THE RUMOR MILL NEWS AGENCY

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Exclusive From News of the World February 4, 2001
(Published only in the Print Edition distributed in the UK)

by Douglas Wight

SYRIAN terrorists were the REAL Lockerbie bomb killers, a Scottish legal expert claimed last night.

Professor Robert black B who helped set up the trial B has branded the case against convicted Libyan Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi weak and unconvincing. He is now backing calls for a full inquiry into the 1988 Pan Am jumbo blast.

His outburst comes as the News of the World reveals sensational claims that CIA agents were also deeply implicated in the disaster, which claimed 270 lives.

Former US spy Lester Coleman also blames Syrians, claiming they swapped the bomb for heroin which the CIA regularly allowed them to smuggle into America-in exchange for information in the Middle East.

Coleman believes the bombing was revenge for another ugly incident earlier In 1988 in which the American cruiser Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner over the Gulf.

The testimony of both men comes just days after the Scottish-law trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands convicted Al-Megrahi of planting the bomb and murdering the victims. Co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.

Black, professor of Scots law at Edinburgh University, was a prime mover in negotiating the lengthy trial in a neutral country.

Attack

But he thinks the verdict on Al-Megrahi was wrong and that the attack was more probably organised by the General Command of the popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, based in Syria and led by Ahmed Jibril. Professor

Black told us: "It always seemed to me that there was weightier evidence against Ahmed Jabril and the PFLP than against Libya. That remains my view after the trial."

Claiming the prosecution ignored evidence pointing towards Syria, he added: "I got the impression that, once the investigation had focused on Libya, everything else was discarded."

Professor Black said an Inquiry should investigate exactly who knew that Flight 103 had become a bomb target - and why the plane was only half full at peak holiday time.

THE bomb which blew up Pan Am Flight 103 was allowed to pass undetected on to the jumbo during a botched CIA operation, a former spy has sensationally claimed.

Lester Coleman says officers thought the suitcase containing the explosive was a stash of HEROIN, which they were letting terrorists smuggle across the Atlantic in return for information about American hostages held in Lebanon.

If he's right, CIA operatives are left with as much blood on their hands as Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, the Libyan who was convicted on Wednesday of planting the bomb which killed 270 in 1988.

Coleman is a former spy with America's Defence Intelligence Agency who was also working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency in Cyprus at the time of the bombing.

He claims he was shocked to discover that one of the jumbo's dead passengers was Khalid Jafaar --whom he knew was a courier for controlled CIA drug deliveries.

He says that when he spoke out, he was hounded by the US authorities and had to seek asylum in Sweden.

He made his damning allegations public in a 1993 book called Trail Of The Octopus - which was immediately banned in the US.

Coleman believes the bomb was carried on to Flight 103 by Lebanese-born Jafaar, a member of one of Syria's biggest drug-producing families. Jafaar thought the suitcase contained heroin to be delivered to New York as part of a deal struck by the CIA and Syrian drug traffickers in return for Syrian influence in freeing hostages in Lebanon.

Pan Am flights from Frankfurt to New York were a popular channel for these consignments.

This was known to Syrian terrorists - who were then commissioned by Iran to avenge the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by US cruiser Vincennes earlier in 1988.

All the terrorists had to do was swap one of the heroin consignments for a bomb.

Seized

Ironically, immediately after the explosion, investigators pointed the finger at a Syrian-Iranian plot.

It was believed the General Command of the Syria-based Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine -- led by Ahmed Jibril - had been entrusted with the job of carrying out the bombing.

Jibril, who had specialised in blowing up planes since 1970, arranged for five bombs to be made in Germany. But German police staged a, raid and seized a bomb in a Toshiba radio-cassette player.

It is thought that Jibril then turned to Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi for aid.

It was claimed at the Camp Zeist trial that Al Megrahi and coaccused Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah - who was acquitted - worked for Libyan Arab Airlines as a cover and assembled another bomb in a second Toshiba radio.

This was then placed in a suitcase and sent unaccompanied to New York, via Frankfurt.

But according to Coleman, the truth is a long way from. the evidence heard in the Netherlands.

He points out that the blast victims included up to five American intelligence agents. One, Major Charles McKee, was also a DIA agent who had uncovered the CIA drug deals and was heading home to blow the whistle.

Coleman says McKee's travel arrangements had been changed to ensure he caught Flight 103, despite strict warnings to officials not to fly home on US airlines.

Rumours after the disaster also claimed large quantities of heroin were found at the crash site.

Coleman's book, co-written by journalist Donald Goddard, says: "Odd things were happening at Lockerbie. Although the collection of forensic evidence was of para-mount importance. it was hampered for two days while CIA agents, some dressed in Pan Am overalls, combed the countryside for the luggage of the dead American intelligence agents and a suitcase full of heroin.

"After a 48-hour search, assisted by units of the British Army, whatever they had found was flown out by helicopter and. in due course, one suitcase, emptied of its contents, was returned so that it could be 'found' again officially."

Suitcase

The suitcase was Major McKee's, says Coleman. Documents relating to American hostages held in Beirut were recovered, along with more than $500,000 in cash and travellers' cheques.

When local radio reporter David Johnston reported that the CIA were on the scene, he was quizzed by police to reveal his sources.

It was then reported that a body had vanished from the scene. A group of 59 bodies found together had been tagged and certified dead by a police surgeon on December 22.

They were left where they had fallen for two days before being removed. By then, police counted only 58 bodies.

A farmer also reported seeing a suitcase hearing a name-tag which did not correspond to any on the passenger list. The book claims the US authorities had been warned several times about threats to Pan Am flights in the days before the disaster but did nothing to tighten security ...

On December 5. the US embassy in Helsinki had received a phone warning that a bomb would be put on board a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt to New York "within two weeks".

On December 8, Israeli forces razed a PFLP camp in Lebanon and seized documents about a planned attack on a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt later that month.

This threat was passed to the German and US Governments.

American spies, bugging calls to the Iranian embassy in Beirut, heard an informant briefing Iranian agents on the movements of a five-man CIA/DIA team, which had arrived in Lebanon to work on the release of the US hostages and planned to fly home from Frankfurt on Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21.

On December 18, a tip about a bomb plot against Pan Am 103 received by German intelligence was passed to the American embassy.

On December 20, the Mossad Israeli intelligence agency passed on another warning, relating specifically to flight 103 the next day. The Helsinki warning was the only one taken seriously and the travel arrangements of several VIPs, including South Africa's Foreign Minister Pik Botha, were altered.

But no general warning was given to civilian passengers.

Coleman's DEA base in Cyprus was the nerve centre of efforts to monitor drug trafficking in Lebanon. But the DEA was suspicious about the behaviour of DIA and CIA operatives.

Coleman claims it was not until months after Lockerbie that he realised Jafaar had been one of the victims and that drugs might have had a part to play in a conspiracy.

Passport

By 1990, he realised his was a lone voice in the US.

He was then arrested by the FBI and charged with passport fraud.

He admitted applying for a passport under the name Thomas Leavy but claimed he was acting under orders from the IMA. which had assigned him another undercover job.

Coleman says that when he tried to call his old DIA contacts to confirm his story. He found the numbers dead.

His family started receiving anonymous death threats and, rather than wait and take his chances at a trial, he fled to Sweden and became the first American citizen to apply for political asylum since the Vietnam war.

In 1992, the FBI applied to the Swedish Government to begin extradition proceedings.

Their case centred on a complaint from the public records office in New London, Connecticut, that someone using the identity Thomas Leavy had tried to obtain a copy of his birth certificate.

According to the FBI, the man had claimed his date of birth as July 4, 1948. But, when they ran a check, they discovered the real Thomas Leavy had died in New London two days after his 1948 birth. Coleman, they claimed, was behind the fraud.

But, in 1995, Coleman's lawyers received a sworn statement from the registrar of public records in New London, stating that after a search, no birth or date record could be found for Thomas Leavy.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was one of the Lockerbie victims, said: "If the American Government were prepared to lie about Coleman. then who is to say the official version of Lockerbie is not also a lie?" He has called for a full inquiry. which he hopes will be more far reaching than the trial.

He added: "If Coleman's claims are true. it will make Watergate look like a vicar's tea party".

Additional Comment on the Lockerbie bombing and Trial

By` Robert Black,
Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, who set up Lockerbie Trial

WHEN I was involved in getting Libya to agree to a trial of the Lockerbie bombing suspects, I had no views one way or the other as to whether the two Libyan accused were guilty.

It was only after Libya agreed to the trial that I was able to take a hard took at the evidence available.

I formed the view then that the case against the Libyans was a weak one. And I still think so today.

It always seemed to me that there was weightier evidence against tile Syria-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- General Command, led by Ahmed Jibril.

It must also have seemed that way to the investigators too, because that's the way their probe was heading long before Libya came into the frame.

However, it's my impression that, once the investigation did focus on Libya, anything which didn't fit into that framework was simply discarded.

'Syria evidence was discarded'

And that's not what the prosecutors should have been doing.

It is a prosecutor's duty to consider, carefully and conscientiously, material which might not fit in with a scenario.

One of the main reasons for seeking an inquiry now is to investigate alternative theories on the bombing which killed 270 people on December 21, 1988.

Unlike trial proceedings, a proper inquiry would not start with a particular end in view. It would be open-ended and bound to follow wherever the evidence might lead.

But I think there will be resistance to an inquiry.

There will be pressure to say that, given there was a trial and a conviction against one of the accused, there is no need for one.

Many people will claim that the only question now is about how far up the Libyan hierarchy the bombing conspiracy went - and did it extend to Colonel Gaddafi himself.

And they will say an inquiry in Britain is not going to be able to get to the bottom of those questions because the relevant material is not available here.

It is only available in Libya and the Libyans are not going to give it to us.

But the relatives of those who died say that answering such questions would not be the sole purpose of an inquiry.

One of the benefits of an inquiry would be to find out exactly who else knew about a bomb being placed on Pan Am Flight 103 and who could have given a warning that would have prevented the tragedy.

'All other aircraft were flying full'

Because some people knew. The unfortunate passengers on the plane didn't know. But other people DID - and they, avoided boarding that plane.

There were only 259 passengers and crew on board Flight 103 - though the Pan Am Boeing 747s is capable of carrying 430 passengers. And there's also the fact that this flight took place just four days before Christmas - when, scrambling to get back across the Atlantic to spend the holiday with their families.

Yet PanAm 103 was flying half empty. No other plane crossing the Atlantic at that time had more than five vacant seats. So why was THIS plane half empty?

That's something an inquiry should investigate.

I still don't know who was behind the bombing but somebody knew something about Pan Am 103. Otherwise, why was that plane, of all planes, going across the Atlantic the week before Christmas half empty? Regardless of who was actually responsible for putting the bomb on board, there were people who KNEW the plane was a target and avoided it.

There have also been claims of conspiracies over evidence and of Americans tampering with evidence at the crash site. These claims have been made by people who have no track record as fantasists. They include Scots farmers, people with their feet planted firmly on the ground.

And it is certainly true that the Americans were there. with their back-to-front baseball caps, within a very short time of Pan Am 103 coming down. I saw them there myself.

Whether an inquiry would look at what happened on the ground in the immediate aftermath of the explosion would depend on how robust the inquiry was - and on the person chosen to chair it.

I can understand that there may be people who do not want an inquiry at all. But, I support an inquiry -irrespective of the trial verdict - because trials are very limited things by their very nature.

'The prosecution case was weak'

Before the trial, I always accepted that the prosecution might have evidence that I hadn't come across in the public domain. But what the trial proved to me was that there wasn't any more evidence.

The evidence available to the public all along was basically all there was.

In my view, the case against the Libyans was weak.

The judges disagreed with me. I would have been far more satisifed if there had been some convincing evidence, such as a fingerprint on a fragment of the bomb casing. Then, I would have said: "No doubt." There was nothing like that. It was a very circumstantial case.

My own prediction was an acquittal or a not proven verdict for both accused.

I have not read the whole judgement yet but, based on what I HAVE read, I can't see why the judges came to the decisions they did. It was not a convincing judgement.

Whatever the outcome was, the importance of my role has been in helping to get a trial staged. That is something I'm still extremely proud of.

For a worryingly long time, it looked as if there wouldn't be a trial at all and - however unsatisfactory the outcome was - it was far better to have a trial than not.

The point about Lockerbie and the destruction of Pan Am 103 is that it was the work of a conspiracy, The only question is whether it was a Libyan or Syrian-based conspiracy.

You can't just dismiss competing theories. The question is: which one of them is true?

An inquiry is now the only answer

THE trial is over but there are still unanswered questions about the Lockerbie bombing.

Many of those questions are posed today in the News of the World by Professor Robert Black, the legal expert who first suggested the case be heard in a neutral country.

Why was evidence discarded by the prosecution that pointed to Syria being to blame rather than Libya?

Why did high-ranking American officials deliberately miss the flight?

Did they know there was a bomb on board?

In a long-forgotten book, a US agent claimed American intelligence force the CIA was allowing Middle Eastern terrorists to smuggle drugs via Pan Am flights, in exchange for information on US hostages.

Could the bombers have used this loophole to get the bomb on board, thereby dodging security checks?

Together with many of our politicians, Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for the victims' relatives, would like a far-ranging inquiry into the disaster.

And the News of the World is right behind them.

It may provide a clearer picture of what DID happen to Pan Am Flight 103, than the trial of the two Libyan suspects has.