Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Granada Television. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Granada Television. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday 26 November 2015

Granada Television's "Why Lockerbie?"

[On this date in 1990 Granada Television’s dramatised documentary Why Lockerbie? was broadcast in the United Kingdom. It was later broadcast in the United States under the title The Tragedy of Flight 103. Paul Foot in his Private Eye special report Lockerbie: The Flight From Justice had this to say (page 7):]

The programme focused on a bakery in Malta and a Palestinian cell based there. The programme made the same connection as the Sunday Times had done a year earlier – between the fact that the clothes in the bomb suitcase were bought in Malta and the less certain fact that an unaccompanied bag from Malta was loaded onto a Pan Am feeder flight from Frankfurt to London and thence to Pan Am 103. To illustrate this hypothesis, the programme showed a sinister-looking Arab checking in a bag at Malta airport and then sliding surreptitiously away while the plane took off.

This was too much for Air Malta, who sued Granada for libel. Norton Rose, the London commercial solicitors, compiled a huge dossier detailing almost everything about the flight from Malta to Frankfurt on the day of the Lockerbie bombing and proving that all 55 bags checked in on the flight could be ascribed to passengers, none of whom travelled on to London. The evidence was so powerful that Granada settled the action before it got to court. They paid Air Malta £15,000 damages and all the costs of the case. The only time these matters had been tested in a legal action, the Maltese connection to the bomb suitcase was comprehensively demolished.

Monday 6 March 2017

Parliamentary questions and answers on Lockerbie

[On this date in 1995, Tam Dalyell MP received answers in the House of Commons to several written questions about Lockerbie. The following are three of the questions and answers:]

Mr Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs following the court case, Air Malta v Granada Television, and pursuant to the Prime Minister's answer of 31 January, Official Report, column 558, what evidence has been found to substantiate a Malta connection with the Lockerbie bombing.
Mr Douglas Hogg: Two Libyan nationals are accused of having placed, or having caused to be placed, the bomb which destroyed flight PA 103 on board an Air Malta flight from Luqa airport on 21 December 1988. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I cannot comment on the detail of the evidence against the two accused while criminal proceedings are pending. The recent out-of-court settlement between Air Malta and Granada Television has no bearing on the prosecution case against the two accused. I understand that the story in relation to which Air Malta brought the action was based on allegations different in detail from those contained in the warrants for the arrest of the two Libyans accused.

Mr Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what consideration has been given to evidence involving officials of countries other than Libya in relation to Lockerbie; and what efforts Her Majesty's Government have made to obtain such evidence concerning nationals of countries, other than Libya, undertaken on 20 January 1992, Official Report, column 159.
Mr Douglas Hogg: The Lockerbie investigators have given exhaustive consideration to all information relevant to the Lockerbie bombing. The possible involvement by nationals of a number of countries has been very closely investigated. Despite the unprecedented scale of the investigation, the available evidence does not support charges against the nationals of any country besides Libya. But the investigation remains open and any relevant new information will be considered.

Mr Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for what reason Her Majesty's Government supported the United States decision that the Montreal convention, requiring attempts at conciliation and arbitration, should not be applied in relation to Pan Am 103 and Lockerbie; and what the preferred action was through the UN Security Council.
Mr Douglas Hogg: The question of the applicability of the Montreal convention is pending before the International Court of Justice. We and the US Government referred to the UN Security Council Libya's failure to surrender the two accused of the Lockerbie bombing in view of the frequently expressed concerns of the United Nations about the effect of terrorism on international peace and security.

Sunday 26 July 2015

The case that won’t go away

[This is the headline over an article by John Wight published on this date in 2010 on the Socialist Unity website. It reads as follows:]

The case of convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, and the controversy surrounding his release on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government last year, refuses to go away.

At time of writing both Kenny McAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary responsible for releasing Mr Megrahi, and Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign secretary at the time, have turned down requests to appear before a US Senate Committee Hearing into Megrahi’s release and whether or not any back door deals between the Libyan and British governments involving BP had any bearing on it.

The stridency and vehemence of the criticism that came from the US at the time of Megrahi’s release, and which continues to this day, reflects the double standards, hypocrisy, and dissembling which denotes US relations with the rest of the world.

Convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2001, 11 years after the bombing was carried out, and after a trial in the Netherlands conducted under the strictures of the Scottish legal system, which for the uninitiated remains separate and distinct from its counterpart in the rest of the UK, Megrahi has consistently protested his innocence of the biggest terrorist attack ever committed in Britain, when 270 people were killed after a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. The victims comprised all 243 passengers and 16 crew members on board, along with 11 residents of the small Scottish town which gave its name to the atrocity thereafter.

Some of the relatives of the victims had consistently cast doubt over Megrahi’s conviction. One of those, relatives Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, told BBC radio at the time of his release. “I don’t believe the verdict is right. It would be an abominable cruelty to force this man to die in prison.” Other relatives remained circumspect and had called for Megrahi’s scheduled appeal hearing, which he dropped a few days before his release, to go ahead. Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter died in the attack, said. “I am not absolutely convinced of Megrahi’s guilt nor of his innocence. We simply at this point do not know enough to be able to make that judgment.”

In contradistinction, victims’ families in the US had called for Megrahi to complete his sentence in Scotland and continue to be convinced of his guilt. In this they’ve been joined by their government, which in the days and weeks leading up to the Libyan’s release made strong representation to Kenny MacAskill in the form of public statements, letters from ranking senators, and even a personal phone call from US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

Despite such an outpouring of protest in advance and in the wake of Megrahi’s release, and up to this day, it is well nigh certain that he was convicted and imprisoned for something he didn’t do.

During the original trial no material evidence was presented linking the Libyan to the bombing, let alone any evidence that he put the bomb on the plane or that he handled any explosives. Even the prosecution subsequently questioned the credibility of its star witness.

The central pillar of the prosecution’s case was that Megrahi wrapped the bomb in clothes before checking it on to an aircraft in Malta without boarding the aircraft himself. The bomb, the prosecution alleged, was subsequently transferred at Frankfurt on to the flight to London, and then loaded on to the flight to New York. Two years after the bombing Granada Television made a documentary of the event which included a dramatic reconstruction. In it a bag containing a bomb was loaded on to an Air Malta flight by a sinister-looking Arab, who then sloped off without boarding. Upset by the damage to its reputation, Air Malta sued Granada. The airline’s solicitors compiled a dossier of evidence demonstrating that all the bags checked on to the flight which Megrahi was supposed to have planted the bomb were accompanied by passengers and that none of those passengers travelled on to London.

The evidence was so compelling that Granada settled out of court.

Since the Crown never had much of a case against Megrahi, it was no surprise when the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) found prima facie evidence in June 2007 that the Libyan had suffered a miscarriage of justice and recommended that he be granted a second appeal.

The truth is that this entire case, from the bombing in 1988 all the way up to Megrahi’s release in 2009, reflects a shift in the geopolitical and strategic interests of the nations concerned. Back in 1988 Libya occupied the status of international pariah in the West. The Libyan government, then as now led by Colonel Gadaffi, at one time funded and supported national liberation organisations and movements as disparate as the Provisional IRA and Black September, as well as various militant groups throughout the developing world. Relations between Libya and the West reached their nadir in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration sought to overthrow the quixotic Libyan president. Indeed, a US airstrike in 1986, carried out from military bases in Britain, almost succeeded in killing Gadaffi, who only narrowly escaped.

The overwhelming view of informed opinion is that Lockerbie was the work of Iran in conjunction with the Syrians. The Palestinian splinter group, PFLP-GC, led by Ahmed Gibril, were contracted to carry out what was an act of retaliation for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz in July 1988 by the USS Vincennes. It came just two years after the story broke that officials within US intelligence and the US Government had conducted secret arms deals with Iran in an attempt to obtain the release of American hostages being held by Iranian backed militias in Lebanon. The money paid for the weapons was used to fund Contra death squads then operating in Nicaragua. In March 1988, Colonel Oliver North and John Poindexter, a former naval officer and National Security Advisor within the Reagan administration, were convicted in relation to the scandal, known to the world and to history as Iran-Contra.

The difference today is that Libya is no longer treated or perceived as a rogue state in the West. In fact, ever since renouncing his weapons of mass destruction programme in the wake of the US and British invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Colonel Gadaffi has been rehabilitated as a leader the West can do business with. Given its prodigious oil and gas reserves the official visits to Libya first by former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in 2004, followed by former US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, in 2008, were as predictable as they were revelatory. It is known that BP in particular was keen for Blair to restore relations with Libya in order to allow access to Libyan oil reserves and lobbied the government to this effect in 2007.

Part of this deal on the Libyan side involved the release of Megrahi, a member of Libyan intelligence, who was sacrificed by his government to the arms of the Scottish Justice System in an attempt to break out of the country’s economic isolation and normalise relations with the West. The expectation was that he’d be found not guilty. The expectation proved wrong.

In 2009 a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) was drawn up between both countries. At the time the only Libyan being held within the UK prison system was Megrahi, thus preparing the ground for his release.

Conveniently, Blair and Straw landed the controversy on the lap of the SNP Scottish Government, citing jurisdiction, whose decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds was made at the expense of his appeal going ahead. It was an appeal hearing which promised to reveal that his conviction had been bogus, a fact known to both the British and Americans at the time he was found guilty and sent to prison. The political fallout from such an eventuality would obviously have been enormous.

Regardless of the geopolitical context surrounding the Megrahi case the Scottish Government has been principled and correct in refusing to bow to US pressure both at the time of the release and now in refusing to appear in front of a Senate Hearing into the case. The issue of sovereignty is involved, as is the issue of jurisdiction.

The release of al-Megrahi was right and just. Relying on medical advice at the time, Kenny McAskill was entitled to believe that the prisoner had only three months to live. It was the decent thing to do to allow him to spend what time he had left with his family in Libya. That he’s survived this long is a moot point under the circumstances.

As for the victims of Lockerbie, justice for them continues to be denied as a result of the geopolitical machinations of their respective governments. Twas ever thus.

Friday 2 November 2018

Air Malta wins out-of-court settlement over Lockerbie programme

[This is the headline over a report published on this date in 1993 in the Maltese newspaper The Times. It reads as follows:]

Air Malta has won an out-of-court settlement from an independent British television company over a programme it felt implied negligence on its part in the 1988 Lockerbie Pan Am airliner bombing, lawyers for the Maltese carrier said yesterday.

Granada Television agreed to pay Air Malta Company Limited £15,005 to settle the dispute in connection with a dramatised documentary Why Lockerbie? About the bombing of the Pan American World Airways Boeing 747 over Scotland in which 270 people were killed.

The payment was made without any admission of liability, Air Malta’s lawyers said in a statement.

Air Malta had objected to a reconstruction of how the bomb might have been smuggled into the international airline system. The dramatized segment showed an Arab checking the bag on to an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt.

The Pan Am flight from London to New York, carrying some passengers who had travelled from Frankfurt, was blown up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988. Two suspected Libyan intelligence agents have been accused of carrying out the attack but Tripoli has not handed them over for trial.

[RB: Granada was compelled to settle because there was no credible evidence that the bomb started from Luqa Airport in Malta. The judges at the Zeist trial held that it had done so. What follows is my published comment at the time of the verdict:]

The trial judges held it proved that the bomb was contained in a piece of unaccompanied baggage which was transported on Air Malta flight KM 180 from Luqa to Frankfurt on 21 December 1988, and was then carried on a feeder flight to Heathrow where Pan Am flight 103 was loaded from empty. The evidence supporting the finding that there was such a piece of unaccompanied baggage was a computer printout which could be interpreted to indicate that a piece of baggage went through the particular luggage coding station at Frankfurt Airport used for baggage from KM 180, and was routed towards the feeder flight to Heathrow, at a time consistent with its having been offloaded from KM 180. Against this, the evidence from Luqa Airport in Malta (whose baggage reconciliation and security systems were proven to be, by international standards, very effective) was to the effect that there was no unaccompanied bag on that flight to Frankfurt. All luggage on that flight was accounted for. The number of bags loaded into the hold matched the number of bags checked in (and subsequently collected) by the passengers on the aircraft. The court nevertheless held it proved that there had been a piece of unaccompanied baggage on flight KM 180.

[RB: Dr Morag Kerr has since, in her book Adequately Explained by Stupidity? Lockerbie, Luggage and Lies, conclusively established that the bomb suitcase started its fatal progress at Heathrow Airport, not Luqa.]

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Who Knows About This? Western Policy Towards Iran: The Lockerbie Case

[This is the title of an important article by Dr Davina Miller published earlier this month in the journal Defence & Security Analysis. The following are excerpts.  I sought permission from the copyright holders, the publishers Taylor & Francis, to quote from the article but was told that it would take ten weeks for them to consider the matter.  In the circumstances I have decided to proceed without formal clearance, relying on the fair use and educational use provisions of copyright law.]

Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by an improvised explosive device (IED) at 19.03 whilst over the Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland, 38 minutes after leaving Heathrow, on 21 December 1988. The IED, installed in a Toshiba Bombeat RT-SF16 stereo cassette/radio player, was hidden in a brown hard-shell Samsonite suitcase. All 259 passengers and crew were killed together with eleven people in Lockerbie. More than anything, the issue of responsibility matters to the families of those who died, and the official narrative remains problematic for many.

A number of conspiracy theories surround this awful event. This article puts aside all allegations and speculation and relies only upon legal and governmental papers to examine the evidence. It is in three parts: first, it examines the official narrative that emerged in the course of the prosecution and conviction of  Libyan intelligence officer, Abd-al-Basit al-al-Miqrahi (al-Megrahi) for the Lockerbie bombing; second, it assesses the available evidence that the governments of the US and Britain knew that Iran via the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) bore responsibility for the outrage; and third, it investigates the plausibility of a deal between the US and Iran over Pan Am 103. To reiterate, this article is not definitive, but exploratory.

PAN AM FLIGHT 103: THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE AND ITS PROBLEMS
According to the Trial Court, the circumstantial case against al-Megrahi rested upon four interlocking planks: the presence of an unaccompanied bag from Malta to London; the identification of al-Megrahi as the buyer of the Maltese clothing found in the brown Samsonite suitcase containing the bomb; his presence in Malta under a false name at the time the bomb was placed on a plane; and his association with both Edmond Bollier, the manufacturer of the MST-13 timer, said to have been used in the IED, and members of Libyan Intelligence who purchased such timers.[iv][4]

The case against al-Megrahi depended upon the bomb having originated in Malta (on Flight KM180) since that was where he was on 21 December 1988. In contrast to the theory of the crime presented to the Trial Court, the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, published in May 1990, eighteen months into the investigation, determined that the bomb “probably was placed aboard at Frankfurt”.[v][5] The Trial Court, however, relied upon a Frankfurt airport dispatch record, which could have shown the presence of an unaccompanied bag from Malta. Nonetheless, it noted that, “the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 is a major difficulty for the Crown”, given the “relatively elaborate security system at Luqa airport” and that KM180’s baggage records show “no discrepancy”.[vi][6]

The US Defence Intelligence Agency noted on 30 December 1991 that, “Malta’s position on the Pan Am crisis supports Libya (i.e. Malta stated that it can prove that all the luggage on Pan Am 103 belonged to passengers on the flight)” (emphasis as in the original).[vii][7] Air Malta reached an out-of-court settlement with Granada Television in 1993 for its claim in a television documentary that the bomb had been loaded in an unaccompanied bag at Malta.

Another problem with the theory that the bomb began its journey in Malta concerns a CIA document. On 30 August 1989, the station in Malta noted intelligence from their Libyan agent, ‘Abd al-Majid Gaika, that there had been an External Security Organisation (ESO) survey of Luqa International Airport in 1986, which had found that controls there “ruled out insertion of unaccompanied baggage containing explosives on to onward flights”.[viii][8] In short, and in spite of Libya’s close connections to Malta, Libyan security had ruled out the very act of which it would be accused of having committed just two years later.

[The next section of the article deals with the well-known problems surrounding the “identification” of Megrahi by Tony Gauci.]

The third circumstantial plank of the case against al-Megrahi was his presence in Malta on a false passport at the appropriate time for placing the bomb on board a Maltese flight. Much was made of his use of a passport in a different name. However, as the CIA noted in a contact report on 21 January 1989, it was “common practice among ranking officers wishing to conceal their movements through the use of passports (ppts) bearing variations on their true names”.[xii][12] On 22 December 1988, the CIA reported that al-Megrahi had travelled through Malta earlier, on 7 December. The fact that he was then also travelling on a passport in an assumed name was reported without comment. The CIA also identified al-Megrahi as a “technical communications expert”. Further, its report went on to say that, “it is likely that el-Megrahi (sic) was carrying technical intelligence-gathering equipment with him” and was “involved in some type of technical intelligence operation”.[xiii][13]

[The next section of the article deals with the well known problems regarding the Mebo MST-13 timer fragment and the evidence of Hayes and Feraday.]

AN ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE: THE PFLP-GC AND IRAN
Al-Megrahi’s defence team presented evidence about the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF). In its judgment, the Trial Court argued that, while these organisations were engaged in terrorist activities during the same period, there was not any reasonable doubt - in spite of the Trial Court’s admission - that, “we cannot say that it is impossible that the clothing might have been taken from Malta, united somewhere with a timer from some source other than Libya, and introduced into the airline baggage system at Frankfurt or Heathrow”.[xx][20]

On 26 October 1988, the Federal Criminal Police Office, or Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), arrested members of a PFLP-GC cell in an operation centred on Frankfurt and Neuss and known as ‘Autumn Leaves’. Inter alia, the BKA found explosives, timers, barometric pressure devices, radio cassette players, Lufthansa luggage tags and airline timetables, including Pan Am’s. Most members of the cell, bar Haj Hafez Kassem Dalkamoni, the right hand man of Ahmed Jabril, leader of the PFLP-GC and Abdel Fatah Ghadanfar, a Palestinian associate, were released shortly thereafter.[xxi][21] Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) found later had pressure switches that would trigger about seven minutes after takeoff and timing devices with time elapsed between 35 and 45 minutes.[xxii][22]

Marwan Khreesat, the PFLP-GC Frankfurt cell bomb-maker - and a Jordanian agent - was interviewed on 12 and 13 November 1989 at the Headquarters of the Jordanian Intelligence Service. Khreesat “does not think he built the device responsible for Pan Am 103, as he only built the four devices in Germany” and did not use models with two speakers.[xxiii][23] Only three devices were recovered by the BKA. Khreesat had, however, seen “a not very good” device (the alterations to the radio cassette player could easily be discovered) that he believed Dalkamoni had taken to Frankfurt and handed over to Abu Elias, the PFLP-GC’s security expert. This he identified as being similar to a Toshiba RT-F423.[xxiv][24]

From 19-26 October 1988, Abu Talb, a member of the Palestine Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) in Sweden, who had ties to the PFLP-GC cell in Frankfurt, was in Malta as a guest of Abd El Salam (aka Abu Nada), a Director of the Miska Bakery. Talb took home clothing from Hashem Salem, Salam’s brother. He flew to Sweden on an open return ticket, but had no intention, he told the Court, of returning; it was simply a cheaper ticket than a single. He remained in contact with Abd El Salam.[xxv][25]

In summary, from the evidence presented at the trial, at the time of the bombing of Pan Am 103, there were two groups actively planning to attack Western aircraft and with the capabilities to do so. In addition, both these groups had links to Malta. (...)

Even after the indictments of Libyan co-defendants Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and al-Megrahi, intelligence documents continued to assert the involvement of the PFLP-GC, though it was now linked to Libya, rather than Iran. An information report dated 26 November 1991 assigned blame to Ahmed Jabril “in training the perpetrators and in designing the bomb”. The report goes on to assert that, “the luggage containing the bomb was purportedly intercepted in London by al-Megrahi, who probably claimed the bag, set the timer, then switched luggage tags to route it on to Pan Am flight 103”.[xxix][29] A Defence Intelligence Terrorism Summary on 13 December 1991 also linked Jabril with training the accused and in designing the bomb.[xxx][30]

It is not clear exactly when or why the PFLP-GC and PPSF were dropped as suspects post-1991 to leave a single focus upon Libya as the perpetrator of the Pan Am 103 bombing. (...)

On 24 September 1989, the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), in a secret information report not releasable to foreign nationals and relying on information acquired through the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade’ (i.e. through Foreign Signals Intelligence), asserted that the attack on Pan Am Flight 103, “was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar (Mohtashemi-Pur)”, the former Iranian Minister of the Interior. The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad (Jabri’il), the PFLP-GC leader, for the sum of $1,000,000. The report was highly detailed in describing the organisation of the bombing and claimed that, “the flight was supposed to be a direct flight from Frankfurt to New York, not Pan Am Flight 103”.[xxxii][32]

In October 1989, a further DIA report noted that Iranian “radicals want to be able to retaliate in less time than it took them to carry out the Pan Am 103 bombing”.[xxxiii][33] The CIA’s ‘Terrorism Review’ for 14 December 1989 also noted that liaison between Iran and radical Palestinian groups “was most likely responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103”.[xxxiv][34] The Defence Intelligence Agency in a brief in December 1989, titled “Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation” argued that, “Iran probably was the state sponsor for the PFLP-GC attack on Pan Am 103”. The same report noted:  that the bomb was “a sophisticated, barometrically triggered explosive device probably fabricated by the PFLP-GC”; that “DIA believes the device was placed aboard...in Frankfurt”; and that, “analysis of material confiscated from this PFLP-GC cell has provided strong circumstantial evidence linking the cell to the bombing”. The report further detailed the relationship between Iran and the PFLP-GC, including the initial overtures, payment for Pan Am 103, and the latter’s exploitation of Iran’s “established terror network in Europe”.[xxxv][35]

A Combined Message from the DIA on 22 December 1989 asserted that, “a compelling body of evidence indicates the PFLP-GC placed a sophisticated, altimeter-fused, radio-encased bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103”. The missing improvised explosive device (IED) from the Autumn Leaves Operation was noted: “the fourth device was believed to be a Toshiba radio/cassette player larger than the Bombeat 453” and “may prove to be the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103”. [xxxvi][36] In January 1990, the DIA then argued that, “Iran probably was the state sponsor for the PFLP-GC attack on Pan Am 103”.[xxxvii][37] (...)

A Defence Intelligence ‘Terrorism Summary’, dated 15 September 1990, summarised a discussion about Pan Am 103 and the PFLP-GC during a meeting between the US Secretary of State, James Baker, and the Syrian Foreign Minister. The Summary notes that, “although the US has provided evidence of PFLP-GC complicity, the Syrian government has dismissed it as insufficient”.[xl][40] A Defence Intelligence Terrorism Summary on 16 November 1990 asserted that, “The US has long sought Jibril’s expulsion for his role in the bombing of Pan Am 103”.[xli][41]

(...) in February 1991, eight months after the FBI had supposedly identified the timer which led away from the PFLP-GC and Iran, in an Intelligence Report for Multinational Forces, Desert Storm, the DIA noted Iran’s Interior Minister, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi’s payment of $10 million for “terrorist activities” and that he “was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103”.[xlii][42]

This Report was published in the UK media on 24 January 1995. UK and US officials insisted, however, that there was, “no credible evidence” linking Iran to the bombing and denied the claims made. Libya saw the report as, “exonerating” it of any involvement.[xliii][43] More tellingly, in November 1991, DIA officials commented upon an earlier report on Syria: “We found the article helpful. However ... the statement that the PFLP-GC is accused of bombing Pan Am 103 directly contradicts the recent announcement that Libya was behind the act”.[xliv][44] The anonymous officials did not question the veracity of the assertion; their main concern was about its being leaked.

While US intelligence services were asserting Iranian complicity, they ruled out Libyan and Syrian involvement. As the December 1989, “Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation” Defense Intelligence brief noted, the “DIA continues to discount Libyan or Syrian involvement in the bombing of Pan Am 103 because there is no current credible intelligence implicating either”.[xlv][45] This was consistent with the conclusions contained in other DIA and CIA reports throughout 1989. (...) Both before and after the indictments, there was no discussion in US intelligence records of how to prevent similar future acts of Libyan terrorism.

CHOOSING ONE’S ENEMIES
The United States’ Potential Motives
Given the concerns around the safety of al-Megrahi’s conviction, the evidence pointing to the PFLP-GC and PPSF, as well as the US intelligence community’s apparent conclusion that Iran orchestrated the bombing of Pan Am 103, it is worth examining the circumstantial evidence as to the possibility of a decision, or a deal, to overlook Iranian potential guilt.

The most popular conspiracy theories attribute such a decision to the exigencies of Middle Eastern politics around the period of the first Gulf War of 1990-1. The investigation began to focus on Libya, however, at a much earlier time in September 1989, a year before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. While investigators sought to link Libya to the PFLP-GC, US government agencies retained and adhered to the original theory of the crime. For example, at least until late 1990, the State Department pressed Syria for Jibril’s expulsion, because of his alleged involvement in the bombing of Pan Am 103. Moreover, US intelligence documents continued to speak of PFLP-GC and Iranian involvement long after the public focus upon Libya. (...)

A deal between the US and Iran that involved the issue of Pan Am 103 is not an unreasonable hypothesis, given previous US behaviour and British and French ‘deals’ with Iran for the release of hostages. For example, on 21 March 1991, the CIA criticized Britain for having deported Mehradad Kokabi, an Iranian charged in connection with a bomb attack. While this would, “help Rafsanjani by using an issue used by hardliners to argue against the release of hostages”, it would also reinforce the view in Tehran that, “Washington, like London, will strike a deal favourable to Iran”. Equally, the CIA complained that the French government had earlier done a deal with Iran for the release of nine hostages between 1986 and 1988.[li][51]

Even as the US was contemplating in early 1989 that Iran had a hand in the bombing of Pan Am 103, it was still signalling the hope for a deal with Iran on the hostage issue as expressed in President Bush’s inaugural address. As he said, “There are today Americans who are held against their will in foreign lands and Americans who are unaccounted for. Assistance can be shown here and will be long remembered”.[lii][52] (...)

US/UK indictments of the two Libyan suspects were announced on 13 November 1991. On 16 November 1991, Iranian radio declared that the indictments of Fhima and al-Megrahi represented, “the start of a new psychological and propaganda war by Washington against Libya”.[lviii][58] A DIA report on 23 November, from intelligence acquired from Fort Meade, (that is, from Foreign Signals Intelligence) noted, however, that the “Iranian President voiced his pleasure in seeing the recent press attribute the blame to Libya for the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 bombing”.[lix][59]

On 18 November 1991, the American, Thomas Sutherland, and the Briton, Terry Waite, were freed by Islamic Jihad in Beirut.[lx][60] Later that month, there was a comprehensive exchange of hostages and human remains on one side and, on the other, prisoners in Israeli jails. On 2 December, the US also paid compensation to Iran some $278,000,000 for weapons confiscated in 1979.[lxi][61] On 10 December, a UN report found that Iraq’s invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980, and the occupation of Iranian land that followed, were unjustified and illegal.[lxii][62]

While many elements comprised the hostages deal, it could be argued that Pan Am 103 was necessarily part of the comprehensive settlement that involved, inter alia, money, prisoners, and international judgments about the Iran-Iraq War. It was necessary because, as the CIA commented on 1 June 1989, the Iranians “believe that the presence of Western hostages in Lebanon will help deter retaliation” for the bombing of Flight 103.[lxiii][63] It follows that Iran could not feel safe from US retaliation for Pan Am 103 (whether the retaliation was justified or not) if the hostages were freed without some guarantee. Thus, the eventual indictment of a rival state, it could be argued, provided that guarantee and was thus the necessary condition for the deal that followed.

Even before the final settlement, it is possible to argue that the US and Iran reached a tentative agreement about Pan Am 103. If Mohtashemi were the architect, as US intelligence seemed firmly to believe, using the back channels already established through ‘Irangate’, and relying on the policy of searching for moderates with whom to do business, it is possible that the US sought the isolation of Mohtashemi in exchange for a policy of non-retaliation. (...)

CONCLUSION
This article is not definitive. Rather, given the persistence of counter-narratives, it seeks to explore the available reliable evidence. That there remain some problematic issues around the conviction of al-Megrahi is evidenced in the referral of his case to a further appeal by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007. That appeal was never heard because of al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds in 2009. The Crown’s case rested upon four inter-locking circumstances, each and all of them problematic. Security at Luqa was ‘a major difficulty’ for the Crown’s case that the bomb originated in Malta. Moreover, Libyan intelligence, according to CIA reports, seemed to have ruled Luqa out as an airport for the insertion of IEDs because of said security.

The identification of al-Megrahi as the purchaser of the clothes found in the bomb case was, as the Trial Court acknowledged, ‘not absolute’. Subsequently it has been revealed that Gauci was paid for his evidence. Al-Megrahi’s presence in Malta on a false passport does not seem to have caused the CIA concerns in the late 1980s. A false passport was common among Libyan security personnel and the CIA had defined al-Megrahi as a ‘technical communications expert’. Finally, in terms of the bomb and its timer, the Trial Court noted problems in the evidence chain and subsequently the central US and British forensics staff involved have been discredited.

Turning to the defence’s theory of the crime, it is known that the PFLP-GC and PPSF had both the intention and capability for an attack on an airliner. In addition, they can be connected to Malta. Looking at the investigation, the PFLP-GC continued to be suspects, but with attempts from 1989 to link them to Libya. US intelligence spoke of “a compelling body of evidence” that “the PFLP-GC placed a sophisticated, altimeter-fused, radio-encased bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103” in December 1989 and the US was lobbying Syria, at Secretary of State level, for Jabril’s expulsion for Pan Am 103 in late 1990. The conviction that the PFLP-GC committed the bombing seems to have been widely held and long-lasting within the US government. Why there was an attempt first to link the PFLP-GC to Libya and then to abandon the “compelling evidence” against this group are interesting questions.

Given the attack on [sic; presumably "by" is meant] the USS Vincennes, less than six months before the bombing of Pan Am 103, Iran had, on the one hand, an obvious motive for retaliation against the US – and, indeed, US intelligence anticipated such action. On the other hand, Libyan motives were unclear, given that the anticipated date for an attack against the US was April (the anniversary of the Tripoli bombing in 1986). It is well known that the West had both a history of, and reasons for, backchannel deal-making with Iran, chief among those reasons the hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iran groups. Given the belief by some factions that the hostages were deterring US retaliation for Pan Am 103, it would be necessary for any hostage deal to entail a guarantee on said retaliation. It is possibly telling both that Rafsanjani took private pleasure at the Libyan indictments and that US intelligence reported it. (...)

Given the current mix of circumstances in the Middle East and South Asia, it has never been more important that the West gets its policy towards Iran right. It is equally important for democratic politics and the human rights of those who must live under such regimes that there is honesty about the foreign policy choices that the West is making.
This article and its references are the copyright of  Taylor and Francis, which must be acknowledged   ©Taylor and Francis 2011.

NOTES
[iv][4]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.87-89, http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[v][5]  Report to the President by the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, GPO, Washington DC, May 1990, p. ii.
[vi][6] I n the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.38-39, http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[vii][7]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Combined Message, 30 December 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[viii][8]  Central Intelligence Agency, Contact Report, 30 August 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 9 July 2010.
[xii][12]  Central Intelligence Agency, 20 January 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp , 13 July 2010.
[xiii][13]  Central Intelligence Agency, ’Travel of Libyan External Security Organisation Officers through Malta in December 1988’, 22 December 1988, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 9 July 2010.
[xx][20]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, para.82, http:/www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[xxi][21]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.73-4,  http:/www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[xxii][22]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Evidence, Rainer Gobel, physicist, BKA, pp. 8793-8796.
[xxiii][23]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Evidence, Edward Marshman, FBI Special Agent, p. 9268 and p. 9298.
[xxiv][24]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Evidence, Edward Marshman, FBI Special Agent, p. 9300.
[xxv][25]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.78-9, http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[xxix][29]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 26 November 1991, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxx][30]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Terrorism Summary, 13 December 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxii][32]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 24 September 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010
[xxxiii][33]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 7 October 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxiv][34]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 14 December 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 19 March 2010.
[xxxv][35]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Brief, ‘Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation’, December 1989, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxvi][36]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Combined Message, 22 December 1989, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxvii][37]  Defence Intelligence Agency, January 1990, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xl][40]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Terrorism Summary, 15 September 1990, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xli][41]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Terrorism Summary, 16 November 1990, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xlii][42]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Report, February 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xliii][43]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 41, January 1995, Libya, p. 40380.
[xliv][44]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Memorandum, November 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xlv][45]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Brief, ‘Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation’, December 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[li][51]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 21 March 1991, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 19 March 2010.
[lii][52]  President George bush, Inaugural Address, 20 January 1989, http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/, 20 March 2011.
[lviii][58]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 37, November 1991, Libya, p.38599
[lix][59]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 23 November 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[lx][60]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 19 November 1991, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[lxi][61]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 37, December 1991, Lebanon, p.38694.
[lxii][62]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 37, December 1991, Iran, p. 38697.
[lxiii][63]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 1 June 1989