Libya's Lockerbie compensation proposal

There have recently been a series of press reports about a Libyan proposal to resolve outstanding compensation issues regarding the La Belle disco bombing and the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie and UTA 772 over Niger. Here, reproduced from Mathaba.Net, is Patrick Haseldine's perceptive commentary:

'It is hardly surprising that details have not been revealed about the 'comprehensive settlement agreement' which Libya has proposed to resolve the question of compensation for the terrorist bombings of Berlin's La Belle discotheque in April 1986, Pan Am Flight 103 at Lockerbie in December 1988 and UTA Flight 772 over Niger, West Africa, in September 1989.

Libya has never admitted responsibility for the La Belle attack. Nonetheless, in August 2004, the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity Associations (GIFCA) agreed with lawyers representing the German victims a final compensation figure of $35 million. US victims were presumably excluded from this agreement because of the USAF retaliatory air raid on Tripoli in June 1986, in which Muammar al-Gaddafi's adopted daughter Hannah was among dozens of casualties.

On August 15, 2003, Libya's UN ambassador, Ahmed Own, submitted a letter to the UN Security Council formally accepting "responsibility for the actions of its officials" in relation to both aircraft bombings. The Libyan government offered $2.7 billion compensation to relatives of the 270 Lockerbie bombing victims and proceeded to pay each family $8 million (from which legal fees of about $2.5 million were deducted). As a result, the United Nations cancelled the sanctions that had been suspended four years earlier, and US trade sanctions were lifted. A further $2 million would have gone to each family had the US State Department removed Libya from its list of states regarded as supporting international terrorism, but as this did not happen before the deadline set by Libya, the Libyan Central Bank withdrew the remaining $540 million in April 2005 from the escrow account in Switzerland through which the earlier $2.16 billion compensation for the victims' families had been paid. A civil action against Libya continues on behalf of Pan Am, which went bankrupt partly as a result of the Lockerbie attack. The airline is seeking $4.5 billion for the loss of the aircraft and the effect on the airline's business.

In January 2004, the Libyan leader's son Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi signed an agreement on behalf of GIFCA with French relatives' group "Les familles du DC-10 d'UTA en colère" offering a compensation payment of $170 million, or $1 million for each of the 170 UTA victims. By May 2007, it was reported that 95% of this compensation money had been distributed. However, the families of the seven American victims refused to accept their $1 million awards and are pursuing the Libyan government through a federal court in Washington. On September 19, 2006, the court was asked to rule that the Libyan government and six of its agents were guilty of the September 19, 1989 destruction of UTA Flight 772. Damages of more than $2 billion were claimed for the loss of life and the destruction of the DC-10 jet. In April 2007, D.C. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy found Libya directly responsible for the bombing and presided over a three day bench trial from August 13 to August 15, 2007. On January 15, 2008 Judge Kennedy issued an order awarding $6 billion in damages to the families and owners of the airliner. Libya has appealed this decision.

There are, however, strong reasons for believing that Libya was "fitted up" for these two aircraft bombings. According to French investigative journalist, Pierre Péan, the FBI conspired to incriminate Libya for the sabotage of both Pan Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772. Péan wrote an article published in 'Le Monde Diplomatique' in March 2001, just after the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial had ended with the conviction of Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on the strength of just one piece of hard evidence: a tiny fragment of a timing device manufactured by the Swiss firm Mebo.

Two years earlier, six Libyans were tried 'in absentia' and convicted in 1999 by a Paris court for the UTA Flight 772 bombing. Péan claimed there was something wrong:

"It is striking to witness the similarity of the discoveries, by the FBI, of the scientific proof of the two aircraft that were sabotaged: the Pan Am Boeing 747 and the UTA DC-10. Among the thousands or rather tens of thousands of pieces of debris collected near the crash sites, just one PCB fragment was found in each case, which carried enough information to allow its identification: Mebo for the Boeing 747 and "TY" (from Taiwan) for the DC-10."

Péan went on to accuse judge Jean-Louis Bruguière of ignoring the results of an analysis by Claude Colisti of the Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire (DCPJ) – one of the world's foremost explosives experts – that the "TY" timer fragment had no trace of explosives residue, and could not therefore have been connected to the bomb that destroyed UTA Flight 772. Furthermore, neither a forensic inquiry by the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) nor an examination by the scientific laboratory of the Préfecture de Police (PP) could make any connection between the timer fragment and the bomb. According to Péan, judge Bruguière had therefore taken at face value the word of an FBI political operative (Thomas Thurman), who had been discredited in 1997 by the US Inspector-General, Michael Bromwich, and told never again to appear in court as an expert witness, rather than accept the findings of French forensic experts. It was revealed at the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial that the British scientist, Dr Thomas Hayes, had also failed to test the Mebo timer fragment for explosives residue. Such reckless disregard for the integrity of forensic evidence is likely to have the most profound effects upon the Scottish judicial process in relation to Megrahi's second appeal against conviction at the Edinburgh Appeal Court in 2008.

There have been suggestions that, if Megrahi's appeal is successful and his conviction is overturned, Libya could seek to recover the compensation that has already been paid. Interviewed by French newspaper 'Le Figaro' on December 7, 2007, Saif al-Gaddafi insisted that the seven Libyans convicted for the Pan Am Flight 103 and the UTA Flight 772 bombings "are innocent". When asked if Libya would therefore seek reimbursement of the compensation paid to the families of the victims ($2.33 billion in total), Saif al-Gaddafi replied: "I don't know".

Thus, the proposed 'comprehensive settlement agreement' - that Libyan officials discussed in London last week with David Welch of the US State Department - is more likely to involve a refund of compensation to Libya, rather than any further payments by Libya.'

Here is an article on the compensation issue from The Wall Street Journal of 2 April 2008.

Libya, UTA 772 and Pan Am 103

[On this date in 1999 a French court convicted in absentia six Libyans, including Abdullah al-Senussi, for the bombing of UTA flight 772 over Niger and the murder of the 170 passengers and crew. A BBC News report contains the following:]

Colonel Gaddafi's brother-in-law and five other Libyans have been found guilty of bombing a French airliner.

They were sentenced to life in prison by a special court in Paris. However, they were tried in absentia and will be allowed another hearing if they are ever taken into French custody.

The aircraft, a DC-10 operated by the French airline UTA, crashed in Niger in September 1989, killing all 170 people on board. Debris was scattered over hundreds of kilometres in the Sahara desert.

Libya helped France during part of the investigation but did not offer full co-operation and refused to hand over the suspects. (...)

Prosecutors said a package containing a bomb had been planted on a young Congolese with links to Libyan agents in the Congolese capital Brazzaville, from where the UTA flight to Paris had set off.

The prosecution said the six had been working for the Libyan secret service, which is also accused of bombing Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. (...)

Correspondents have highlighted differences between France's handling of the case and the way the UK and US Governments have sought the extradition of those accused of the Lockerbie bombing.

Evidence against the UTA suspects is said to be much stronger than that against the two Lockerbie suspects.

Libya has been under UN sanctions since 1992 in connection with the UTA and Pan Am bombs.

[RB: As with Pan Am 103, Libya eventually paid compensation to the families of those who died on UTA 772. The most detailed account of the UTA 772 bombing and its relationship to Lockerbie is to be found here on The Masonic Verses website.]

Early report that Lockerbie investigation pointing to Libya

[Pan Am 103 Clue Leads to Libyans : Terrorism: US and Scottish investigators now believe that the regime of Moammar Kadafi carried out the jet bombing that killed 270 is the headline over a lengthy report by Robin Wright and Ronald Ostrow that was published in the Los Angeles Times on this date in 1991. It reads as follows:]

The clue that turned the case was a microchip, a tiny piece of a triggering device to detonate a bomb.

From it, American and Scottish investigators found a new trail that refuted the conclusions of almost two years of arduous legwork by thousands of agents worldwide -- and eventually changed major assumptions about the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over a small Scottish village just four days before Christmas, 1988.

A key breakthrough, which came just as the largest international criminal probe in history neared an impasse, was almost a fluke. A "brilliant young CIA analyst," as one insider described him, decided to try a new hypothesis: Could someone besides the widely suspected culprits -- Palestinian radicals, their Syrian patrons or Iranian militants -- have been involved?

The analyst started with a hunch.

He searched for a "signature" that would match the Pan Am bombing with earlier incidents to prove his suspicions. Culling through CIA files, he came up with the 1984 bombing of a French UTA airliner in Chad. A premature explosion blew up the baggage compartment while the plane was still on the ground and wounded 27 people.

He also found a link with the 1986 attempt to blow up the US Embassy in Togo. Officials in Lome, the Togolese capital, had arrested nine people with two suitcases full of plastic explosives.

But the biggest find was an obscure case in Senegal involving the arrest of two men at Dakar airport in February, 1988. In their possession were 20 pounds of sophisticated Semtex plastic and TNT explosives, weapons and several triggering devices.

The analyst's hunch was right.

In all three cases, the "signature" was distinctly Libyan.

In Senegal, the two men who were arrested -- Mohammed Marzouk, alias Mohammed Naydi, and Mansour Omran Saber -- were both agents of Libyan intelligence. And the triggering devices in their possession matched the microchip fragment from the Pan Am bomb.

The connection has since provided a new set of answers to how and why Pan Am 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, and who masterminded the blast.

Based on the forensic breakthrough and the links with earlier cases, investigators now believe:

* The regime of Moammar Kadafi carried out the bombing. Libyan intelligence, headed by Abdullah Sanussi, orchestrated the plot.

* The primary motive was revenge for the 1986 US bombing of Tripoli in which about 40 people, including Kadafi's adopted daughter, were killed. "The notion that the 1986 bombing of Tripoli deterred Libyan terrorism is greatly flawed," a leading counterterrorism expert concluded.

* The mysterious bag carrying the bomb-laden Toshiba radio-cassette player on the blown-up Pan Am 103 came from Malta. Investigators believe the bomb was probably flown on an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, Germany -- although the passenger and cargo log has disappeared. In Germany, the cassette player was loaded on Pan Am 103 as an interline bag, unattached to any passenger.

Vital missing pieces in the puzzle finally fell into place. "We followed a lot of leads that looked promising at the beginning but turned out to be nothing," a counterterrorism specialist said. "All the streets followed down to dead ends."

The breakthroughs mean that, unlike the unsolved cases of half a dozen terrorist spectaculars against US targets in the 1980s, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 may go to court.

Assistant Atty Gen Robert S Mueller III, who heads the Justice Department's Criminal Division and has been meeting frequently with the FBI on the investigation, appears poised to take the case to a grand jury, according to US officials.

Should the grand jury return sealed indictments, the biggest obstacle may not be just arresting those involved. US authorities already are working with French police now seeking to apprehend one of the Libyan suspects somewhere in North Africa, the officials said.

The problem instead may be competition over which country will get them for trial. French intelligence now believes yet another terrorist attack -- the 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772 over the West African country of Niger -- was also directed by Libyan intelligence.

Although the method differed in each case, the signature was once again the telltale clue. The UTA explosive, part of which did not blow up and was retrieved from the Sahara desert, was one of five "suitcase bombs" that investigators believed Libyan intelligence purchased earlier from the notorious Mideast bomb maker Abu Ibrahim.

The primary motive, French officials suspect, was revenge for French aid that enabled Chad -- where the UTA flight took on most of its passengers -- to rout Libyan troops occupying parts of the neighboring state in 1987. The bomb was probably loaded in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital where the flight originated.

The new evidence on the Pan Am bombing, which began to emerge last summer, contradicts the longstanding belief that it was linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) headed by Ahmed Jibril. The radical PFLP-GC, based in Syria, is outside the PLO umbrella.

The original case was based on the arrest of a cell of 16 operatives in Germany two months before the 1988 Pan Am bombing. The group was found to have five sophisticated bombs, especially designed to blow up aircraft, hidden in electronic equipment.

From his base in Damascus, Jibril was also known to have worked closely with Iran, where he frequently traveled. Investigators believed that Tehran commissioned the PFLP-GC to target an American plane in retaliation for the accidental 1988 US downing of Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf in which 290 people died.

The crucial clues that changed the direction of the probe were the detonators. The Palestinian group's detonators were all Czech-made. They were attached to altimeter devices that were set to go off once a plane reached a certain altitude.

But, as forensic experts discovered, the detonator fragment that was culled from the wreckage of Flight 103, which had been scattered over 845 square miles of Scottish countryside, had important discrepancies.

It was of Swiss manufacture--from the same firm that had made the triggering devices that were found on the Libyan agents in Senegal. And it was attached to an ordinary timer that had been set to go off at a certain hour.

The "fingerprints" -- as forensic experts call the telltale characteristics of sophisticated explosive devices -- of the Pan Am bomb and the PFLP-GC bombs were vastly different. But the fingerprint of the Pan Am bomb was identical to the devices carried by the Libyan agents who were caught in Senegal.

Unfortunately, Senegal freed the Libyan agents, who were never formally charged, in June, 1988. US officials believe their release was part of a package deal in exchange for ending Libyan support for Senegal's opposition forces and for restoring diplomatic relations between the two countries, which had been severed eight years earlier.

At the time, the State Department issued a largely unnoticed -- but perhaps tragically prescient -- official comment: "We are extremely disappointed by Senegal's action, which raises questions about that country's commitment to the struggle against international terrorism."

Six months later, all 259 people on board Pan Am 103 and 11 others on the ground died when the New York-bound plane, flying 31,000 feet over Scotland, exploded just 38 minutes after takeoff from London's Heathrow Airport.

Crucial evidence held by Senegalese authorities also subsequently disappeared. US investigators have had to rely on photographs of the Libyan agents' materiel to match up the fingerprints of the two bombs.

US officials are unwilling to say where the two Libyans are today, but there are hints that they may be suspects in the Pan Am case. Investigators do believe, however, that the same top Libyan intelligence officials -- including Sanussi -- masterminded both the operation that was uncovered in Senegal and the Pan Am bombing.

Sanussi has been a constant headache to counterterrorism officials in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, a well-placed US source said. In 1986, he was sentenced in absentia by an Egyptian court to 10 years' imprisonment for conspiring to assassinate a group of prominent Libyan exiles.

Sanussi also reportedly makes regular use of Libyan Arab Airlines, the national carrier, as a cover for intelligence and terrorist activities. He is believed to have recruited baggage-handlers and airport personnel in Europe and Africa to facilitate his operations.

The new case against Libya has effectively absolved Syria, the PFLP-GC's primary sponsor, of involvement in the Pan Am bombing, counterterrorism officials say.

But neither Damascus nor Jibril has been cleared of plotting terrorist activities. US officials also believe the arrests that broke up the radical Palestinian cell operating in Germany probably foiled what could have been an even bigger terrorist spectacular: the bombing of three other planes over a period of only a few days.

Counterterrorism analysts suggest that one of the Palestinian group's targets was an Iberia Airlines flight from Madrid to Israel via Barcelona. Among its scheduled passengers were members of an Israeli sports team.

A former US intelligence official says that PFLP-GC operatives also had surveyed the Pan Am counter at Frankfurt airport, although no evidence indicated specific plans against Flight 103 as one of the three planes.

The biggest outstanding question in the investigation is what role, if any, Iran may have played, several key US sources say.

"Unlike the connection established between Iran and Jibril, we have nothing to prove Iran's link with Libya," one official said. "But some still believe there's a link (that) we haven't found yet."

Another added: "I'll go to my grave believing Iranians had a role in Pan Am 103."

By contrast, before the latest breakthrough, investigators felt they had a strong circumstantial case of Iranian links with the PFLP-GC cell on the Pan Am bombing.

Through electronic intercepts, intelligence services had monitored messages from Iranian officials known for their militancy who expressed concern after arrests of the PFLP-GC cell. They apparently were worried about the implications for an operation they wanted carried out.

Investigators initially thought the PFLP-GC and Libyan plots were directly connected. One early scenario suggested that Iran funded two separate cells for the same operation. The second cell was to provide a backup if the first one failed.

But investigators have increasingly moved away from the so-called "Cell A, Cell B" scenario.

So far, investigators have no evidence from intercepts or secret meetings of direct contact between Libya and Iran. Indeed, relations between Tripoli and Tehran have been erratic.

But if the PFLP-GC and Libyan plots were not linked, the implications are even more serious. "You have to be terrified that there were two groups out there in the fall of 1988 plotting to bomb planes," the well-placed official said. "That's even scarier."

[RB: It was just under five months later that it was announced by the prosecution authorities in Scotland and the United States that charges were being brought against Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah.]

Lifting of UN sanctions against Libya

[On this date in 2003 the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution lifting the sanctions that had been imposed on Libya after the bombings of Pan Am 103 and UTA 772. The relevant Security Council press release (which includes the text of the resolution and the speeches made at the session) reads in part:]

After several delays in recent weeks, the Security Council this morning lifted decade-long sanctions against Libya, which were imposed after that country failed to cooperate with investigations into terrorist acts against Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, and France’s Union de transports aeriens (UTA) flight 772 over the Niger in 1989.

After postponing action on the issue last Tuesday in an effort to achieve consensus (see Press Release SC/7866 of 9 September), the Council adopted resolution 1506 today by a vote of 13 in favour with two abstentions (France, United States).  The decision became possible after Libya accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials, renounced terrorism and arranged for payment of appropriate compensation for the families of the victims.

Libya also expressed its commitment to cooperate with any further requests for information in connection with the investigation.  Those steps in compliance with relevant Council resolutions were recounted in a letter, dated 15 August, from Libya’s Permanent Representative to the President of the Council (document S/2003/818).

Speaking after the vote, however, the representative of the United States said that his country had abstained in the vote, because it did not want its position to be misconstrued as a decision to modify its bilateral measures regardless of future Libyan behaviour.  The United States’ sanctions on that country would remain in full force.

While Libya had taken steps in compliance with relevant United Nations resolutions, the United States continued to have serious concerns about other aspects of Libyan behaviour, he said.  These included its poor human rights record, its rejection of democratic norms and standards, its irresponsible behaviour in Africa, its history of involvement in terrorism and -- most importantly -- its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

Referring to the agreement reached yesterday between representatives of the families of the victims of the UTA flight and the Gadhafi Foundation, France’s representative said that agreement had enabled France to not oppose the lifting of sanctions.  The conditions had been established for the equitable settlement of the painful matter that involved 17 nationalities.

Also speaking after the vote were the representatives of Germany, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Syria, Spain and the United Kingdom.  They pointed out that the lifting of sanctions was an important phase in the process of reintegrating Libya in the international community, emphasizing that such normalization presumed that Libya would continue to abide by its commitments.  Several members of the Council also called on Libya to take other measures, including an equitable settlement for victims of the La Belle night club bombing in Berlin in 1986. (...)

Regarding the Lockerbie investigation, the United Kingdom (S/23307) and the United States (S/23308) had requested that Libya surrender for trial those charged with the destruction of the Pan Am flight on 21 December 1988, resulting in 270 deaths.  They further requested that Libya accept responsibility for the actions of its officials; disclose all it knew of the crime; and pay appropriate compensation.  Those requests were included in resolution 731 (1992).

The sanctions were spelled out in resolution 748, adopted on 31 March 1992, and resolution 883, adopted on 11 November 1993, and included travel restrictions, an arms embargo, and financial sanctions excluding financial resources derived from the sale of petroleum products and agricultural products.  Subsequently, the Council suspended the sanctions by its resolution 1192 (1998) after Libya agreed to hand over two suspects for trial before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands in connection with the Lockerbie bombing.  One of them, Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi, has since been convicted and jailed for his role.

Ex-foreign minister says Libya behind 1989 airline attack

[This is the headline over an Agence France Presse news agency report published today on the Al-Arabiya website. It reads as follows:]

Libya is responsible for a deadly 1989 attack on a French airliner, Libyan former foreign minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam told al-Hayat newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

“The Libyan security services blew up the plane. They believed that opposition leader Mohammed al-Megrief was on board, but after the plane was blown up, it was found that he was not on the plane,” said Mr Shalgam, who defected from Muammar Qaddafi’s embattled regime earlier this year.

On September 19, 1989, a UTA DC-10 travelling from Brazzaville to Paris via N’Djamena crashed in Niger after explosives on board detonated, killing 170 passengers and crew, including 54 French citizens.

A French court in 2009 sentenced six Libyan agents in absentia to life in prison for the attack, but Libya has never admitted it was responsible.

However, Tripoli had in 2004 agreed to pay $170 million in compensation to the families of the victims.

Mr Shalgam also said that the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie that killed 270 people, for which Libya is widely believed to have been responsible, was more complicated than the UTA attack.

“The Lockerbie operation was more complex ... the role of states and organizations has been discussed, and while the Libyan services were implicated, I do not think it was a purely Libyan operation,” he said.

Last February, a former official from the radical Palestinian group Abu Nidal said that the attacks against the Pan Am and UTA planes were conducted “in conjunction” with Libya, and that the explosives were fabricated in Libya.

Mr Shalgam’s defection came in March when he was serving as Libya’s representative to the United Nations.

[Whether Libya was involved in the destruction of Pan Am 103 or not (eg by supplying materials to the culprits) it does not follow that a particular Libyan, viz Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was involved. The evidence against him remains just as weak as it was before Mr Shalgam spoke and the conviction of Megrahi on the evidence led at Zeist remains just as outrageous.

I may say that Mr Shalgam, whom I met on several occasions while he was Libya's foreign minister, always denied to me that his country was responsible for Lockerbie. But it may be that he is one of those who tends to tell people what he thinks, rightly or wrongly, that they want to hear.]

Innocence of Megrahi and Libya does not point to guilt of Iran

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer published today on his Intel Today website, where full supporting citations can be found:]

On January 6 2020, President Hassan Rouhani tweeted the following message:

“Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655. Never threaten the Iranian nation.”

This tweet was a response to President Donald Trump’s threat to target 52 sites in Iran should it retaliate against the US drone strike that killed top Iranian military figure General Qassem Soleimani on January 3 2020.

Not surprisingly, Rouhani’s message was quickly commented on by Middle East and Lockerbie experts as well as by imbeciles and hypocrites.

Real experts —

Middle East analyst Fatima Alasrar, from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, was one of the first to indicate the link between Rouhani’s tweet and Lockerbie.

“Rouhani is basically reminding @realDonaldTrump of the #Iranian Air Flight 655 carrying 290 passengers which was downed by a US navy warship the Vincennes in 1988.

Though it was deemed a human error, Tehran worked covertly to exact its revenge.

How? Lockerbie.”

Robert Black — Professor Emeritus of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh and best known as the architect of the Lockerbie Trial– concurs.

Speaking to The National as Iran continued to mourn Soleimani, Black said:

“I think Rouhani’s tweet does refer to Pan Am 103 … The 290 clearly refers to those killed on Iran Air 655 and with ‘Never threaten the Iranian nation’ it seems to me that he’s saying that Iran responded to those Iranian deaths caused by US action.

The only response that I can think of was the bombing of Pan Am 103 six months later.”

Imbeciles and hypocrites —

Given half a chance, idiots will never miss the opportunity to share with you their “deep knowledge” on sensitive issues. The current Iran Crisis is a case in point.

Describing himself as an expert on terrorism strategy with 36 years of services in the US Intel Community, Malcolm Nance tweeted:

“PANAM 103 was DEFINATELY Qaddafi Libya. We found the same Swiss digital detonators were purchased by Libyan intelligence and were also used on the UTA 772 in flight bombing. No question. Iran had nothing to do with it.”

Here is a quick primer for this “expert”. Firstly, no detonators were recovered, let alone identified, among the debris of PA 103 and UTA 772.

Secondly, the timer that allegedly triggered the bomb on UTA 772 was produced in Taiwan, not Switzerland.

Thirdly, we know now that PT/35(b) — a fragment of an PCB allegedly found at Lockerbie — does NOT match the metallurgy of the Swiss timers — MST13 — delivered to Libya. Full stop. (...)

Intel Today analysis —

There is no doubt whatsoever that Rouhani makes a direct reference to the 290 victims of Iranian Air Flight 655.

His warning “Never threaten the Iranian nation” appears to be a veiled threat suggesting that Iran will retaliate for Soleimani’s assassination just like they did in the case of Iranian Air Flight 655.

Assuming that this is indeed what Rouhani means, then it seems logical to conclude that he is claiming Iran’s responsibility for the downing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.

Actually, it is not the first time that a high level Iranian cleric claims responsibility for Lockerbie.

Indeed, when I spoke to Bani Sadr — who served as the first president of the Republic of Iran — he told me that ayatollah Motashemi-pur had immediately taken credit for the Lockerbie bombing which he regarded as a “just revenge” for Flight 655.

However…

Let me say this one more time. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Lockerbie verdict is utter nonsense.

Megrahi — the man known as the Lockerbie bomber — clearly suffered a spectacular miscarriage of justice.

In fact, the analysis of the fragment that linked Libya to Lockerbie demonstrates that the Swiss timers delivered to Libya played no role in the tragedy.

This is, in my opinion, the only reasonable conclusion that an honest person can reach.

However, to many observers, the innocence of Megrahi — and Libya — can only point to the guilt of Iran.

I can not agree with such a flawed logic, for it may very well replace a 30 years old lie by a new one, which would be quite convenient to certain groups today as it would suit very well their geopolitical agenda. (...)

Let me make this point very clear. There is not a shred of evidence that Iran ordered the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie as an act of retaliation for Iran Air 655.

And there is a good reason for that which I will reveal today.

In the aftermath of Flight 655 disaster, the US and Iran conducted a series of secret talks in the city of Montreux, Switzerland.  Richard Lawless was representing Bush and Abolghasem Mesbahi was an envoy of Rafsanjani.

By the end of September 1988 — 3 months before Lockerbie — they managed to settle an agreement.

None of this has ever been made public for obvious reasons. It would have been perceived as a second IranGate scandal. (...)

So, what really happened?

The Lockerbie investigation underwent three separated stages. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the American and British investigators quickly identified the cause of the tragedy as well as those responsible for it.

However, both Bush and Thatcher agreed that the truth was inconvenient.

From early January 1989 to March 1989, US and UK Intelligence agencies were busy writing a script implicating Iran.

That was not a very difficult task considering that very realistic but false “means, motive, and opportunity” could easily be wowen into a rather believable story.

Basically, the events of the “Autumn Leaves” operation — the PFLP-GC cell operating in Frankfurt — became a blueprint for the script. Thus all the key items appear at this stage: brown Samsonite, clothes from Malta, Toshiba radio, Semtex, Frankfurt, etc…

But in March 1989,  George H W Bush and Margaret Thatcher decided to hold off this game plan.

Why? Remember that the US is in secret talks with Rafsanjani and the future seems promising.

Ayatollah Khomeini is dying and his hardliner heir — Grand Ayatollah Montazeri — has been sacked on March 26 1989.

Khomeini died on June 3rd 1989. Ali Khamenei was elevated from the position of hojatoleslām to the rank of Ayatollah.That title, and a modification of the Constitution which previously restricted the job to the few people such Montazeri who had the title of Grand Ayatollah, was then enough to promote him as Khomeini’s successor.

Next, Rafsanjani himself was elected Iran’s president on August 3rd 1989.

By September 1989, blaming Iran for Lockerbie would no longer have served the geopolitical interests of the US and UK.

And lo and behold, in September 1989, the investigation entered stage 3 and  switched away from Iran to solely focus on Libya thanks to the mysterious ‘discovery’ of a tiny circuit board known as PT/35(b). The rest is History. (...)

If the SCCRC recommend a new trial, the infamous Zeist verdict does not have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving.

This should be the very top priority. Once Megrahi is acquitted and the Lockerbie-Libya fiction is erased once and for all, then the time will be right to investigate the true cause of disaster and reveal the identity of the culprits. It is not very hard at all…

UN Security Council requires Libya to comply with US/UK demands

[On this date in 1992 the United Nations Security Council passed its first resolution concerning Libya and the destruction of Pan Am 103 (UNSC Res 731). It reads as follows:]

The Security Council,

Deeply disturbed by the world-wide persistence of acts of international terrorism in all its forms, including those in which States are directly or indirectly involved, which endanger or take innocent lives, have a deleterious effect on international relations and jeopardize the security of States,

Deeply concerned by all activities directed against international civil aviation and affirming the right of all States, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and relevant principles of international law, to protect their nationals from acts of international terrorism that constitute threats to international peace and security,

Reaffirming its resolution 286 (1970) in which it called on States to take all possible legal steps to prevent any interference with international civil air travel,

Reaffirming also its resolution 635 (1989) in which it condemned all acts of unlawful interference against the security of civil aviation and called upon all States to cooperate in devising and implementing measures to prevent all acts of terrorism, including those involving explosives,

Recalling the statement made on 30 December 1988 by the President of the Council on behalf of the members of the Council strongly condemning the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 and calling on all States to assist in the apprehension and prosecution of those responsible for this criminal act,

Deeply concerned over results of investigations which implicate officials of the Libyan Government and which are contained in Security Council documents that include the requests addressed to the Libyan authorities by France, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America in connection with the legal procedures related to the attacks carried out against Pan Am flight 103 and UTA flight 772 (S/23306, S/23307, S/23308, S/23309, S/23317),

Determined to eliminate international terrorism,

1. Condemns the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 and UTA flight 772 and the resultant loss of hundreds of lives;

2. Strongly deplores the fact that the Libyan Government has not yet responded effectively to the above requests to cooperate fully in establishing responsibility for the terrorist acts referred to above against Pan Am flight 103 and UTA flight 772;

3. Urges the Libyan Government immediately to provide a full and effective response to those requests so as to contribute to the elimination of international terrorism;

4. Requests the Secretary-General to seek the cooperation of the Libyan Government to provide a full and effective response to those requests;

5. Urges all States individually and collectively to encourage the Libyan Government to respond fully and effectively to those requests;

6. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

[RB: Libya’s failure to comply led in March 1992 to a further Security Council Resolution imposing sanctions.]

Sir John Scarlett

Trowbridge H Ford, author, amongst other things, of a biography of Lord Chancellor Brougham, has produced an assessment of the career of Sir John Scarlett, current Director of SIS (often referred to as MI6). In the second part of the series (entitled 'MI6' s Sir John Scarlett: A Career of Increasingly Dangerous Failure') Ford refers to Scarlett's rôle in the aftermath of the destruction of Pan Am 103 as follows:

'By this time [December 1990], Scarlett was busily arranging the set up of Libya for more terrorism. On December 21,1988, Pan Am Flight 103 had blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including Charles McKee's CIA investigative team returning from Beirut where it had been uncovering the deepest secrets of the Iran-Contra scandal - apparently Syrian Monzar Al-Kassar's efforts to free hostages there, and in Africa for the French in return for continued protection of his drug-smuggling operations. While this was going on, Al-Kassar's people learned everything they needed to know about how to stop it from returning to the States. When CIA's handlers of Al-Kassar in Washington learned of this, they allowed a suspicious suitcase on the plane despite a NSA warning of an attack on an airliner, thinking, it seems, that it was just more of his drug operations when, in fact, his associates slipped a Semtex device on the flight originating from Frankfurt.

Uncovering the real cause of the Lockerbie tragedy was most politically inexpedient as London and Washington were increasingly focusing on a showdown with Iraq's Saddam Hussein. In any confrontation with the dictator, it was essential to have both Syria and Iran at least on the sidelines, something impossible if Al-Kassar, brother-in-law of Syria's intelligence chief, and lover of its despot Hafez Al-Assad's niece, were ever indicted for the crime. As in the Palme assassination, the failure to find some apparent culprit for the mass murder - what could increasingly not be simply blamed on unknown terrorists - was putting more and more pressure on West Germany's counterterrorists for apparently allowing it to happen. The real story had to be buried, as Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen wrote in The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, "in the graveyard of geopolitics." (p. 286)

Scarlett, it seems, was the grave digger. On September 19, 1989, a Union des Transport Aériens (UTA) flight exploded over the Sahara in Niger while on its way from Brazzaville to Paris, via N'Djamena in Chad, killing all 171 passengers, including American Ambassador to Chad Robert Pugh's wife Bonnie, leaving "...a scene all too reminiscent of Lockerbie, Scotland." (Ted Gup, The Book of Honor, p. 310) The similarity was not missed by France's DST, and Scarlett, the SIS resident in Paris, either, and they soon started connecting together the two bombings at Libya's expense.

Robert Pugh was the deputy chief of mission in Beirut who had had to clean up the mess when the American Embassy was bombed in April 1983, and the resulting CIA Counterterrorist Center (CTC) to stop such atrocities required a no-holds-barred solution to the Lockerbie bombing. Inter-agency cooperation of the highest degree, both domestic and foreign, was required if any culprits were ever to be caught, given the new legal restraints on how intelligence operations were to be conducted.

The task was to link Libya as having "...been ultimately responsible for both Pan Am 103 and UTA 772." (Ibid.) While authorities were searching the desert for the wreckage of the French airliner, they apparently found the circuit board which was responsible for the IED explosion - what reminded investigators of what had happened to the same UTA flight back on March 10, 1984 when it exploded without loss of life while parked on the tarmac in Brazzaville - and now Anglo-American authorities worked together to create the same scene in the Scotland wreckage. A CIA agent planted parts from the same kind of detonator in the wreckage area of the Lockerbie crash while looking for belongings of its deceased personnel which was found by Bureau agents in early 1990 while they were searching for evidence of what caused the crash.

As in the Palme fiasco, Scarlett worked with the former SIS agent in Oslo, Robert Andrew Fulton apparently aka Mack Falkirk, who became its chief agent in Washington. While Scarlett was persuading his superiors to allow the CIA and FBI complete access to the Lockerbie crash site, Fulton was priming their superiors back in Washington to make the most of the opportunity. Scarlett put the icing on the cake, it seems, by persuading Abd Al-majid Jaaka, a Libyan intelligence officer who had defected to the British embassy in Tunis, to tell his story to the Americans in Rome, and claim that two former colleagues had prepared the bomb which blew up the airliner in revenge for the UK/USA bombing of Tripoli after the Palme assassination. The ruse was so successful that by the time Libya finally handed over the two fallguys for trial in Holland, Anglo-American covert operators were completely in charge of the prosecution.

Scarlett's particular contribution to their conviction, as MI6's Director of Security and Public Affairs, was to persuade disgruntled MI5 whistleblower Daivd Shayler to join SIS, and to claim that Gaddafi's destruction of Pan Am flight 103 had so angered SIS that it had plotted to assassinate him, with Al-Qaeda's help, in 1995/6. As Shayler and his former mistress Annie Machon have written in Spies, Lies & Whistleblowers: while there was no credible evidence that the Iranians were behind the Lockerbie bombing there was no question that Gaddafi was. With everyone fixed on the alleged SIS assassination of the Libyan leader, it helped make their claim about Lockerbie tragedy a foregone conclusion.

To add injury to injury, Machon and Shayler made it sound as if Scarlett was the victim of some kind of British Stalinism where intelligence service chiefs were obliged to go along with what their political bosses demanded. As Dame Stella Rimington had explained her appointment to head the Security Service in her autobiography, Open Secrets, as learning to go along with her superiors, so Scarlett became SIS director general after his time as head of the Joint Intelligence Committee where he supinely agreed to the doctoring of the 'dodgy dossier' on Iraq's alleged WMD to suit the demands of Downing Street. They added:

"David has always said that the intelligence services are anything but meritocratic, with those not rocking the boat more likely to be promoted than those who stand up for what is right. Scarlett's appointment has provided more than ample proof of that." (p. 357)

To show that this was anything but the truth, Scarlett then arranged for his buddy Andrew Fulton to officially resign from SIS, and take up a visiting professorship at Glasgow's School of Law, though he had had no legal training, much less any legal degrees. In 2000, he volunteered his services as legal advisor to the Lockerbie Commission on briefing the press about the trial [sic; a reference to Glasgow University's Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit], and his handiwork became so notorious that he was forced to resign, once his background became known. For a sample of it, see what Machon and Shayler did with the British media's attempts to exonerate Qaddafi for Lockerbie.'

For the full text, with supporting references, see
http://codshit.blogspot.com/2008/01/mi6s-sir-john-scarlett-career-of.html

The man who knows Gaddafi's secrets

[This is the heading over an article published today by US political commentator Eric S Margolis on his website. It reads in part:]

Moussa Koussa is now closeted in London with British intelligence. MI6 will have a huge number of questions to ask the man who headed up Libyan intelligence for some fifteen years, either officially or unofficially, and acted as a top advisor to the Libyan strongman.

Her Majesty’s spooks will debrief Koussa about the loyalty of Gadaffi’s military and tribal supporters, and his “Plan B” in case of defeat. In spite of denials, the US, Britain and France are already sending increasing numbers of special forces into Libya, as I’ve reported for two months. (...)

The common view was that the Pan Am atrocity was revenge for the US bombing of Libya in 1986. A year later, Gadaffi showed me the ruins of his private quarters where a US 1,000 kg bomb had killed his two-year old daughter. “Why are the Americans trying to kill me,” he asked me?

A year later, a bomb destroyed a French UTA airliner over the Sahara, killing 171. France had just defeated Libya in a sharp border conflict over Chad. The late head of French intelligence, SDECE, told me French President Francois Mitterand ordered him to kill Gadaffi, but then cancelled the operation - a bomb hidden in Gadaffi’s aircraft - when Franco-Libyan relations improved.

In 1999, French investigators found Libya guilty of the UTA attack. Six Libyan officials, including the deputy chief of intelligence, Abdullah Senoussi, were convicted in absentia. Senoussi insisted to me over dinner in Tripoli that his nation was innocent. But it certainly looked like Libya was getting revenge for its defeat in Chad, and the attempt on Gadaffi’s life.

Lockerbie is another story. Some veteran observers believed al-Megrahi was framed to implicate Libya when the real culprit was Iran, seeking revenge for the downing of an Iranian airliner over the Gulf in July, 1988, by US cruiser “Vincennes” that killed 290, mostly pilgrims, headed for Mecca.

But questions over Megrahi’s guilt grew. Scotland’s respected legal system was considering an appeal that was likely to have revealed efforts to frame the Libyan. To head off this embarrassment, Britain sent him back to Libya, claiming he was about to die from cancer. In return, British oil and commercial interests in Libya were quickly expanded. It was a remarkably cynical business, greased by Tony Blair, oozing synthetic charm from every pore.

Libya never admitted guilt for these aerial crimes, but paid out $1.5 billion blood money in 2008. US President George Bush promptly “pardoned” Libya, ended punishing sanctions, and allowed US oil firms to return to Libya. The hapless Meghrahi was welcome home by Libyans as a hero and sacrificial lamb.

We still don’t know who really bombed Pan Am 103 or the full story about the UTA airliner. Hard evidence has been lacking. (...)

Another question: will Koussa himself be charged with crimes? One suspects a deal was made before he defected to spare the wily Libyan spook. The man in grey is stepping out of the shadows.