[Note by Tom Gross]

As many of you may have heard, rumors are swirling around the international media this morning that the Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is likely to be freed by the British government on “compassionate grounds” next week in time for him to be home with his family in Libya by Ramadan, which starts next Friday.

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, is serving life for murdering 270 people when Pan Am flight 103 exploded above the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. This was Britain’s worst terror attack.

Some relatives of the victims have naturally expressed outrage that he may be released. For example, American Susan Cohen, whose 20-year-old daughter Theodora died in the attack, told the BBC: “Any letting out of Megrahi would be a disgrace. It makes me sick, and if there is a compassionate release then I think that is vile.”

However, as al-Megrahi has repeatedly claimed, there are serious concerns that he is innocent. Indeed there are those in Israeli intelligence and the CIA who have long believed that Libya was not behind the attack, and it was actually carried out by the PLO splinter group the PFLP-GC, acting on Iran’s orders. They believe that the Lockerbie bomb timing devices were manufactured in a PFLP-GC workshop on the outskirts of Damascus.

IS THERE IS A COVER OF SYRIAN AND IRANIAN INVOLVEMENT – AND WHY?

Dr. Jim Swire, a leading spokesman for British victims of the attack, whose daughter Flora was killed on Flight 103, has thoroughly investigated the case and believes the Israeli assessment is correct.

In October 2007, I sent a dispatch exploring these claims, and I attach it again below for those of you who are interested.

If al-Megrahi is indeed guilty, then one can understand the outrage at his early release.

However, if he is innocent and the British authorities (with the possible connivance of the American administration) are letting him out on compassionate grounds in order not to let his appeal proceed, this raises questions as to whether there is cover of Syrian and Iranian involvement – and why.

— Tom Gross

[This dispatch can also be read at: www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001045.html]

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Repeat Mideast Dispatch from October 17, 2007

LOCKERBIE: HAS AN INNOCENT MAN BEEN LOCKED UP?

* Appeal of Libyan convicted of deadliest terrorist act in U.K. history begins
* Dr. Jim Swire, the longtime victims’ spokesman, whose daughter Flora was killed on Flight 103: Megrahi is almost certainly innocent
* Swire: Ariel Sharon was correct when he claimed that PLO splinter group PFLP-GC, acting on Iran’s orders, was behind the attack
* Scottish law professor agrees: evidence strongly suggests Lockerbie was a PFLP-GC operation, financed by Iran
* Swire and others: Libya was forced by the British and American authorities to take responsibility for a crime it didn’t commit
* Accusation: U.K. and U.S. wanted Syria and Iran on their side when coalition took on Saddam in 1990-1, therefore blamed Libya
* Experts: Lockerbie bomb timing devices were manufactured in PFLP-GC workshop on the outskirts of Damascus

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CONTENTS

1. Is Megrahi innocent?
2. Lockerbie killed more American civilians than any terror attack other than 9/11
3. Dr. Jim Swire: This is “one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in history”
4. Scottish law professor Robert Black: the wrong man is in jail
5. “Ariel Sharon was right”
6. Top CIA agent Robert Baer: Palestinian group was behind Lockerbie
7. “West needed Syrian, Iranian support to take on Saddam”
8. Israeli-Palestinian peace concert cancelled following death threats
9. “Lockerbie – a miscarriage of justice?” (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 11, 2007)

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IS MEGRAHI INNOCENT?

[Note by Tom Gross]

I attach a lengthy investigative piece by David Horovitz, the editor of The Jerusalem Post, on the appeal that began last Thursday in Scotland by former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi against his conviction for murder in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie in Scotland on December 21, 1988.

If the accusations raised in Horovitz’s article prove correct, the Lockerbie conviction may turn out to be Britain’s gravest miscarriage of justice. (Horovitz is a longtime subscriber to this email list.)

For those who don’t have time to read the article in full (it runs close to 4,800 words), here is a summary I have prepared of some of its key points.

LOCKERBIE KILLED MORE AMERICAN CIVILIANS THAN ANY TERROR ATTACK OTHER THAN 9/11

Lockerbie is the deadliest terrorist action ever to hit Great Britain. All passengers and crew on the plane, en route from London to New York, were killed as well as 11 Scottish civilians on the ground. In total, the victims came from 21 different nations.

188 of the 270 victims were Americans. Lockerbie saw the killing of more American civilians than any terrorist attack other than those on 9/11.

It prompted the most expensive criminal investigation in British history.

Were the American and British authorities involved in a cover-up which enabled the guilty state sponsors to evade punishment and, emboldened, to commission further murderous attacks?

DR. JIM SWIRE: THIS IS “ONE OF THE GRAVEST MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE IN HISTORY”

Dr. Jim Swire, the longtime spokesman for the U.K. victims’ families, whose daughter Flora was killed on Flight 103, has branded Megrahi’s conviction “one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in history.”

The decision by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to finally grant Megrahi his appeal, announced in an 800-page report after a nearly four-year study, was based on six possible grounds for a miscarriage of justice.

Libya gave up Megrahi for trial after years of resistance and consequent UN sanctions, and then paid compensation to the Lockerbie victims’ families as a condition for the lifting of those sanctions (which had cost it an estimated $30 billion).

But Gaddafi savaged the Scottish judges when they found Megrahi guilty, Libya has never formally accepted specific responsibility for the bombing, and in 2004, its prime minister told the BBC that it had capitulated only because “we thought it was easier for us to buy peace.” (It should be noted that Libya definitely was behind various other terrorist actions in that period.)

SCOTTISH LAW PROFESSOR ROBERT BLACK: THE WRONG MAN IS IN JAIL

Hans Koechler, appointed by the UN Security Council on the nomination of secretary-general Kofi Annan to serve as an observer throughout the Lockerbie legal proceedings, said last week he was certain the conviction would be overturned.

Robert Black, the professor emeritus of law at the University of Edinburgh who formulated the legal mechanism that facilitated the 2001 trial held before a panel of three Scottish judges in The Netherlands, said this week: “Megrahi will go free. He should never have been convicted. The evidence does not show him to have had anything to do with the Lockerbie bombing.”

“ARIEL SHARON WAS RIGHT”

When Ariel Sharon, who was then Israel’s trade and industry minister, was asked in a press conference who was responsible for Lockerbie, Sharon said: “Israel believes it was Ahmed Jibril.” Jim Swire, who has closely followed the case for two decades, says evidence suggests that Sharon was correct.

On February 7, 1989, just a few weeks after the Lockerbie explosion, a device similar to the one that blew up the plane over Lockerbie was found in Frankfurt in the possession of members of Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which was said to have been planning attacks on airplanes heading to the U.S. and Israel.

The man behind the Lockerbie attack was likely PFLP-GC cell leader Hafez Dalkamouni.

TOP CIA AGENT BAER: PALESTINIAN GROUP WAS BEHIND LOCKERBIE

Robert Baer, formerly the CIA’s top agent in the Middle East, who worked on the Lockerbie case, reiterated this week: Pan Am 103 was blown up by one of Dalkamouni’s bombs.

American intelligence had originally established that the Syrian-hosted PFLP-GC had been paid to carry out the Lockerbie bombing by Iran, presumably to avenge the downing by the U.S. Navy’s guided-missile carrier USS Vincennes of an Iran Air Airbus in the Persian Gulf five months before Lockerbie. All 290 passengers and crew were killed in that attack. The U.S. said it had mistaken the civilian airliner for a fighter jet; Iran said the attack was deliberate and vowed revenge; Ayatollah Khomeini promised the skies would “rain blood.”

For the first year, the investigation focused on Iran, Syria and the PFLP-GC. But the investigation was skewed in the run-up to the first Gulf War, when the U.S.-led coalition, gearing up to take on Saddam Hussein, needed Syria to stay out of the conflict and did not want to face (in the words of Swire) “hordes of Iranian foot soldiers swarming across the border to attack it. So it was not worth irritating Iran and Syria.”

“WEST NEEDED SYRIAN, IRANIAN SUPPORT TO TAKE ON SADDAM”

U.S. officials first publicly tied Libya to Lockerbie in October 1990, two months after Saddam had invaded Kuwait. Swire: Libya was “the perfect scapegoat.” It could not affect the Gulf War. And its name had already been blackened for other terrorist acts it had carried out.

According to the Jerusalem Post article, Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister at the time of Lockerbie, implicitly seems to rule Libya out when writing about the country in her memoirs, The Downing Street Years.

The UN’s Koechler added: “If you want to be credible in combating terror, you must look for those responsible for terrorist attacks.”

— Tom Gross

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ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN PEACE CONCERT CANCELLED FOLLOWING DEATH THREATS

One further note: Tomorrow’s scheduled Israeli-Palestinian peace concert in Tel Aviv and Jericho featuring Canadian rock star Bryan Adams and others, promoting a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which I referred to in a recent dispatch, has been called off. The organizers said this is because of death threats made by Hamas and others to Palestinians planning to sing with Adams.

It has also been reported that other forms of intimidation were directed against the participating Palestinians by the U.K.-based group “Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott.”

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