[A-List] PanAm Flight 103 Case Not Closed --- by William Blum

[James Daly]

go to end 

(written 2001)
       The Bombing of PanAm Flight 103              Case Not Closed               
by William Blum                                    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."{1}  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.{1a}  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."{2}  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."{3}  

   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.{4}  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?{5}  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."{6}  
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."{7}  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]".{8}  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."{9}

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.{10}  "The Syrians 
took a bum rap on this," said President George H.W. Bush.{11}  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.{12}      In May, the State Department stated that the CIA was 
"confident" of the Iran-Syria-PFLP-GC account of events.{13}      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.{14}      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.(15)  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."{16}      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.{17}      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.{18}      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.{19}      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."{20}

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{21} -- 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.{22}  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."{23}

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."{24}  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.{25}    
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.{26}  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.{27}  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.{28}  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.{29}   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.{30}      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.{31}  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.{32}  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.{33}  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.{34}  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."{35}

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.{36}  "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.{37}  
"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.{38}  "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.{39} 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. 


NOTES

1. "Opinion of the Court", Par. 39 1a. Mark Perry, Eclipse: The Last Days of the 
CIA 

(Wm. Morrow, New York, 1992), pp.342-7. 2. "Opinion of the Court", Par. 55 3. 
"Opinion of the Court", Par. 68 4. See, e.g., Sunday Times (London), Nov. 12, 
1989, p.3. 5. 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. 6. Sunday Times (London), 
December 17, 1989, p. 14.  Malta is, in fact, a major manufacturer of clothing 
sold throughout the world. 7. "Opinion of the Court", Par. 89 8. Ibid. 9. The 
Guardian (London), June 19, 2001 10. New York Times, Nov. 15, 1991 11. Los 
Angeles Times, Nov. 15, 1991 12. New York Times, April 13, 1989, p.9; David 
Johnston, Lockerbie: The Tragedy of Flight 103 (New York, 1989), pp.157, 161-2.  
13. Washington Post, May 11, 1989, p. 1 14. New York Times, December 16, 1989, 
p.3. 15. 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. 16. The Times (London), September 20, 1989, p.1 17. 
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. 18. Reuters dispatch, datelined Tunis, Feb. 26, 1992 19. The Guardian, 
Feb. 24, 1995, p.7 20. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York, 
1993), pp.448-9. 21. National Law Journal, Sept. 25, 1995, p.A11, from papers 
filed in a New York court case. 22. 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. 23. Barron's, 
op. cit., p. 18. 24. The Times (London), November 1, 1990, p.3; Washington 
Times, October 31, 1990, p.3 25. Government Information, Justice, and 
Agriculture Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of 
Representatives, December 18, 1990, passim. 26. Ibid, 27. The film, "The Maltese 
Double Cross" (see below). 28. 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. 29. 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. 
30. Ashton, op. cit.; Wall Street Journal, December 18, 1995, p.1, and December 
18, 1996, p.B2  31. The Guardian (London), April 23, 1994, p.5 32. Sunday Times 
(London), May 7, 1995. 33. 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. 34. 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 35. Cadman in "The Maltese Double 
Cross".  Also see The Guardian, July 29, 1995, p.27 36. New York Times, Feb. 2, 
2001 37. Ibid. 38. Electronic Telegraph UK News, February 4, 2001 39. All 
quotations are from Koechler's report of February 3, 2001, easily found on the 
Internet Written by William Blum <bblum6 [at] aol.com>, author of:  Killing 
Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since
World War II  and Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
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 


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