Mystery of Flight 103
By Dara MacNeil
On the night of 21 December 1988 a bomb exploded aboard
Pan Am flight 103 flying from Frankfurt to New York.
The plane was literally blown out of the air above
Lockerbie in Scotland. All 259 people on board were
killed.
Since November 1991, Britain and the US have publicly
blamed Libya for the bombing. They allege two Libyan
airline officials - Abdel Baset Ali Mohammed and Al
Amine Khalifa Fhimah - placed the bomb aboard the
flight, on the orders of the Libyan government. Both
have consistently demanded the pair be extradited to
stand trial in either Scotland or the US.
Libya has refused to comply. Instead it offered to try
the two suspects in Libya, a stance which is supported
by international aviation law.
By way of response, Britain and the US employed their
considerable muscle on the UN Security Council to have
sanctions imposed on Libya.
In 1995, however, Libya made a dramatic concession. It
indicated that both men could be tried in a neutral
country - Holland was suggested - by Scottish judges,
and under Scottish law.
Remarkably, both the US and Britain rejected the offer.
Relatives of the 259 dead were perplexed and angered.
For some, Britain and the US appeared not to want the
case ever to come to trial.
Officially, the `mystery' of flight 103 remains
unsolved. However, in a judgement delivered at the end
of February the International Court of Justice
signalled a possible end to the dispute. In an apparent
rebuke to the stance taken by Britain and the US, the
court ruled that it could decide whether the Libyan
suspects could be tried at home, or abroad.
In doing so, the International Court of Justice has
effectively relieved Britain and the US of sole
responsibility for resolving the case of flight 103.
The decision was welcomed by the Flight 103
Association, a group composed of relatives of those
killed at Lockerbie. The Association has been severely
critical of the strange intransigence shown by Britain
and the US on the issue.
There are many who suspect that the charges against
Libya are fraudulent. They have been aided by the fact
that the official version of events has repeatedly been
found wanting. In addition, the case has thrown up a
number of puzzling anomalies for which no satisfactory
answer has ever been provided.
Some days after the disaster, as crash investigators
sifted through the wreckage, a local farmer came across
a suitcase filled with packets of white powder. He
assumed they were drugs.
Relatives of the dead later discovered that the name on
the suitcase did not correspond with any name on flight
103's passenger list.
Strangely, the farmer was never questioned about his
find - which he reported to the police - at a
subsequent crash inquiry. Official sources denied the
drugs find.
Furthermore, volunteers helping to search the debris
reported how they were warned to stay away from parts
of the wreckage.
Some told how they had come across a large object that
had been covered with a red tarpaulin. As they
approached, they were warned off by armed men standing
in the doorway of a hovering helicopter.
Similarly, a local farmer was also warned - by
unidentified Americans - to stay away from an area of
woodland on his own farm, a few miles east of
Lockerbie.
In February 1989 a local reporter - with excellent
police contacts - claimed the bomb on Flight 103 had
been planted in the baggage of a team of US
intelligence agents, on their way back from Beirut.
Immediately after his story was broadcast, the
journalist was visited by senior police officers
demanding to know his source.
He refused to disclose it. He was first threatened with
prosecution and then, strangely, asked if he would
reveal his source directly to then Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher, in the privacy of Downing Street. He
refused that curious offer also.
In the months after the bombing it emerged that the
authorities had received at least two separate warnings
of a plot to bomb Pan Am flights. Both correctly
identified the timeframe in which the attack was to
occur. One of the warnings - telephoned to the US
embassy in Helsinki - specifically mentioned a Pan Am
flight from Frankfurt to New York.
The warnings were considered serious enough for the US
embassy in Moscow to post an alert on its staff
noticeboard. And in 1989, a German newspaper alleged
that then South African Foreign Minister, Pik Botha was
alerted to the danger of taking flight 103. Botha and
his party took an earlier Pan Am flight to New York
that same day.
In 1995, British journalist Paul Foot revealed that US
authorities had received notice of the plot a full ten
days before the bomb aboard Flight 103 exploded. The
informant had warned that Pan Am flights were among the
intended targets of ``teams of Palestinians not
associated with the PLO.''
Foot also revealed evidence collected by German
authorities which strongly suggested that the bombing
of Flight 103 had been carried out by a group under the
protection of Syria. The Iranian government, it
appears, paid for the attack, in revenge for the
shooting down of an Iranian airliner in 1987. The
civilian airliner had been shot down by US forces in
the Gulf. All 290 people on board were killed.
The Syrian-Iranian connection was pursued with apparent
vigour by security forces in both countries. Confident
predictions of imminent arrests were made.
d then Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Syria, long out
of favour in the West, now became vital to the building
of the US-led coalition required for the subsequent
war.
As diplomatic relations were restored with this former
`rogue' state, the Syrian-Iranian connection was
quietly dropped.
In November 1991, with Saddam expelled from Kuwait, the
US and British authorities suddenly announced that
Libya was now the chief suspect. The evidence offered
to support this remarkable development was, to say the
least, less then impressive. Sceptics pointed out that
the case against the two Libyans would be quickly
destroyed in a court. If the case ever got to trial,
that is.
In addition, Paul Foot has remarked on the ``amazing
coincidence'' that has led investigators to discover the
Lockerbie culprits ``in the only Arab country besides
Iraq to which the US and Britain were openly hostile.''
In November 1989, a New York based corporate
investigative company, Interfor, published its own
report on Lockerbie. The firm had been hired by Pan Am.
Their starting conclusions also backed up the
Syrian-Iranian connection.
They suggested that US intelligence bodies had
concluded a deal with Syrian ``narco-terrorists.'' In
return for information about US hostages then held in
Beirut, a route was found for the Syrians to smuggle
drugs from Lebanon into the lucrative US market. The
drugs were concealed in the luggage of US intelligence
figures, and therefore not subject to normal security
checks.
In order to get the bomb onto flight 103, the
Syrian-protected group had exploited this arrangement
and concealed a bomb amidst the `normal' drugs
consignment.
Remarkably, the Interfor report also alleged a senior
US intelligence official on board Flight 103 had
discovered the drugs `arrangement' and was returning to
the US to condemn the deal. The report implied that he
- and the other 258 people aboard - were sacrificed to
protect the operation.
Fantastical? Perhaps. But maybe just a little less
outrageous than the convenient `discovery' of Libyan
complicity in the bombing.
Or somewhat less curious than the inexplicable refusal
to hold a trial in a neutral third country.
Hopefully the recent ruling of the International Court
of Justice may finally lead to the discovery of the
real truth about Pan Am flight 103.
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