Culprits of Lockerbie a treatise Concerning the Destruction
German police remove the records and then claim they are missing, lost or destroyed
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- Flight KM180 coding end time entry on Koca’s worksheet indistinct
- Common practice of non-contemporaneous worksheet completion
- No guarantee that the entry time recorded on the worksheet reflected the actual time of entry
- Baggage processing not always comprehensively recorded in worksheets
- Possible Warsaw provenance of B8849 item
- Stray bags were often placed with bags from a particular flight
- 4. Heathrow: certainty of the bomb’s London origin (a)
- Exact match of Bedford’s description of the mystery suitcase and the primary suitcase
- Potential total number of legitimate Heathrow interline bags in AVE4041: six
- Bedford’s recollection of the total number of items in AVE4041 when he transferred it from the interline shed to the baggage build-up area: more than six
- Bedford’s reconstructional loadings
German police remove the records and then claim they are missing, lost or destroyed Within a week of the destruction of Pan Am 103 all electronic baggage records and some crucial paper records for that day had been removed together with routine backups. No copies or backups were left behind. The Frankfurt police told the investigators that the records were missing, or lost, or had been destroyed. If that situation had continued there would have been no basis for connecting the bomb with Malta. The “Erac print-out” However, on the evening after the downing of Pan Am 103, Bogomira Erac, a software specialist in the airport baggage department, had printed off a computer record relating to 103A. She had done so out of curiosity but seeing nothing apparently interesting in it put it away in her locker as a keepsake. She then went off on holiday for the New Year and only passed it to the German police in late January. Initially they apparently saw nothing of significance in it either but then, unexpectedly, in August 1989 they sent it to Lockerbie HQ with the relevant worksheet of an airport staff member named Koca who had coded the baggage from KM180, and some explanatory notes. It was this which potentially established the purported connection with Malta. Attention focused on an identified item on baggage tray number B8849 which was suspected to have been transferred from KM180 to the Pan Am 103A and which could not be accounted for by reference to the KM180 manifest. (b) Baggage handling protocol: presentation to a coding station one flight at a time The normal procedure for handling baggage from a particular arrival was that it would all be delivered to an assigned coding station where each item would be placed on its own tray, coded by reference to the tray and then either sent to the carousel for collection by the passenger or forwarded interline to a connecting flight. Baggage was normally expected to be delivered to a coding station for processing one flight at a time. (c) Baggage tray B8849: the assumption that it had come from KM180 The Erac print-out showed that at 13.07 on December 21 the item on B8849 was processed through the coding station at Gate 206 (reference S0009) for interline transfer to PA103A. Koca’s worksheet showed that he had started coding bags from the Malta flight at 13.04 and reading the Erac print-out and the worksheet in combination the prosecution argued, and the Zeist judges accepted, that the item on tray B8849 must have come from KM180. (d) The assumption negated On the face of the documentation it certainly could have come from KM180 as unaccompanied interline baggage. However, for a number of reasons the inference that it must have done was unjustified. Flight KM180 coding end time entry on Koca’s worksheet indistinct Koca’s handwriting recording the end time for his coding of bags from the Malta flight was indistinct and was either 13.10 or 13.16. Reasonable possibility that coding station 206 operator Koca’s watch decisively differed from embedded computer time Whereas the time on the print-out was automatically applied by the computer, the time Koca gave on his worksheet would almost certainly have been taken from his own watch or a nearby clock which were obviously not linked to the embedded computer time. Even then, the computer timer had to be re-set every day by operators no doubt relying on their watches or a wall clock and small fluctuations in the circuitry powering the system could and did cause inaccuracies of up to a few minutes. Any difference could be enough to negate the Malta origin inference. Common practice of non-contemporaneous worksheet completion Again, although coders were supposed to enter the times on their worksheets contemporaneously this was the time of the pre-Christmas rush and it came as no very great surprise to learn that busy staff might well wait for a lull in which to catch up on their paperwork. The worksheet times could therefore have amounted to no more than a rough retrospective estimate. Without any explanation Koca himself was never called by the Crown as a witness and could not therefore be asked what the probabilities were. No guarantee that the entry time recorded on the worksheet reflected the actual time of entry It followed that there was far from any guarantee that the coding time for tray B8849 fell within the time slot on Koca’s worksheet. On that basis alone, given the exactitude on timing required for an inference that the item on tray B8849 had come from KM180 there could be no such irresistible inference. Coupled with the real possibility of retrospective estimation it would only have taken a relatively small difference between the computer clock and Koca’s watch or the clock on the wall (if there was one in his line of sight) for the inference to be invalid. Baggage processing not always comprehensively recorded in worksheets The Frankfurt documentation revealed that baggage was sometimes coded without also being recorded by the coders on their worksheets. One of the most graphic examples of this concerned all four wagonloads of baggage which came off Lufthansa flight LH669 arriving from Damascus at about the same time as KM180. Of these only two and half wagonloads were recorded on worksheets, one and a half at coding station 202 and one at 207, and although the one and a half wagonloads which were unaccounted for had obviously not disappeared there was no record of what had happened to the missing luggage. The likely explanation seemed to be that some at least of them had been coded in at less busy neighbouring stations, including possibly the adjacent station 206, without being recorded on worksheets. On behalf of al-Megrahi it was suggested as a possibility that some of the remaining baggage from that flight might have gone to 206 during the time slot straddling 13.07, including B8849. For perhaps understandable reasons the appeal court rejected the submission as misconceived. It may have been difficult to imagine that one single item from the one-and-a-half wagon loads of missing Damascus baggage might have been recorded on Koca’s coding station 206 worksheet without any of its companions being so recorded. Possible Warsaw provenance of B8849 item Although the court rejected the possibility that B8849 might have come off the Lufthansa flight from Damascus other flights had arrived and were unloading at broadly the same time as KM180 and if baggage from any of those had gone to station 206 either immediately before or after KM180 it can easily be seen how they might in fact have been the source of the item on tray B8849 bearing in mind the potential discrepancy between Koca’s watch or the wall clock and the computer clock. There was a second entry on the Erac print-out, similar to tray B8849, which appeared to have a Warsaw provenance. The investigators never followed up on it. Stray bags were often placed with bags from a particular flight Another factor which potentially undermined the argument for KM180 as the source of the item on B8849 was that although baggage handlers at Frankfurt were supposed to make a separate entry on the coding sheet for stray or single bags it was shown that when in a hurry they often failed to wait for this to be done and instead would simply toss the odd bag on a convenient wagon the contents of which were set to be coded and it would be processed with that wagon. The coder was only interested in the destination of the item and so long as that was correctly entered the luggage would be correctly delivered and the source was of little concern. Such an episode was actually witnessed at Gate 206 by Det Insp. Watson McAteer and FBI agent Lawrence Whittaker on 22 September 1989. They observed the two coding operators in charge of the station leave it unattended and within a minute a handler brought over a single suitcase from a distant batch, coded it in a mere fifteen seconds and left without making a note on the station worksheet. McAteer was told by a supervisor that the practice was not unusual and the agent duly recorded that it was feasible that items attributed to KM180 from Gate 206 might well have been entered after that flight’s luggage had been processed. At the trial agent Whittaker, called by the defence, conceded to prosecuting counsel that he had not been so close to the incident as to be sure that he had not missed the handler making a note but the defence were not given disclosure of McAteer’s statement in which he had specifically avowed that the handler had not made a note (see Ashton, Megrahi, pp. 118 and 261). During the trial the baggage handlers were not pressed about the practice, the defence no doubt fearing that the witnesses would flatly deny contravening instructions while the Crown were doubtless afraid they might cheerfully agree it happened all the time! (e) No independent proof that the item on B8849 was unaccompanied and no evidence as to its nature There was no independent proof that the tray B8849 item was unaccompanied. It was only considered to be such because (a) inquiries showed that all the known luggage on KM180 had ultimately been collected by passengers, (b) no passenger on KM180 transferred to PA103A and (c) it had come from Malta on KM180 – thus begging the question! There was no record of the nature of the item on tray B8849. It could have been anything, golf clubs or a crate of wine, as was famously suggested by leading counsel for al-Megrahi. Frankfurt records also gave no hint whether it was destined for the transatlantic flight or for collection at Heathrow. It may never have gone on PA103 at all. Two-thirds of the luggage on the feeder flight did not. A discrepancy in the baggage tally for interline luggage destined for PA103A suggests that it may even have ended up not going to Heathrow on that flight. (f) The decisive issue of the X-ray process However, if the item did go on board PA103A at Frankfurt it would have had to pass through the x-ray screening process which all interline luggage destined for that flight had to undergo. This fact alone irrevocably destroys the basic premise on which the Crown and the Zeist judges relied, the premise that the suitcase containing the radio-cassette player bomb was flown from Malta on the morning of December 21, 1988, was interlined at Frankfurt on to PA103A and taken to Heathrow. In assessing this bald fact the judges were led into making an error which might aptly be described as one of Lockerbie’s several smoking guns of injustice but which appears to have been almost entirely overlooked in the critical literature. The error involved a serious misconception by the judges about the duty x-ray operator that day, Kurt Maier. He was unable to give evidence in person at Camp Zeist owing to serious illness (late stage rectal cancer accompanied by chronic alcoholism). In his absence, the Crown relied exclusively on the notes of his January 1989 interview (conducted in English) by U.S Federal Aviation Administration investigators (Zeist Production 1792; Zeist transcript, pp.1866-7). The notes record that if “he found something unusual . . . he would call his supervisor if necessary,” and that “he could say without question that there was no explosives” [sic] in any of the bags. But the notes also purport to attribute to him the odd notion that an external plug on an electrical device “clears his doubt about any explosive device.” The judges accordingly observed that Maier’s “description of what he looked for does not suggest that he would necessarily have claimed to be able to detect explosives hidden in a radio cassette player.” Since this declaration evidently formed the basis of their finding that Maier must have let the bomb through it is clear that they misconceived the nature of his duty in the context of the “Toshiba warning,” in force at Frankfurt. That duty was not to “detect explosives” in a radio-cassette player but to look out for and report any radio-cassette player in luggage. This would have become apparent from what Maier asserted when he gave evidence in America in 1992 at the trial of a civil action for damages brought against Pan Am and its insurers. But, incredibly, the judges at Camp Zeist were never told about that evidence and therefore that on being closely cross-examined on his FAA interview, he had insisted that if he had seen a radio-cassette player he would have called his supervisor and would have done so for the very good reason that in view of the Toshiba warning those were his specific instructions (see http://www.American-buddha.com/trialoct.19b.jpg, transcript J.A. 1099-1100). The crucial point he was making was that in accordance with those instructions he would have called the supervisor regardless of his personal opinion of what made a radio-cassette player suspicious. That he would have followed his instructions is supported by the fact that he was described as a careful and serious-minded employee (Zeist transcript, p.1848). He did not call his supervisor. Therefore none of the bags he screened contained a radio-cassette player. QED. It was and remains as simple as that. Although there was said to be some doubt about the quality of the US court’s German-English translation, it is arguable that any uncertainty is more likely to have originated from the interview, which was conducted in English, a language Maier plainly found difficult else he would hardly have needed an interpreter for court. In contrast with the court video record the interview notes did not represent a verbatim minute and moreover, although the FAA investigator (Saunders) who was called at Zeist to produce the notes stressed that she and her colleague (Tiedge) had signed them, significantly she made no reference to Maier himself having done so. For the sake of completeness it ought to be mentioned that at the 1992 New York trial he explained in cross-examination that although he did not wear his glasses, he only needed them for reading and not for his job: ibid, J.A. 2967, 3379-80. He would obviously have been able to make out the shape of cassette radio recorder. Because the Zeist judges relied exclusively on the notes and remained blissfully unaware of his sworn courtroom testimony they were precluded from making a valid assessment of the totality of his evidence on the crucial point. It was an elementary and fundamental error of process that was completely avoidable, went to the heart of the allegation and proved catastrophic. (g) Baggage reconciliation Evidence was given by Roland O’Neil, loadmaster for PA103A on 21 December, that as well as being x-rayed, all interline luggage was checked to ensure the relevant passenger was on board before it was loaded. This was not necessarily precluded from further undermining the Crown’s case by the fact that at the 1991 Fatal Accident Inquiry Pan American claimed that they were permitted to omit the baggage reconciliation procedures because they were x-raying everything. That they were entitled to such an exemption was in fact disputed at the Inquiry but simple arithmetic suggests that the airline’s assertion that everything was x-rayed may have been unjustified. The number of passengers boarding PA103A at Frankfurt from other airlines was said to be 48. Even if some were only taking carry-on luggage they must between them have checked in a good deal more than the thirteen items which passed through Maier’s x-ray machine. Yet there was no evidence that any other staffer x-rayed interline items going on to the feeder flight. (h) The judges’ arbitrary conclusion The broader potential hiatus in the physical checking of luggage does not seem to have been considered by the judges. But in any event they were untroubled by the possibility of discrepancies in the times and numbers of bags arriving at the relevant coding station since some of these could be accounted for by figures relating to other flights and “the remaining discrepancy might be accounted for as late arrival luggage which, according to some of the evidence, might not go through the automated system.” So in one conjectural and perfunctory sentence the judges disposed of the numerous gaps in the record. All in all, in the words of Paul Foot (op cit, p.24)— “There was no evidence that an unaccompanied bag went on the plane at Malta – but lo and behold there was, as far as the judges were concerned, plenty of evidence that an unaccompanied bag arrived from Malta at Frankfurt.”
So far we have demonstrated in general terms why the terrorists would have been unlikely in the extreme to have sent the bomb from Malta or even Frankfurt rather than introducing it into the system from landside to airside at Heathrow. We now come to the specific evidential reasons why we can be certain that the Lockerbie bomb was smuggled into the system at Heathrow and did not come by air from Frankfurt. (b) The portable luggage container AVE4041 and the suitcase carrying the bomb As already mentioned, AAIB experts swiftly identified the blast-damaged portable luggage container AVE4041 in which the bronze-coloured Samsonite Silhouette 4000 hardshell “Antique Copper” suitcase carrying the Toshiba bomb had been loaded for the fatal flight. The investigators established that AVE4041had been assigned to take the “interline” baggage for Pan Am 103 (that is transit baggage arriving at Heathrow on other airlines). It remained in the Pan Am interline baggage shed some hundreds of yards from Terminal 3 from about 2.00 pm until late afternoon during which period a handful of interline bags were placed in it after they sporadically arrived at the shed and were x-rayed. At about 4.45 pm it was transported to the Pan Am baggage build-up area, where it remained outside supervisor Peter Walker’s office for about 40 minutes. It was then taken out on to the tarmac (at location K-16) to meet feeder flight Pan Am 103A, which was just arriving from Frankfurt. After being filled up with luggage from that flight it was lifted into the hold of Maid of the Seas which was being prepared on the adjacent stand for the flight to JFK New York. (c) The mystery suitcase seen by John Bedford Pan Am baggage handler John Bedford finds a brown hardshell suitcase in AVE4041 well before the Pan Am feeder flight arrives from Frankfurt What should have been decisive evidence came from John Bedford, the baggage handler whose job it was to load the container with interline baggage items as they were delivered to the interline shed and x-rayed. By the time of the trial he no longer possessed a memory of the episode but asserted the truth of his contemporaneous statements to the police. On 21 December he was on duty in the interline baggage shed where over the course of the afternoon he placed a handful of interline items of baggage for Pan Am 103 upright on their spines across the rear of AVE4041. Shortly after 4.00 pm he left the shed to take an extended tea-break with Peter Walker, his supervisor, lasting roughly half an hour. He returned to the shed at about 4.40 pm when he saw that two items were lying flat on the floor of the container in front of the upright placed bags and assumed that both were additional. He subsequently stated that he asked Sulkash Kamboj, the staff member responsible for x-raying bags if he knew about the two bags, an exchange to which we shall return. Immediately before finally going off duty at around 5.00 pm he transported the container to the baggage build-up area, where it was left outside Peter Walker’s office to await the arrival of PA103A, the feeder flight from Frankfurt, which touched down at 5.36 pm and pulled into the gate at 5.37 pm. This was over half an hour after Bedford finished his shift. If the extra bag adjacent to the overhang was the primary suitcase (ie carrying the bomb) it could not have come from Malta or Frankfurt on 103A. Exact match of Bedford’s description of the mystery suitcase and the primary suitcase Bedford’s first description of the bag lying on the left hand side of the floor of the container (that is, adjacent to the overhang) was “a hard suitcase of the type Samsonite make, brown in colour.” In a later statement he said of it “I remember the light shining or reflecting off it. On reflection I am now convinced it was maroon in colour.” These descriptions of course broadly matched that of the primary suitcase, ie the one carrying the bomb (Samsonite “Antique Bronze” Silhouette 4000 hardshell). By contrast, he merely referred to the one on the right as “if not the same, then similar.” We shall return later to a discussion of the possible identity of the extra item on the right. Bedford first mentioned the bags to the police on 3 January, 1989 (statement S1548) and described them on 9 January (S1548A). However, it may be supposed that he felt some misgivings, at least, about their ominously potential significance as soon as he heard about the fate of Pan Am 103, at which point the descriptions may well have embossed themselves on his memory – perhaps painfully so. The description of the left hand side item could not have come from the investigators because the bomb carrier was not identified as an “Antique Bronze” Samsonite hardshell suitcase until the second half of May. Potential total number of legitimate Heathrow interline bags in AVE4041: six The records suggest that of the Heathrow interline bags on Pan Am 103 only six of these would have been placed in AVE4041, as the others arrived after it had been moved from the interline shed and were loaded instead in the cargo hold (evidence of Det Const Derek Henderson to the Fatal Accident Inquiry, 27th day; Henderson baggage analysis, DP/515). Bedford’s recollection of the total number of items in AVE4041 when he transferred it from the interline shed to the baggage build-up area: more than six Including the additional two items Bedford consistently maintained that there were more than six items in AVE4041 when he took it to the baggage build-up area at around 5.00 pm (see statements S1548, S1548A, S1548D and S1548F). His colleague Sulkash Kamboj, the interline shed X-ray operator, initially put the total number at four or five (statement S1963), but since it was Bedford’s particular job to load the container and it was he who took it to the baggage build-up area he probably had a greater opportunity to register the items in his mind (see Ashton, Megrahi, p.120). Bedford and his fellow loaders Amarjit Singh Sidhu and Tarlochan Singh Sahota each said that the base of the container was covered when it was taken from the shed (Sidhu statement, S967G; Sahota statement S2139). Bedford’s reconstructional loadings At the request of police, on 9 January Bedford loaded a luggage container in identical to AVE4041 in the way he said the luggage had been arranged on 21 December, that is by placing five suitcases in a row along the back and two at the front lying flat with their handles facing inwards (see photographs PZ/336, Crown Production 1114). The latter two represented the suitcases which he said had been added during his tea break. Bedford also placed two soft holdalls in the angled section to the left of the row of suitcases, to illustrate the normal practice, although he was unable to recall whether any were in fact loaded in this way on 21 December. None of the six legitimate items of interline luggage in the container were of that type. This then made a total of nine items in the container according to Bedford’s reconstruction. Reconstructional loadings by other staff Sidhu and Sahota also reconstructed the loading of bags using the container identical to AVE4041, each placing in it seven cases (photographs PZ/345; Crown Production 1228). By comparison with what they said in their written statements it was clear from these demonstrations that six suitcases would probably not have covered the container’s floor (see Ashton, Megrahi, p.120). Directory: docs docs -> Application for acem docs -> Observational Assessment of Teaching Practices Teaching Assessment Initiative Proposal Submitted to The Teachers for a New Era project docs -> Traditional British values docs -> From Warfighters to Crimefighters: The Origins of Domestic Police Militarization docs -> Borzoi Club of America Register of Merit Program I. 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