[THS] Megrahi: I’ll Reveal True Identity Of Lockerbie Bomber

[Peter Webster]

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/122299/-I-ll-reveal-true-identity-of-bomber


‘I’ll Reveal True Identity Of Bomber’
Story Image


Megrahi is to point the finger

Sunday August 23,2009
By Ben Borland

AN AMERICAN citizen is to be named by the Lockerbie bomber as the man who really
carried out the terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103.

Megrahi’s early release from prison on compassionate grounds.

Lawyers for the bomber were to argue that an “elusive” terrorist codenamed Abu
Elias planted the bomb in December 1988, causing the deaths of 270 innocent
people.

Megrahi is now expected to identify the man behind this alias.

The  Scottish Sunday Express tracked this man down to his home in the US, and he
strongly denied having anything to do with the atrocity.

However, we can reveal that he has connections to at least two international terrorists
and a Palestinian terror group, as well as links to the US intelligence services.

The man, who works as a schools engineer for the US government, was to become
the central figure in Megrahi’s aborted appeal.

‘Elias’, a commander in a Palestinian terror organisation, was identified as the CIA’s
primary Lockerbie suspect but was never caught.
ì
Megrahi set to name US ­citizen as prime suspect who hid behind terror alias of Abu
Elias
î

Sources close to Megrahi believe he may actually have been a double agent working
for the FBI or the CIA.

Last night the man, who we have chosen not to name, said: “Sorry, I don’t think that
I can help in this case. It is a clear case of either mistaken identity and/or fabrication.

“I don’t wish my name to be mentioned in any capacity in the press. I am sure you
understand the sensitivity of this matter since I have a family and children.”

However, Christine Grahame MSP, who visited Megrahi in Greenock prison and
campaigned for his release, is believed to be considering naming the man in the
Scottish Parliament chamber.

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She said: “It is apparent that US intelligence has known or must have known the
primary suspect of the Lockerbie bombing was alive and living safely in Washington.

“There has been a suggestion made that he is in some way an ‘intelligence asset’ for
the US and that is why he has been allowed to live in peace.

“He must be deeply relieved that Megrahi was forced to drop his appeal and that he
will never face justice for this atrocity.”

Yesterday, Megrahi promised that before he dies he will present new evidence
gathered for the appeal which will exonerate him. He said he will call on the British
and Scottish people “to be the jury”.

The man Megrahi believes was Abu Elias now lives in a suburban neighbourhood
near Washington’s Dulles airport, just a few miles from the White House and the
Lockerbie memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. He even has his own Facebook
social network page.

He is the nephew of Syrian terror warlord Ahmed Jibril, the founder of the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine ­ General Command (PFLP-GC).

Jibril was allegedly paid $10million by Iran to bomb an American passenger jet in
retaliation for the US Navy accidentally shooting down an Iranian plane earlier in
1988, killing all 298 pilgrims on board.

The man is also related to Nezar Hindawi, a Syrian currently serving a 45-year
sentence in Whitemoor high-security prison in Cambridgeshire for plotting to blow up
an Israeli jet flying from Heathrow to Tel Aviv in 1986.

A document submitted to the appeal court by Megrahi’s lawyers states: “The FBI had
apparently investigated ‘X’ and knew he was the nephew of Ahmed Jibril.

“‘X’ had met with FBI special agents [an appointment was in his diary for August
1988] but neither ‘X’ nor the Department of Justice would disclose who the agents
were or the precise purpose of the recorded meeting. ‘X’ admitted the meeting had
taken place. It is inconceivable that he did not produce his Syrian passport for
examination. Only extracts from his US passport were revealed.

“Once again, the hand of the US government appeared to be guiding matters behind
the scenes.”

‘Elias’ was also connected to Mohammed Abu Talb, an Egyptian named by Dumfries
and Galloway Police as their chief suspect less than a year after the bombing. The
true identity of ‘Elias’ first came to light during a closed hearing at the Lockerbie trial
in Holland in 2001, which led to Megrahi’s conviction.

However, the defence claim that attempts to investigate further were dismissed as a
“fishing” exercise by the then Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd.

There is further evidence to link the PFLP-GC to the disaster, as first reported by the
Scottish Sunday Express in 2004.

In October 1988, following a tip-off from the CIA, German police raided a PFLP-GC
safe house in Neuss and discovered a bomb in a Toshiba cassette player, identical to
the one which exploded on board Flight 103, as well as a Pan Am timetable.

Codenamed Autumn Leaves, the raid resulted in 16 arrests including that of cell
leader Hafez Dalkamoni, later convicted for a bombing campaign on German
railways, and ­Marwan Khreesat, a double agent for the Jordanian intelligence
service.

Khreesat said in an interview with an FBI agent that he had been introduced to a
man called Abu Elias, an explosives and airline security expert who had been “giving
orders”.

Another member of the terror cell, Mobdi Goben, later disclosed Elias’s true identity in
a deathbed confession which became known as the Goben Memorandum during the
Camp Zeist trial. Goben claimed ‘Elias’ placed a bomb in the luggage of Khaled Jafar,
a Lebanese/American from Detroit who died on board Pan Am Flight 103.

A source close to Megrahi said yesterday that ‘Elias’ could have been spying for the
Americans.

The source said: “Not only was Abu Elias known to the Americans, but what if he was
working for them? The guy comes into the US from the former Soviet Union, he’s the
nephew of Ahmed Jibril ­ the Bin Laden of his day ­ and he just strolls into the US?

“I think they turned him, and I think he operated as a double agent.

“Khreeshat said if they had waited one more day they would have got Elias in the
Autumn Leaves raid.Goben says Elias put the bomb into Jafar’s case without his
knowledge.

“Abu Elias was a prime suspect. An American double agent was responsible for
bringing down an American plane. How good a reason for a cover-up would that
be?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23392.htm

Lockerbie Part of a Bigger Story

By Eric Margolis

August 30, 2009 "Toronto Sun" -- Libya's Moammar Khadaffy, once branded "the
mad dog of the Middle East" by Ronald Reagan, is celebrating 40 years in power in
spite of a score of attempts by western powers and his Arab "brothers" to kill him.

In 1987, I was invited to interview Khadaffy. We spent an evening together in his
Bedouin tent. He led me by the hand through the ruins of his personal quarters,
bombed a year earlier by the U.S. in an attempt to assassinate him. Khadaffy showed
me where his two-year old daughter had been killed by a 1,000-pound bomb.

"Why are the Americans trying to kill me, Mister Eric?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

I told him because Libya was harbouring all sorts of anti-western revolutionary
groups, from Palestinian firebrands to IRA bombers and Nelson Mandela's ANC. To
the naive Libyans, they were all legitimate "freedom fighters."

Last week, a furor erupted over the release of a dying Libyan agent, Abdel Basset al-
Megrahi, convicted of the destruction of an American airliner over Scotland in 1988.

Hypocrisy on all sides abounded. Washington and London blasted Libya and
Scotland's justice minister while denying claims al-Megrahi was released in exchange
new oil deals with Libya.

The Pan Am 103 crime was part of a bigger, even more sordid story. What goes
around comes around.

1986: Libya is accused of bombing a Berlin disco, killing two U.S. servicemen. A
defector from Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, claims it framed Libya. Khadaffy
demands Arabs increase oil prices.

1987: The U.S. tries to kill Khadaffy but fails. Eighty-eight Libyan civilians die.

1988: France wages a secret desert war with Libya over mineral-rich Chad. France's
secret service, SDECE, is ordered to kill Khadaffy. A bomb is put on Khadaffy's private
jet but, after Franco-Libyan relations abruptly improve, the bomb is removed before it
explodes.

1988: The U.S. intervenes on Iraq's side in its eight-year war against Iran. A U.S.
navy Aegis cruiser, Vincennes, violates Iranian waters and "mistakenly" shoots down
an Iranian civilian Airbus airliner in Iran's air space. All 288 civilians aboard die. Then
vice-president George H.W. Bush vows, "I'll never apologize ... I don't care what the
facts are."

The Vincennes' trigger-happy captain is decorated with the Legion of Merit medal for
this crime by Bush after he becomes president. Washington quietly pays Iran $131.8
million US in damages.

Five months later, Pan Am 103 with 270 aboard is destroyed by a bomb over
Lockerbie, Scotland. The U.S. and Britain pressure Scotland to convict al-Megrahi,
who insists he is innocent. Serious questions are raised about the trial, with claims
CIA faked evidence to blame Libya.

Some intelligence experts believe the attack was revenge for the downing of the
Iranian airliner, carried out by Mideast contract killers paid by Iran. Serious doubts
about al-Megrahi's guilt were voiced by Scotland's legal authorities. An appeal was
underway. Libyans believed he was a sacrificial lamb handed over to save Libya from
a crushing U.S. and British-led oil export boycott.

1989: A French UTA airliner with 180 aboard is blown up over Chad. A Congolese and
a Libyan agent are accused. French investigators indict Khadaffy's brother-in-law,
Abdullah Senoussi, head of Libyan intelligence, with whom I dined in Tripoli. Libya
blames the attack on rogue mid-level agents but pays French families $170 million
US.

I believe al-Megrahi was probably innocent and framed. Scotland was right to release
him. But Libya was guilty as hell of the UTA crime, which likely was revenge for
France's attempt to kill Khadaffy.

Pan Am 103 probably was revenge for America's destruction of the Iranian Airbus. In
1998, Britain's MI6 spy agency tried to kill Khadaffy with a car bomb.

In the end, the West badly wanted Libya's high grade oil. So Libya bought its way
out of sanctions with $2.7 billion US total in damages. The U.S., Britain, France and
Italy then invested $8 billion US in Libya's oil industry and proclaimed Khadaffy an ally
and new best friend.

Happy birthday, Moammar.

© 2009 Toronto Sun