heathrow in London for transfer to the ill-fated Boeing 747 heading for New York. LeBaron would have been privy to classified U.S. embassy cables from Valletta concerning the investigation of Libya's intelligence operations in Malta, including the alleged Libyan involvement in the PanAm bombing. Megrahi was reported to have been suffering from terminal cancer when he was released but his condition has reportedly improved since he has been in Libya. The Obama administration contends that it favored a release of Megrahi in Scotland so that he would not receive a "hero's welcome" in his native Libya, which, of course, he did upon his return last August. But, as the late columnist Jack Anderson reported, Britain's Tory government and Obama have reasons to insist on pushing the discredited story that Qaddafi was involved in PanAm 103's bombing. On January 11, 1990, Anderson reported from Washington that "President Bush and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher secretly agreed last spring to play down the truth about who blew up PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. After both leaders had intelligence reports pointing the finger at a terrorist hired by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Thatcher called Bush. In that conversation, they agreed that neither could stand the political heat of making the evidence public because both were impotent to retaliate." Anderson's column continued, "Highly placed White House sources told us that the phone call took place about mid-March. By that time, both the British and U.S. intelligence services had followed the trail of evidence to terrorist Ahmed Jibril as the hit man who was paid by Iran to blow up the plane. The intelligence services had evidence that Khomeini and his successor, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, had approved the bombing." It should be noted that Rafsanjani became a key backer of Mir-Hosein Mousavi, the failed presidential candidate who failed to unseat Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad last year. Ironically, Rafsanjani, a backer of the failed "Green Revolution," is now seen as a moderate by Washington and London. It is yet another reason to keep the Lockerbie heat on Libya. Anderson's report stated, "The intelligence reports told Bush and Thatcher that Jibril went to Iran in July 1988 and struck the deal with Khomeini and Rafsanjani to blow up an American plane in retaliation for the accidental U.S. downing of an Iranian airliner earlier that month. When the intelligence reports began to leak last March, Thatcher called Bush to discuss their problem. She said no purpose would be served by making public the evidence against Iran because neither the United States or Britain could respond." Thatcher's knowledge that it was Iran that brought down PanAm 103 would cause trouble for her Tory heir, Prime Minister David Cameron, who, in 1989, was a young Conservative Party operative serving Thatcher. For Obama, the knowledge that the CIA was cognizant of Iran's role in PanAm 103 could spell trouble as more details emerge about Obama's own past with the CIA. According to Anderson, "Bush knew that Khomeini had proved the undoing of Jimmy Carter and had nearly proved the undoing of Ronald Reagan. Carter lost an election because he couldn't get American hostages back from Iran, and Reagan suffered the biggest blow of his presidency when he tried to trade arms to Iran for American hostages." However, it was Bush, himself, who helped arrange to keep American hostages in Iran until after the November 1980 election, in return for secret weapons, and who also helped arrange the weapons-for-hostages in Lebanon deals that ultimately ended up as the "Iran-contra" scandal. In 1990, Bush, who was known to have designs on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, had to ensure there were no fingers pointing at Iran, who Bush had to keep neutral in a U.S.-Iraqi military confrontation over Kuwait. Bush could not afford to alienate Syria, Jibril's main backer, since Bush needed Syria in the coalition that would later attack Iraq. WMR previously published a formerly SECRET Air Intelligence Agency message describing Iran's role in the attack on PanAm 103. Anderson continued, "So Bush didn't argue when Thatcher suggested that they 'low-key' the findings -- say that the investigation was inconclusive and long-term. After the call, word was quickly passed to top officials conducting the PanAm investigation that they were not to make any off-the-record remarks implicating Jibril or Iran. In Britain, when the press speculated about possible perpetrators, investigators called the speculation 'wild' and 'irresponsible.' U.S. intelligence sources who told us about the call said the decision was political cowardice. Thatcher, the 'Iron Lady,' earned her reputation in a war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. But by last March, her popularity was on the wane and she didn't need to be embarrassed by Khomeini. Bush, still fighting his 'wimp' image, didn't want to face the ultimate calls for retribution." And Cameron, inheriting the Tory leadership, doesn't want Thatcher to be shown as a liar and Obama, who has bent over backwards trying to placate the intelligence community, doesn't want to have to admit that the American people were subjected to yet another fraud courtesy of the boys at Langley.
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Pan Am Flight 103 conspiracy theories, Wikipedia |
Pan Am Flight 103 conspiracy theories suggest a number of possible
explanations for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988.
Some of the theories preceded the official investigation by Scottish
police and the FBI; others arose through a different interpretation of
evidence presented at Libyan agent Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's
2000/2001 trial; yet others have been developed independently by
individuals and organisations outside the official investigation.[1] The
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC)
was the first suspect, in light of a threat it issued against U.S. and
Israeli interests before the bombing. The state of Iran was also in the
frame very early, with its motive thought to be revenge for the July
1988 shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by USS Vincennes.[2] This
theory was later reinforced by Abolghasem Mesbahi, former head of
Iranian intelligence operations in Europe, who stated after defecting to
Germany that Iran had asked Libya and Abu Nidal, a Palestinian guerrilla
leader, to carry out the attack on Pan Am 103.[3] In his 1994 film The
Maltese Double Cross, Allan Francovich suggested that rogue CIA agents
were implicated in a plot that involved them turning a blind eye to a
drug running operation in return for intelligence. Evidence presented at
Megrahi's trial, together with concerns about the reliability of his
conviction, spawned a theory that Libya was framed. Abu Nidal allegedly
confessed to the bombing before his death, thereby triggering another
theory, while Joe Vialls put forward his own explanation that relied on
the bomb being detonated remotely. Finally, in December 1989, Patrick
Haseldine suggested that the bombing was an assassination by South
Africa's apartheid government of United Nations Commissioner for
Namibia, Bernt Carlsson. Contents [hide] 1 PFLP-GC 2 Iran 3 CIA drug
smuggling 4 Alleged framing of Libya 4.1 Recent Libyan history 4.2 Lord
Advocate's comment 4.3 Reliance on forensic science 5 Iran and the
London angle 6 Libya and Abu Nidal 7 Radio detonation 8 South-West
Africa (Namibia) 9 Review by American RadioWorks 10 References 11
External links 12 See also [edit]PFLP-GC
For many months after the bombing, the prime suspects were the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a Damascus-based rejectionist group led by former Syrian army captain Ahmed Jibril, sponsored by Iran.[4][5] In a February 1986 press conference, Jibril warned: "There will be no safety for any traveler on an Israeli or U.S. airliner" (Cox and Foster 1991, p28).[6] Secret intercepts were reported by author, David Yallop, to have recorded the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) in Baalbeck, Lebanon making contact with the PFLP-GC immediately after the downing of the Iran Air Airbus. Israeli intelligence allegedly intercepted a telephone call made two days after PA 103 by Mohtashemi-Pur, Interior Minister in Tehran, to the chargé d'affaires at the Iranian embassy in Beirut, instructing the embassy to hand over the funds to Jibril and congratulating them on the success of operation 'Intekam' ('equal and just revenge').[7] Jibril is alleged to have received $11 million from Iran - although a banking audit trail to confirm the payment has never been presented. Jibril's right hand man, Hafez Dalkamoni, set up a PFLP-GC cell which was active in the Frankfurt and Neuss areas of West Germany in October 1988, two months before PA 103.[1] During what Germany's internal security service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), called Operation Herbstlaub (Operation "Autumn Leaves"), the BfV kept cell members under strict surveillance. The plotters prepared a number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) hidden inside household electronic equipment. They discussed a planned operation in coded calls to Cyprus and Damascus: oranges and apples stood for detonating devices; medicine and pasta for Semtex explosive; and, auntie for the bomb carrier. One operative had been recorded as saying: "auntie should get off, but should leave the suitcase on the bus" (Duffy and Emerson 1990). The PFLP-GC cell had an experienced bomb-maker, Jordanian Marwan Khreesat, to assist them. Khreesat made at least one IED inside a single-speaker Toshiba Bombeat 453 radio cassette recorder, similar to the twin speaker model RT-SF 16 Bombeat that was used to blow up PA 103. However, unlike the Lockerbie bomb with its sophisticated timer, Khreesat's IEDs contained a barometric pressure device that triggers a simple timer with a range of up to 45 minutes before detonation. Unbeknown to the PFLP-GC cell, its bomb-maker Khreesat was a Jordanian intelligence service (GID) agent and reported on the cell's activities to the GID, who relayed the information to Western intelligence and to the BfV. The Jordanians encouraged Khreesat to make the bombs but instructed him to ensure they were ineffective and would not explode. (A German police technician would however be killed, in April 1989, when trying to disarm one of Khreesat's IEDs). Through Khreesat and the GID, the Germans learned that the cell was surveying a number of targets, including Iberia Flight 888 from Madrid to Tel Aviv via Barcelona, chosen because the bomb-courier could disembark without baggage at Barcelona leaving the barometric trigger to activate the IED on the next leg of the journey. The date chosen, Khreesat reportedly told his handlers, was 30 October 1988. He also told them that two members of the cell had been to Frankfurt airport to pick up Pan Am timetables. Acting upon this intelligence, the German secret police moved in to arrest the PFLP-GC cell on 26 October, raiding 14 apartments and arresting 17 men, fearing that to keep them under surveillance much longer was to risk losing control of the situation. Two cell members are known to have escaped arrest including Abu Elias, a resident of Sweden who, according to Prime Time Live (ABC News November 1989), was an expert in bombs sent to Germany to check on Khreesat's devices because of suspicions raised by Ahmed Jibril. Four IEDs were recovered, but Khreesat stated later that a fifth device had been taken away by Dalkamoni before the raid, and was never recovered.[8] The link to PA 103 was further strengthened when Khreesat told investigators that, before joining the cell in Germany, he had bought five Toshiba Bombeat cassette radios from a smugglers' village in Syria close to the border with Lebanon, and made practice IEDs out of them in Jibril's training camp 20 km (12 miles) away. The bombs were inspected by Abu Elias, who declared them to be good work. What became of these devices is not known.[9] Some journalists such as Private Eye's Paul Foot and a PA 103 relative, Dr Jim Swire, believed that it was too stark a coincidence for a Toshiba cassette radio IED to have downed PA 103 just eight weeks after the arrest of the PFLP-GC cell in Frankfurt.[citation needed] Indeed, Scottish police actually wrote up an arrest warrant for Marwan Khreesat in the spring of 1989, but were persuaded by the FBI not to issue it because of his value as an intelligence source.[10] In the following spring, King Hussein of Jordan arranged for Khreesat to be interviewed by FBI agent, Edward Marshman, and the former head of the FBI's forensic lab, Thomas Thurman, to whom he described in detail the bombs he had built. In the 1994 documentary film Maltese Double Cross,[11] the author David Yallop speculated that Libyan and Iranian-paid agents may have worked on the bombing together; or, that one group handed the job over to a second group upon the arrest of the PFLP-GC cell members. The former CIA head of counter-terrorism, Vincent Cannistraro, who previously worked on the PA 103 investigation, was interviewed in the film and said he believed the PFLP-GC planned the attack at the behest of the Iranian government, then sub-contracted it to Libyan intelligence after October 1988, because the arrests in Germany meant the PFLP-GC was unable to complete the operation. Other supporters of this theory believed that whoever paid for the bombing arranged two parallel operations intended to ensure that at least one would succeed; or, that Jibril's cell in Germany was a red herring designed to attract the attention of the intelligence services, while the real bombers worked quietly elsewhere. [edit]Iran A number of journalists considered that the Iranian revenge motive (retaliation for the shooting down of the Iran Air Airbus by USS Vincennes) was prematurely dismissed by investigators.[4] They drew attention to a comment by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in her 1993 memoirs, where she seemed to discount the Libya revenge motive (for the 1986 bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi by the United States air force): "It turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined. ...There were revenge killings of British hostages organized by Libya, which I bitterly regretted. But the much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place... There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years" (Thatcher 1993, pp448-9).[12] Additionally, Abolghasem Mesbahi, former head of Iranian intelligence in Europe, eventually defected and "told [German] investigators that Iran had asked Libya and Abu Nidal, a Palestinian guerrilla leader, to carry out the attack on Pan Am 103." [3] The US Defense Intelligence Agency alleges that Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur (Ayatollah Mohtashemi), a member of the Iranian government, paid US$ 10 million for the bombing: Ayatollah Mohtashemi: (...) and was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103 in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus.[2] Part of report, which is dated 1989-09-24, cites information acquired at Ft. Meade, MD: The mission was to blow up a Pan Am flight that was to be almost entirely booked by US military personnel on Christmas leave. The flight was supposed to be a direct flight from Frankfurt, GE, to New York, not Pan Am flight 103 which was routed through London, UK. The suitcase containing the bomb was labeled with the name of one of the US passengers on the plane and was inadvertently placed on the wrong plane possibly by airport ground crew members in Frankfurt. The terrorist who last handled the bomb was not a passenger on the flight.[2] and The bomb was designed by Mu'Ay Al-Din ((Mughanniya)), a Lebanese national who lives in IR and who is supposedly Iran's expert on aircraft bombing and high-jacking operations. The bomb was constructed in LY and then shipped to GE for placement on the aircraft (NFI). [edit]CIA drug smuggling This theory suggests that U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents had set up a protected drug route from Europe to the United States—allegedly called Operation Corea—that allowed Syrian drug dealers, led by Monzer al-Kassar (who was involved with Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal) to ship heroin to the U.S. using Pan Am flights, in exchange for intelligence on Palestinian groups holding hostages in Syria.[13] The CIA allegedly protected the suitcases containing the drugs and made sure they were not searched. On the day of the bombing, as the theory goes, terrorists exchanged suitcases: one with drugs for one with a bomb. Time introduced another version of this theory, claiming that the American intelligence officers on PA 103 – Matthew Gannon and Maj. Charles McKee – had found out about the drug operation, and were headed to Washington to raise their concerns about its impact on their hostage rescue plans.[14] Juval Aviv introduced a variation of this story in October 1989. Aviv was the owner of Interfor Inc, a private investigation company based on Madison Avenue, New York. Aviv claimed to be a former Mossad officer[15] who led the Operation Wrath of God team that assassinated members of Black September who were believed to have been responsible for the Munich Massacre in 1972. According to his theory, the CIA knew in advance that the baggage exchange would take place, but let it happen anyway, because the protected drugs route was a rogue operation, and the American intelligence officers on PA 103 – Matthew Gannon and Maj. Charles McKee – had found out about it, and were on their way to Washington to tell their superiors. After PA 103, Aviv was employed by Pan Am as their lead investigator for the bombing. He submitted a report (the Interfor report[16][17]) in October 1989, blaming the bombing on a CIA-protected drugs route (Barrons December 17, 1989). This scenario provided Pan Am with a credible defense against claims for compensation by relatives of victims, since, if the U.S. government had helped the bomb bypass Pan Am's security, the airline could hardly have been held liable. The Interfor report alleged inter alia that Khalid Jafaar, a Lebanese-American passenger with links to Hezbollah, had unwittingly brought the bomb on board thinking he was carrying drugs on behalf of Syrian drug dealers he supposedly worked for. However, the New York court, which heard the civil case lodged by the U.S. relatives, rejected the Interfor allegations for lack of evidence. Aviv was never interviewed by either the Scottish police or the FBI in connection with PA 103. In 1990 the protected suitcase theory was given a new lease of life by Lester Coleman in his book Trail of the Octopus.[18][19] Coleman was a former journalist-turned-intelligence agent working with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) while employed by Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Cyprus. Coleman claimed to have seen Khalid Jafaar in the DEA office in Nicosia, Cyprus once again implying that Jafaar was a drugs mule, but this time for the DEA instead of Syrian drug dealers. In 1997, Coleman pleaded guilty to five counts of perjury in a Federal court after admitting that he submitted a false testimony in a civil litigation brought on behalf of the families of passengers killed in the bombing.[20] Coleman's theory gained impetus when British journalist Paul Foot wrote a glowing review of Coleman's book for the London Review of Books.[21] But on March 31, 2004—four months before his death—Foot reverted to the orthodox Iran/PFLP-GC theory in an article he wrote for The Guardian entitled "Lockerbie's dirty secret".[22] The previously-mentioned 1994 documentary film The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie, which included interviews with Lester Coleman and Juval Aviv, seemed to favour a hybrid version embracing both the CIA-protected suitcase and the drugs mule versions of the theory. Shortly after the film was broadcast by Channel 4 television on 11 May 1995, Aviv was indicted on fraud charges. Aviv was quick to claim that these were trumped-up charges, and in due course they were dropped. The film can be viewed on the internet here [23] by scrolling down to Allan Francovich - The Maltese Double Cross.[24] [edit]Alleged framing of Libya This conspiracy theory is based on the premise that key evidence presented at the trial (e.g. timer fragment, parts from a specific radio cassette model, clothing bought in Malta, bomb suitcase originating at Luqa Airport) could have been fabricated by the U.S. and Britain for the "political" purpose of incriminating Libya.[25] [edit]Recent Libyan history Muammar al-Gaddafi's regime in Libya has a long and well-documented history of support for rebel and paramilitary groups. During the 1970s and 1980s, Gaddafi supplied large quantities of Libyan weapons and explosives to the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Other incidents that have been attributed to Libya are not so clear cut: The 1984 murder of police constable Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London was blamed on Libya and led to a long-term rupture of diplomatic relations. No prosecution has taken place, but Libya has paid compensation to WPC Fletcher's family and recently allowed Scotland Yard to interview suspects in that country.[26] US president Ronald Reagan was convinced that Libya was responsible for the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing – in which two American servicemen were killed and another 50 injured – and, in retaliation, ordered the bombing of Tripoli in Operation El Dorado Canyon. In 2001, a Libyan and two Palestinians were convicted and imprisoned by Berlin's Supreme Court, and in 2004 Gaddafi agreed to pay $35 million in compensation to the non-American victims of the Berlin bombing. A French court convicted six Libyans nationals (some members of Libyan Intelligence) in absentia of the 1989 bombing of French UTA Flight 772. The bomb bore remarkable similarities to the one that brought down Pan Am 103, since it was also consisted of PETN (Semtex) carried in a Samsonite suitcase and detonated by a timing device. France at the time supported Libya's neighbour Chad in a border dispute. A Paris court convicted six Libyan. With remarkable parallels to the Lockerbie trial, the Paris court heard that UTA Flight 772 was brought down by a bomb triggered by a sophisticated timing device.[27] Libya supplied the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) with tonnes of Semtex — amongst other weapons.[28][29] See also Provisional IRA arms importation#Libyan arms. At the end of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial an international observer appointed by the United Nations, Hans Köchler, called the verdict a "spectacular miscarriage of justice".[30] Even though Libya never formally admitted responsibility for Pan Am Flight 103 or UTA Flight 772, Libya "accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials" and agreed to pay compensation to the relatives of the victims.[31] In October 2008 Libya paid $1.5 billion into a fund which will be used to compensate relatives of the Lockerbie bombing victims with the remaining 20% of the sum agreed in 2003 ($2.7 billion); American victims of the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing; American victims of the 1989 UTA Flight 772 bombing; and, Libyan victims of the 1986 US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi.[32] [edit]Lord Advocate's comment In an address to a conference of law officers in August 2001 (seven months after the PA 103 verdict) the Scottish Lord Advocate, Lord Boyd, rejected any suggestion that Libya had been framed and denied that this was a politically-driven prosecution, instead blaming conspiracy theorists for such allegations: "Conspiracy theorists have alleged that the investigators' move away from an interest in the PFLP-GC was prompted by political interference following a re-alignment of interests in the Middle East. Specifically it is said that it suited Britain and the United States to exonerate Syria and others such as Iran who might be associated with her and to blame Libya, a country which we know trained the IRA. Accordingly, evidence was 'found' which implicated Libya. This is best answered by looking at the evidence."[33] The Lord Advocate went on to list the various pieces of evidence found to prove that the PA 103 investigators' interest in Libya was "as a result of the evidence which was discovered and not as a result of any political interference in the investigation". He reiterated: "There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that there was political interference. The investigation was evidence-led." Lord Boyd dealt with each piece of evidence, as follows: Toshiba radio cassette fragment: "evidence was obtained from Toshiba [by DERA's Alan Feraday] which showed that during October 1988 20,000 black Toshiba RT-SF 16 radio cassettes, the type used in the Pan Am bomb, were shipped to Libya. Of the total world-wide sales of that model 76% were sold to the General Electric Company's subsidiary in Libya, whose chairman was Said Rashid.[information added]" Mebo timer fragment: "In June 1990, with the assistance ultimately of the CIA and FBI, Alan Feraday of the Explosives Laboratory was able to identify the fragment as identical to circuitry from an MST-13 timer. It was already known to the CIA from an example seized in Togo in 1986 and photographed by them in Senegal in 1988. That took investigators to the firm of Mebo in Zurich. It was discovered that these timers had been manufactured to the order of two Libyans Ezzadin Hinshin, at the time director of the Central Security Organisation of the Libyan External Security Organisation and Said Rashid, then head of the Operations Administration of the ESO." Clothing material: "In September 1989 Tony Gauci, the shopkeeper, was interviewed by Scottish police officers. He convincingly identified a range of clothing which he had sold to a man sometime before Christmas 1988. Among the items he remembered selling were two pairs of Yorkie trousers, two pairs of striped pyjamas, a tweed jacket, a blue babygro, two slalom shirts collar size 16 and a half, two cardigans, one brown and one blue and an umbrella. He described the man, and subsequently identified him as Megrahi. More importantly at the time he was in no doubt that he was a Libyan." [edit]Reliance on forensic science Warning against over-reliance upon forensic science to secure convictions, one of Britain's foremost criminal lawyers, Michael Mansfield QC, in the BBC Scotland Frontline Scotland TV programme Silence over Lockerbie, broadcast on 14 October 1997, said he wanted to make just one point: "Forensic science is not immutable. They're not written in tablets of stone, and the biggest mistake that anyone can make—public, expert or anyone else alike—is to believe that forensic science is somehow beyond reproach: it is not! The biggest miscarriages of justice in the United Kingdom, many of them emanate from cases in which forensic science has been shown to be wrong. And the moment a forensic scientist or anyone else says: 'I am sure this marries up with that' I get worried." A number of news media also investigated the bombing and the various theories that were put forward to explain it. One news team headed by Pierre Salinger accused the prosecution of disinformation, and of attempting to steer the investigation toward Libya.[34] [edit]Iran and the London angle Towards the end of the bombing trial, lawyers for Megrahi argued that the PA 103 bomb could have started its journey at Heathrow, rather than at Luqa Airport in Malta. The Boeing 747 that was destined to carry the 259 passengers and crew on the London-New York leg had arrived from San Francisco at noon on 21 December 1988, and stood unguarded on the tarmac for much of the period before PA 103's passengers began to board the aircraft after 17:00 (scheduled departure 18:00). The Iran Air terminal in Heathrow was adjacent to the Pan Am terminal, and the two airlines shared tarmac space. The lawyers invoked the 1990 Scottish Fatal Accident Inquiry and the evidence it heard that the baggage container AVE 4041, into which the bomb suitcase had been loaded, was left unsupervised at Heathrow for about forty minutes that afternoon. [edit]Libya and Abu Nidal Abu Nidal in the early 1980s Abu Nidal was widely regarded as the most ruthless international terrorist until that mantle was assumed by Osama bin Laden. Nidal (aka Sabri al-Banna) was reported to have died in a shoot-out in Baghdad on 16 August 2002. A former senior member of his group, Atef Abu Bakr, told journalists that shortly before his death Abu Nidal had confided to Bakr that he had orchestrated the PA 103 bombing.[35] After settling in Tripoli in 1985, Nidal and the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi allegedly became close, Gaddafi sharing what The Sunday Times called "Abu Nidal's dangerous combination of an inferiority complex mixed with the belief that he was a man of destiny."[36] According to Atef Abu Bakr, Gaddafi asked Nidal to coordinate with the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, an attack on the U.S. in retaliation for the 1986 bombing of Benghazi and Tripoli.[citation needed] Nidal then organized the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi on September 5, 1986 killing 22 passengers and wounding dozens of others. In August 1987, Abu Nidal allegedly tried again, this time using an unwitting bomb mule to carry a device on board a flight from Belgrade (airline unknown), but the bomb failed to explode.[citation needed] For PA 103, Senussi allegedly told Nidal to supply the bomb, and Libyan intelligence would arrange for it to be put on a flight.[37] No evidence has been produced in support of these theories. [edit]Radio detonation According to conspiracy theorist and self-styled private investigator Joe Vialls, who died in July 2005, the bomb on PA 103 was triggered not by a simple timing device, but by a more complex technique of radio detonation.[38] Explosion occurs shortly after Clipper Maid of the Seas passes Dean Cross navigational radio beacon The Vialls theory relies on the assumption that the aircraft was handed over to a different air traffic control center when it passed over the Dean Cross navigational beacon, requiring it to communicate on one of the 22 frequencies used by Shanwick Oceanic Control. Maid of the Seas would then have been flying at about 500 mph between Dean Cross beacon and where it crashed on the town of Lockerbie, an overall distance of 30 miles (48 km) representing a point-to-point flight time of barely four minutes. As PA 103 passed overhead the Dean Cross beacon, a light would have flashed on in the cockpit alerting the pilots to change frequency in order to obtain permission for the Atlantic crossing from Shanwick Oceanic Control at Prestwick, Scotland.[dubious – discuss] Using standard reaction times, according to Vialls, it would have taken between three and five minutes for the crew to be ready to communicate on the new frequency. In its PA 103 report, the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) stated: "At 18.58 hrs the aircraft established two-way radio contact with Shanwick Oceanic Control on frequency 123.95 MHz. At 19.02:44 hrs the clearance delivery officer at Shanwick transmitted to the aircraft its oceanic route clearance. The aircraft did not acknowledge this message and made no subsequent transmission." The AAIB report continued: "The cockpit voice recorder tape was listened to for its full duration and there was no indication of anything abnormal with the aircraft, or unusual crew behaviour. The tape record ended, at 19.02:50 hrs ± 1 second, with a sudden loud sound on the cockpit area microphone channel followed almost immediately by the cessation of recording whilst the crew were copying their transatlantic clearance from Shanwick ATC."[39] The Vialls radio detonation theory puts forward two different triggering mechanisms: A remotely controlled bomb in the aircraft that was triggered by a radio signal sent from outside the aircraft A sophisticated device onboard the aircraft that monitored multiple variables including time and the use of specific air-traffic control frequencies by the aircraft. Vialls cited the following example of how the Israelis used the technique of radio detonation: In the late 1980s, Israeli intelligence managed to obtain the cellular phone of Yahya Ayyash by fooling him into believing that his phone had a fault; the phone was booby-trapped with explosives when he brought it in for repairs, then subsequently detonated by a signal sent over the Israeli-controlled mobile phone network when he answered it.[40] According to Vialls, the inside of a Boeing 747 is a Faraday cage, which would ensure that secondary emissions—from the captain's radio message to Shanwick Oceanic Control, for example—would be sufficient to activate the radio trigger of the bomb. Thus, the PA 103 bomb could have been triggered by an internally-generated command radio signal transmitted to or received from Shanwick. However, Vialls believed that the extent of the damage caused to the aircraft meant that the bomb was probably positioned close to the fuselage, rather than—as the prosecution maintained at the trial—being wrapped in clothing, packed in a suitcase and loaded inside a baggage container.[41] Vialls himself blamed the Israeli Mossad for the PA 103 bombing. This fitted with the general theme of Vialls's investigations: he blamed Israel and Mossad for a variety of international disasters and events, including the 2004 Asian Tsunami and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.[42] [edit]South-West Africa (Namibia) Reuters: S. Africa Minister Denies Knowing of Lockerbie Bomb According to another theory, suggested by UK's Patrick Haseldine, apartheid South Africa was responsible for the sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103.[43] The theory is rooted in an allegation made in the film the The Maltese Double Cross and by Die Zeit that the United States government knew of the bomb and warned staff from its embassies in Helsinki and Moscow, as well as a high-level South African delegation, to avoid the flight.[44] Someone allegedly contacted the US embassy in Helsinki, Finland 16 days before the bombing, warning of a bomb on a Pan Am aircraft departing Frankfurt for the US; none of the staff at the Moscow embassy took the flight, despite it being a popular route for them over Christmas.[1] The allegation prompted a strong statement in November 1994 from the private secretary of Pik Botha, then South African Foreign Minister, stating that "Had he known of the bomb, no force on earth would have stopped him from seeing to it that flight 103, with its deadly cargo, would not have left the airport."[1][45] [edit]Review by American RadioWorks In a special pre-trial report by American RadioWorks, the strengths and weaknesses of the case against Libya were explored. The report also examined in detail the evidence for and against the other main suspects in the first five alternative theories of this article.[46] No evidence was offered in the report against either the radio detonation or the South-West Africa (Namibia) theory. [edit]References ^ a b c d Patrick Barkham (1999-04-07). "Lockerbie conspiracies: from A to Z". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-05-25. ^ a b c "PAN AM Flight 103" (PDF). Defense Intelligence Agency, DOI 910200, page 49/50 (Pages 7 and 8 in PDF document, see also p. 111ff). Retrieved 2010-01-12. ^ a b "The man who was not there". Canadafreepress.com. Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ a b Peter Knight (2003). Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1576078124. ^ David B. Ottaway; Laura Clark (1989-05-11). "CIA Confident Iran Behind Jet Bombing; American Student Possibly Duped". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-01-07. ^ Cox, Matthew, and Foster, Tom. (1992) Their Darkest Day: The Tragedy of Pan Am 103, ISBN 0-8021-1382-6 ^ Ludwig De Braeckeleer (2008-12-31). "Tehran Hands Over the Remaining Funds to Jibril PFLP-GC". Retrieved 2009-01-07. ^ Ludwig de Braeckeleer (2008-02-05). "Lockerbie: Chronicle of a Death Foretold". Canada Free Press. Retrieved 2009-02-25. ^ "Flight 103," ABC News Prime Time Live, November 30, 1989 ^ Emerson, Steven and Duffy, Brian. (1990) The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation, ISBN 0-399-13521-9 ^ The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie (1994), Producer Allan Francovich ^ Thatcher, Margaret. (1993) The Downing Street Years, pp448-9 ^ Rodney Wallis (2001). Lockerbie: The Story and the Lessons. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0275964930. Retrieved 2009-02-25. ^ Rodney Wallis (2001). Lockerbie. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 143–147. ISBN 0275964930. ^ Micheal T. Hurley, Kenton V. Smith (2004). I Solemnly Swear. iUniverse. p. 119. ISBN 0595299474. ^ Micheal T. Hurley, Kenton V. Smith (2004). I Solemnly Swear. iUniverse. pp. 116–152. ISBN 0595299474. ^ Aviv, Juval (1989). "Interfor Report" (PDF). Interfor Inc. ^ Goddard, Donald and Coleman, Lester. (1993) Trail of the Octopus, ISBN 0-451-18184-0 ^ "Lester Coleman's ''Trail of the Octopus''". Copi.com. Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ "METRO NEWS BRIEFS: NEW YORK; Informer Admits Lying In Pan Am Crash Case". New York Times. 1997-09-12. Retrieved 2009-06-24. ^ Paul Foot. "Review of Coleman's book". Druglibrary.org. Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ Paul Foot (2004-03-31). "Lockerbie's dirty secret". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-05-25. ^ "The DOSSIER | Video | cover-ups". Thedossier.ukonline.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ "Internet version of ''The Maltese Double Cross - Lockerbie''". Thedossier.ukonline.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ Marcello Mega (2005-08-28). "Police chief - Lockerbie evidence was faked". Scotland on Sunday. Retrieved 2008-11-10. ^ Townsend, Mark (June 24, 2007). "Yvonne Fletcher: the net closes in". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-05-21. ^ Paul, Reynolds (2003-08-19). "UTA 772: The forgotten flight". BBC News. Retrieved 2007-03-15. ^ Devenport, Mark (2003-09-11). "Why no-one's reading the Libya dossier". BBC News. Retrieved 2007-10-10. ^ "The IRA's store of weaponry". BBC News. 2001-08-14. Retrieved 2007-10-10. ^ "UN monitor decries Lockerbie judgement". BBC News. 2002-03-14. Retrieved 2008-08-05. ^ "Libya accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials". Un.org. Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ "Libya compensates terror victims". BBC News. 2008-10-31. Retrieved 2008-11-01. ^ "Police investigations of "politically sensitive" or high profile crimes" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ "Lockerbie trial adjourns", BBC News, 21 November 2000. Retrieved 2007-08-10. ^ "Abu Nidal 'behind Lockerbie bombing'". BBC News. 2002-08-23. Retrieved 2008-08-05. ^ Hugo Rifkind. "Abu Nidal and Gaddafi - a dangerous combination". Timesonline.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ "Subverting America : A Trojan Horse Legacy" by Rodney Stich. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ Radio detonation theory ^ "Microsoft Word - 503158" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ Paul Todd, Jonathan Bloch (2003). Global Intelligence. Zed Books. ISBN 1842771132. ^ "Bomb positioned "close to the fuselage"". Web.archive.org. Retrieved 2010-06-05. ^ Joe Vialls (2002-02-12). "Pulsed-Strobe "Less Than Lethal" Weapon at The Ritz". Retrieved 2009-02-25. ^ Patrick Haseldine (1989-12-07). "Finger of suspicion". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-05-25. ^ Guy Arnold (1996). The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order. Cassell. ISBN 0304333662. Retrieved 2009-02-25. ^ David Tucker (1994-11-12). "S. Africa Minister Denies Knowing of Lockerbie Bomb". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-02-25. ^ "Shadow over Lockerbie - Mass Murder Over Scotland". Americanradioworks.publicradio.org. Retrieved 2010-06-05.
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