Culprits of Lockerbie a treatise Concerning the Destruction

Some of the text of this treatise has been adapted from the following articles by the author in Criminal Law and Justice Weekly: ‘Masking Justice with “Mercy,”’ vol. 175, No 15, 9 April 2011, pp.221-228; “Exploding Lockerbie,” vol. 175, 16 and 23 July, 2011; “A Postscript on Lockerbie,” vol 175, No 35/36, 27 Aug/3 Sept, 2011, pp.509-510; “Lockerbie: The True Culprits,” (2012) vol 176; Feb 25, pp120-121; March 3, pp.137-139; March 17, pp.168-171; March 24, pp.185-189; March 31.

Contents
Preface
I. The Destruction of Pan Am 103 and the Official Scottish

and United States Version of Responsibility 1

II. The Accumulation of Physical Evidence Relating to the Bomb 3

1. The investigation begins 3

(a) The destruction

(b) Presence at the crash scene of US officials clearly not involved in the investigation

(c) First physical evidence that Pan Am 103 was destroyed by a bomb on board

(d) Was the explosive Semtex?

2. Establishing the nature and location of the bomb 3

(a) Approximating the location of the bomb on board Pan Am 103

(b) The Samsonite “primary” suitcase containing the bomb

(c) Identifying the Toshiba radio-cassette player in which the bomb was concealed

(d) Anomalies concerning the evidence relating to remains of a Toshiba radio cassette player user manual

(e) Attempts by the investigators to establish the exact positioning of the bomb in container AVE4041

(f) Contention of the Defence at Zeist: primary suitcase in the bottom layer

3. Attempts to establish forensically which articles of clothing had been

in the primary suitcase 11

(a) Objective

(b) The two categories of recovered blast damaged garments

(c) Fundamental shortcomings of the two-category scheme

(d) Drawbacks of the two-category scheme in its application

(e) Test explosion conducted by Dr Roger King for el-Megrahi’s second appeal

(f) Original reason for identifying “Malta” clothing as Category 1 items

III. The Case Against al-Megrahi 13

1. Attention focuses on al-Megrahi 13

2. Alleged role as a JSO operative 13

(a) The Crown’s case

(b) Megrahi’s own extra-judicial account

3. Origin of the Samsonite suitcase contents 14

(a) The first lead to the Mary’s House boutique in Malta

(b) RARDE’s own criteria of allocation negates link to Mary’s House

(c) Queries about the label and the order number

4. From clothing to proof of mass murder 14

5. The Toshiba radio-cassette player and the MEBO electronic timer 15

6. Al-Megrahi’s two visits to Malta 15

7. Maltese provenance of the clothes in the suitcase and purported proof of the sale and purchaser’s identity 15

8. Putting it all together: petitio principia 15

IV. Who Purchased the Clothes? 16

1. The customer’s physical descriptions and inconsistencies 16

(a) Age

(b) Height and build

(c) Hair

(d) Facial skin tone

(e) Facial features

(f) Ethnicity

2. Sketch and photo composite of the purchaser 19

3. Competing candidates for resemblance, Abu Talb or al-Megrahi? 19

4. Introducing al-Megrahi’s image to Gauci 20

(a) The first photospread with al-Megrahi

(b) Shortcomings in the character and conduct of the photospread

“parade” of 15 February 1991

5. The prelude to trial: “dans hu!” 21

6. Live ID parade at Camp Van Zeist 22

(a) Parade outcome

(b) Manifest unsuitability of the parade foils

7. Trial 22

(a) Dock identification of al-Megrahi

(b) Statement also of Abu Talb’s resemblance to the customer

(c) Why the court plumped for al-Megrahi

8. Prior exposure to suggestive media coverage 22

9. Anthony Gauci’s memory of selling the clothes 23

(a) Gauci is shown a photograph album of blast damaged items

(b) The purported time of day of the sale

(c) Shifting descriptions of the purchases

(d) First description

(e) Later amendments and additions

(f) The extraordinary matter of the Slalom shirts

(g) Gauci’s remarkable claim to recallthe sale and the sale details

(h) Inconsistency in Gauci’s successive accounts of the customer’s departure

(i) Evidence and inconsistencies as to the dayand date of the clothes purchase

(j) The Christmas lights issue

(k) Feast of the Immaculate Conception: 8 December

(l) “Midweek”

(n) Rainfall

(o) Televised football

(p) The sale recalled by David Wright

10. Trial Court Findings on the Purchase Date and Inferences 29

(a) Findings

(b) Strained inferences

11. Lack of transparency in the total interview process  29

V. Electronic Timer or Barometric Trigger? 30

1. Implicating Libya with an electronic timer 30

2. The inherent (and decisive) advantage of the barometric trigger 30

(a) The original PFLP-GC designed barometric trigger

(b) The first PFLP-GC barometric bombs

(c) Airport vacuum chambers

(d) The modified version with time-delay facility

(e) Conjecturing the operation of the Lockerbie bomb

(f) RARDE supposition that a primed barometric bomb could have skipped the Frankfurt-Heathrow leg

3. Manifest unsuitability of the MST-13 35

(a) Primary disadvantage of a simple countdown timer

(b) Reasons why the terrorists did not use an electronic countdown timer

(c) Structural unsuitability of an MST-13

4. Targeting Israeli army mountain-top posts 37

5. Alleged provenance of the MST-13 printed circuit board fragment, PT/35b – and doubts 37

(a) Existence of doubt

(b) The official story summarised

(c) Anomalies and inconsistencies relating to the alleged recovery, documentation and examination of PT/35b

(d) Insouciance of the Zeist judges

(e) Miraculous survival of two chips and a scrap of paper

6. Chicken or the egg? 41

(a) Which came first, the “discovery” of PT/35b or a decision to

implicate Libya by means of the Mebo MST-13?

(b) Origin and story of the MST-13 timer

(c) CIA and FBI intelligence about, and acquisition of, Mebo MST-13

timers prior to Lockerbie

(d) PT/35b is matched to the MST-13

(e) Perjury before the Grand Jury

(f) The critical lies which time forgot

7. The proof that PT35b did not come from a Mebo board supplied to Libya 49

(a) Original RARDE work on PT35b following the FBI match

(b) Bollier’s red herring

(c) Developments up to al-Megrahi’s second appeal

(d) Science finally solves the riddle: PT/35b did not come

from any of the timers supplied to Libya

(e) Governmental inspired response

8. British Forensic personnel under a cloud 53

9. The vexed – and unmentioned – question: was PT/35b planted? 53

(a) Summary of points negating inculpatory

impact of PT/35b

(b) High authority suspicion of plant

(c) Who?

(d) Two problems in alleging that PT/35b was planted

(e) Plant by the terrorists?

10. Could PT/35b have come from an innocent device on board Pan Am 103? 54

11. Possible physical evidence in the debris of a PFLP-GC type of barometric bomb 54

(a) Exhibit PF/546: AA battery with wire soldered to it

(b) Exhibit PI/1588: possible component of a barometric trigger and barometer

with missing barometric mechanism seized by Swedish police

VI. The Case for Ingestion at Heathrow 55

1. The Toshiba alert 55

2. Luqa – a model of security 55

(a) Security measures in place in 1988

(b) Possible shortcomings

(c) Vindication by the Granada Television documentary

(d) Baggage figures for KM180

3. Frankfurt 56

(a) Inception of the Malta connection idea

(b) Baggage handling protocol: presentation to a coding station one flight at a time

(c) Baggage tray B8849: the assumption that it had come from KM180

(d) The assumption negated

(e) No independent proof that the item on B8849 was unaccompanied

and no evidence as to its nature

(f) The decisive issue of the X-ray process

(g) Baggage reconciliation

(h) The judges’ arbitrary conclusion

4. Heathrow: certainty of the bomb’s London origin 59

(a) Introduction to evidential reasons

(b) The portable luggage container AVE4041and the suitcase carrying the bomb

(c) The mystery suitcase seen by John Bedford

(d) Assessing the descriptions of the two mystery suitcases noticed by John Bedford

(e) The two brown hardsided Samsonite cases belonging to Pan Am

Captain John Hubbard

(f) The sidelining of Bedford’s account

(g) Conflicts over exchanges after Bedford noticed the extra bags in AVE4041

(h) Demonstration of why the bag noticed by John Bedford must have contained the bomb

(i) Examination of the question whether a barometric bomb might

have been sent from Frankfurt

(j) The cut padlock mystery

(k) Conjectures of detail regarding a Heathrow ingestion

5. Necessary use of a radio-cassette player 72

6. The mystery surrounding Pan Am 103A and 103 passenger Khaled Jaafar 72

(a) Ingestion of the bomb at Frankfurt using Turkish baggage handlers?

(b) Could Khaled Jaffar have been the bombers’ dupe?

(c) Zeist disputation over whether Jaafar could have been associated

with the primary suitcase

(d) Why Jaffar had nothing to do with the bomb

(e) Conjectures about Khaled Jaafa

VII. The True Culprits 76

1. The road to Lockerbie: the inception of revenge 76

(a) The Iran-Iraq war draws to an end

(b) Doctrinal split among the Iran leadership cadre: extremists versus moderates

(c) Disaster in the Gulf

(d) The aftermath of the shoot-down of IranAir 655

2. Operation “Autumn Leaves” 80

(a) The run-up

(b) Autumn Leaves commences

(c) The Autumn Leaves October 1988 timeline

(d) The Autumn Leaves arrests

(e) The “Toshiba” alert goes out

(f) The three missing Khreesat bombs

3. The “fifth device”: the effort to distance Marwan Khreesat from

the fatal bomb and ruminations on its provenance and history 86

(a) A tally of bombs

(b) Khreesat distinguishes his devices from the Lockerbie bomb

4. The story of Abu Elias and the missing bomb: fact or fiction? 89

(a) Uncertainties about when the missing device could have been passed on

(b) Did the Abu Elias character really exist or was he a fiction invented by Khreesat?

(c) Khreesat’s claim that the fifth device was handed on to the PFLP-GC’s

expert in airport security

5. Who was “Abu Elias”? 91

(a) RamziDiab/SalehKwekas

(b) Khreesat professes to “help” make a photo-construct of Abu Elias

(c) The PLO disclosure

(d) The Goben Memorandum

(e) Goben and Abu Elias

(f) The Goben witnesses and the Syrian living in America

(g) The Syrian US resident interviewed by defence solicitors

(h) Early indications that Abu Elias may have been Jibril’s nephew

(i) The US-based Syrian publicly named

(j) Basel Bushnaq and Abu Elias

6. The culpability of Jibril – but not of his West German cell? 93

(a) The traditional suspicion of guilt

(b) Question: did Jibril use the West German cell as a smokescreen?

(c) The question of Jibril’s shift to Islamic fundamentalism and Jibril’s

suspicion of Dalkamoni’s disloyalty

(d) Did Jibril suspect Khreesat of disloyalty?

(e) Israeli suppositions regarding nature of PFLP-GC involvement negated

(f) The destruction of UTA Flight 772

(g) The current view of Israeli intelligence

7. How did the bomb get to Heathrow? 96

(a) Did “Abu Elias” plant the bomb?

(b) Logistical aid by the Iranian government

VIII. The Compelling Factual Conclusion 99

IX. The Motive Behind al-Megrahi’s Release 100

X. The Present Official Stance of the Government of Scotland 100

XI. Implications of Demonstrating the Case Against the PFLP-GC and Iran 102

1. Libya 102

2. Malta 102

3. The State of Israel 102

XII. Resurrecting the Case Against Iran 102

1. Belated official confirmation of early briefings to journalists 102

2. The original US position on culpability 102

(a) The first year or so after Lockerbie

(b) In transition: lingering US intelligence view after Libya targeted for culpability

3. Assessing possible motives for US shift away from blaming Iran 103

(a) Two out of three factors

(b) The third factor: rescuing hostages in the Lebanon by ostentatiously NOT

Pursuing Iran for complicity in the bombing of Pan Am 103

(c) Evidence of an accommodation: the sidelining of Mohteshemi

4. Key significance of the 2010 declassification: the improbability of

two identical but mutually exclusive conspiracies 105

5. Was Mohtashemi acting alone or with or on behalf of senior leadership figures? 105

(a) A recent general denunciation

(b) Mohtashemi-Pur’s career 106

(c) Rasfanjani

(d) The “moderate” pragmatist Hassan Rouhani

(e) Rouhani biography

(f) Inference of Rouhani’s complicity in Lockerbie from biographical details

in the public domain 107

(g) Inference now gilded 108

(h) Should the Scottish police investigate Hassan Rouhani for culpability?   109
1903 1938
Preface

THE DEVELOPMENT of an invention is characteristically electrifying in its early stages but then only incremental in its later progress. It is amazing to consider for example that a mere thirty-five years separates the Wright Brothers’ pioneering flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903 and the Douglas DC4E of 1938. Compare that blink of an eye with the life of the Boeing 747, still the mainstay of most international carriers well over four decades after it took to the air on regular commercial services. The model type had already been around for many years when an early example was brought to the ground by an act of barbarous, unmitigated hatred. It is extraordinary to reflect that almost a quarter of a century has passed since the perpetration of what has come to be known as the Lockerbie bombing, the anniversary of which the publication online of this revised and considerably expanded version of a monograph first posted in 2011 anticipates by only a few weeks. The atrocity continues to divide and unite, to fascinate and frustrate.

It divides those who see themselves as rational sceptics from those who undiscriminatingly prefer to “take as read” the story line long ago officially pronounced; or more troublingly from those who in their heart of hearts know the truth but – for what they doubtless perceive to be the dictates of realpolitik – refuse to acknowledge publicly. Against an official veil of secrecy, bland denial and stubborn make-believe are ranged those cognoscenti who, having taken the trouble to get to grips with the detail, see little difficulty is discerning what is so self-evidently obvious and who unite in their common and collective rage.

The 747 is a remarkable aeroplane, capacious and vast, durable and fast, reliable and safe. The immense strength of its airframe testifies to its wartime ancestry in the eponymously named Flying Fortress. That Pan Am 103 should have been destroyed by what was in effect a miniature bomb speaks volumes for the technical know-how of the perpetrators and their meticulous planning. They knew they had to use a very small device concealed in a cassette record player packed in a suitcase to avoid detection by x-ray. They knew exactly where to locate the bomb – right up against the fuselage hull. They knew it would otherwise almost certainly fail to bring down the giant plane and that they had to be absolutely sure of getting it that close if it were not to go off literally like a damp squib. They knew they had no alternative but to have it placed in that key position in the aircraft hold deliberately and carefully by an accomplice on the ground at Heathrow.They knew that otherwise they would have nothing to rely upon but mere remote chance to get it into exactly the position where they needed it to do its atrocious job. As utterly ruthless and determined professional terorrists they left nothing to chance.

However, the official story of the bomb-in-a-suitcase making an unaccompanied three-leg journey from Malta to Heathrow where it just happened to end up by chance in the prime position without human intervention is one of haphazard whim, ludicrous crossing of fingers and a pyramid of coincidence and question-begging which is simply too absurd for grown-ups to take seriously. Yet it was on the basis of such a story that in a maelstrom of self-delusion the Crown had to make its case against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. They said he was the man who went into a boutique in Malta weeks before Lockerbie and bought the clothes allegedly found in the suitcase containing the bomb. They said he must have been that man because he was in Malta on the day the suitcase, according to the Crown’s absurd conjecture, began its journey from Malta, the day Pan Am 103 was blown out of the sky. They were not any old clothes. They were surely the King’s New Clothes of all time. We therefore offer the following challenge to the Scottish police, the CIA, the FBI, British intelligence, the Scottish Crown Office, the prosecution advocates team, the distinguished Scottish judges who convicted the now late Mr al-Megrahi at Camp Van Zeist in the Netherlands and those who rejected his appeal, and finally the United Kingdom Government and the Governments of the United States and of Scotland. We invite them to “pull the other one.”

Lockerbie has spawned an extensive and for the most part impressive literature going back to the beginning, most of it highly readable. There have been a number of full length books covering a mass of detail. Only the most recent is the magisterial volume which many commentators rightly regard as the last word on the subject, Megrahi – You Are My Jury, by the investigative journalist John Ashton, published in 2012, and astonishingly greeted by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, as an “insult to the relatives.” The only insult was Mr Cameron’s peremptory dismissal of a brilliantly researched book which he could not possibly have read before sounding off about it. It was an insult which merely added to the injury inflicted by the continued refusal of the UK and Scottish governments to put their hands up – to acknowledge they know the truth very well.

It has not been my intention in this treatise to produce another encyclopaedia of the Lockerbie bombing. The exercise has been much more limited than that and my purpose has been essentially three-fold. First of all I have aimed to focus on the core evidential issues and to explore them in as much penetrating depth as I can muster. This has necessitated a good deal of selectivity, excluding much of the background history and surrounding circumstantial details which are probably inessential to the key points. Those have been amply covered elsewhere and do not require repetition here. My second aim has been to supplement the analysis of those issues with a discussion, to an unprecedented extent, of the evidence, such as it is, relating to the activities of the original suspects with a view to exploring the strength of the case against them. I apologise to those readers who may find some of the reasoning unduly conjectural and repetitious. Lastly, my aim has been to present the issues covered here, and the relevant details, in a way which has not, so far as I know, been essayed previously: by separating them out methodically into numerous discrete paragraphs each easily and clearly identified by headings and captions. A detailed topics list paragraph by paragraph with page references obviates the need for an index, which in any event is not really essential in an online monograph published as a Microsoft WORD file since the key-word search facility will normally lead the reader to the required reference.

I am conscious of the fact that readers who are already deeply conversant with the subject will be irked by the many topics and factual points which have not been touched upon. In the course of time I may fill in some of the gaps. I expect to receive a good deal of criticism for some of the coverage and this may lead me to refine some of the text in the future, to make corrections, additions, amendments or deletions. That is the great advantage of an on-line treatise. It can be regularly amended and will not induce the anxiety which always accompanies a publication in hard copy.

I apologise for a certain inconsistency in the way I have cited other works and for the lack of comprehensive references. Readers who want them know John Ashton’s Megrahi will give them virtually all they need.

I express my heartfelt gratitude to those very few persons who have given assistance and, as is customary, to my family for their noble forbearance.
David Wolchover November 2013

Culprits of Lockerbie

A Treatise Concerning the Destruction of

Pan Am 103 on 21 December 1988

******

David Wolchover

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