poisonpill@tesco.net
“What greater pain can mortals have than this - than see their children dead before their eyes?”Euripedes - The Supplicant Widow
The Murders at the Rancho Sante Fe;
1. In the northern suburbs of San Diego (formerly home port to the USS Vincennes) is situated the Rancho Sante Fe, per capita the richest community in the USA. The Rancho Sante Fe achieved some notoriety in March 1997 when 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed mass suicide.
2. Five years earlier the Rancho Santa Fe had been the scene of another shocking and apparently equally pointless multiple homicide when four members of a British family were murdered. Gail Spiro aged 42 and her three children Sarah (16) Adam (14) and Dinah 10) were shot in the head at the family’s luxurious rented villa sometime on the night of Sunday 1st – Monday 2nd November 1992.
3. For the San Diego Police there was only one suspect in the case Gail’s husband Ian a British businessman and reputed “spy” and “arms dealer” with a murky past when based in the Middle East.
4. Spiro had been at the villa and had fled the scene. At 8 a.m. on Monday 2nd November the family’s Mexican maid Maria Roxas had arrived at the villa. The door was answered by Spiro in his gown. Spiro told her that his family were away and that there was no work for her that day. Spiro, who had only hours before slaughtered his family, drove the girl to her shanty home.
5. Save for a single sighting at a gas station payphone in the California Desert Spiro was not seen alive again. On Thursday the 5th November the Police entered the villa and recovered the bodies. Spiro had been married before. He had been a successful and prosperous London property developer but was ruined by the 1974 crash. He abandoned his wife and two daughters and moved to the USA living with his Uncle Joe in the Queens District of New York. He had met Gail in London and the couple married in London in 1976 at the Westminster Registry Office.
6. On Friday 6th November Spiro’s body was discovered by hikers at a beauty spot in the Anza-Borrego Desert inside his locked RV. He had died by ingesting potassium cyanide. A vial of cyanide was found by his side. A suitcase of Spiro’s personal papers was later found in the desert.
7. The weapon Spiro had used to murder his family, a .45 Colt magnum revolver, was never recovered. Spiro had borrowed a similar weapon from his friend and neighbour James Streeter a San Diego Attorney and former Colonel in the Marines Legal service. ( 3 )
8. Spiro had (allegedly) confided to Streeter that he had felt threatened to such an extent that Streeter had lent him the gun for protection. In phone-calls to his brother-in-law Ken Quarton (Gail’s half-brother), a resident of Vancouver, Spiro complained of having received a number of “disturbing” (not “threatening”) phone-calls and said that “something from his past had come back to haunt him”. He told Quarton “the answer lay in Terry Waite’s book”.
9. The story was first reported in the UK by the Sunday Times. (4) The Police were from the start in no doubt that Spiro had murdered his family and committed suicide. There were no signs of forced entry and little doubt that Spiro had been in the house at the time of the killings. Of course Spiro may have known the killer or killers or somebody else could have had keys to his home – in the full circumstances not a possibility but a likelihood.
10. Spiro’s conduct after the murders was taken as conclusive evidence of his guilt. Why else would he have fled the scene and taken his own life? (The US authorities refused to release Spiro’s autopsy report and the body was cremated in the US). It was also rumoured Spiro had left a rambling taped message confirming his guilt.
11. The Sunday Times quoted an unnamed Policeman to the effect that Spiro was a very scary guy whom he would not like to encounter on a dark night. Spiro, it was claimed had “suddenly gone berserk” and murdered his family. The logic was cyclical. As he had senselessly murdered his family therefore he must have gone berserk. It was difficult to pinpoint the time of the murders as no witness had heard gunshots.
12. Spiro was alleged to be depressed by his debts to several Banks in respect of failed business ventures. The source of this allegation is unknown. It was an allegation that Gail’s family strenuously denied. Spiro had made and lost several fortunes. As the family home was rented and even his car leased Spiro had few tangible assets that could be recovered.
13. However it may be that Spiro was not the sort of man who would be depressed by his debts. On the contrary he may have regarded them as a triumph. Indeed there were major flaws with the official version of events. Why did Spiro feel threatened and what were the “disturbing” phone-calls he had received? Were they of no relevance? What was it from his past that had come back to haunt him? What of his background in the Middle East where he had played a role in the Beirut hostage crisis?
14. Above all there was one glaring inconsistency in the official version of events – Spiro’s acquisition of the murder weapon.
15. Spiro had “suddenly gone berserk.” Yet he had acquired the murder weapon in advance by convincing his neighbour an Attorney and respected Military Officer that his life was threatened. Then having murdered his family he disposed of the murder weapon and acquired a quantity of potassium cyanide, not the easiest substance to find. According to the Police this was given to him by an unidentified jeweller friend although they did not say if this was prior to or after the murders. Had he acquired the potassium cyanide prior to the murders it would indicate considerable advanced planning, (despite forgetting to cancel the maid.) But why dispose of the gun then poison yourself?
16. On the other hand why would somebody kill his family, leaving him unscathed, and why would he not tell the truth to the authorities? Would he be believed? In due course Spiro would be convicted of murder for if Spiro wasn’t the culprit that must surely have been the intent. Whether or not he killed his family he faced the rest of his life in prison.
Spiro and the Beirut Hostage Crisis
17. Spiro had told Ken Quarton the answer lay in “Terry Waite’s book.” At the time Terry Waite’s memoirs “Taken on Trust” had yet to be published. When they were they made only the briefest mention of Spiro as a man with whom Waite had once had breakfast. ( 5 ).
18. Waite had been kidnapped in Beirut on Tuesday 20th January 1987. After 1763 days in captivity he was released on the 18th November 1991. Four days earlier Britain and the USA had announced the indictment of two Libyan suspects for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing removing one obstacle to his release as US President George Bush announced that Syria and Iran had taken a “bum rap” in the Lockerbie case. ( 6 )
19. The object of the indictment however was demonstrably not a trial but sanctions against Libya for political objectives largely unrelated to the bombing itself. Only with changes to the composition of the UN Security Council made on the 1st January 1992 when Cuba and Yemen lost their seats was the composition of the UN Security Council such that the USA, Britain and France were able to achieve their objective.
20. Shortly after Waite’s release the BBC correspondent Gavin Hewitt published “Terry Waite Why Was He Kidnapped?” a book he had substantially completed earlier but which could not be published while Waite was still in captivity.
21. This superb book concerned the relationship between Colonel Oliver North and Waite and their efforts to obtain freedom for the Hostages held by Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and freelance kidnap gangs in the Lebanon. Waite represented himself as an honest broker, a disinterested humanitarian whose previous efforts in Libya and Iran had met with a great deal of success.
22. North pinned his hopes for freeing the hostages on a series of increasingly ambitious arms deals with the kidnap gangs’ Iranian sponsors in order to fulfil what he discerned to be President Reagan’s wishes. His Herculean efforts in this mission, sponsored by CIA director William Casey, and in support of the Contra rebels in Central America were not entirely selfless. North had his own Presidential ambitions.
23. North exploited Waite using him as “ecclesiastical cover” for hostages released as a result of his arms dealing. Waite in turn was taking credit for the release of hostages who had been freed as a result of arms dealing. North’s activities were self-defeating. By giving the hostages real value they became a valuable commodity and North’s efforts only encouraged further hostage taking.
24. The priority of the kidnap gangs was not to serve the interests of Iran to whom they owed religious and political allegiance. Their central objective was to achieve freedom for a group of Shiite prisoners who included relatives of the kidnappers. They had been imprisoned in Kuwait following a 1983 bombing campaign the object of which was to discourage Kuwaiti financial support for Iraq in the middle of Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran.
25. North and Waite’s strategy to resolve the Beirut hostage crisis was to give the kidnappers what they wanted. In this they were foiled by the determination of the Kuwaiti Government not to make concessions in which they were officially supported by their American allies. (The prisoners were actually freed a year before Waite’s release when Saddam Hussein invaded his Kuwaiti ally. The prison guards melted away and the prisoners fled.)
26. Hewitt’s book made a number of references to “Spiro” part of North’s “inner circle.” Hewitt described “Spiro” as follows,
“ ‘Spiro’, as it turned out, had been at an influential school in the Lebanon. He knew most of the religious leaders, including the leading Shiite families. He had direct contact with Islamic Jihad, the group behind the hostage taking, and offered to make some introductions for Terry Waite.
Who he really was remained unclear. He was sparing with details. He was a Greek who had ‘business’ in the Lebanon; his wife had worked as a nurse in the American University Hospital. He had a house just outside Nice and another in California. He was paranoid about his security and always operated under a number of aliases; he possessed five passports in different names.
In fact ‘Spiro’ worked for both British and American intelligence although he was closer to the latter. He was described as a man who carried out ‘deep covert operations’. One person who knew him said that ‘he was on no intelligence register but a man without whom no agency could operate’. After the blowing up of the American Embassy in Beirut and the abduction of William Buckley, the CIA Station Chief, he was regarded as one of the few resources the CIA had left in Lebanon. Later in 1988 ‘Spiro’ was to play an important role in acquiring Buckley’s confessions, what he had revealed under torture. ” ( 7 )
27. Another section of Hewitt’s book gives some insight into Spiro’s true character. On his previous visit to Beirut Waite had been warned by the kidnappers not to return to Beirut unless he had some concrete proposal on the issue of the Kuwaiti prisoners. (8) According to Hewitt Spiro offered to use his influence with members of the Kuwaiti Royal Family with whom he had been to school. Waite returned to Beirut and was kidnapped. In reality Spiro had been educated at Carmel College a Jewish Public School situated near Oxford. It is unlikely to number members of the Kuwaiti Royal Family amongst it’s old boys. Although part of North and Waite’s “inner circle” Spiro was duping them both.
28. Two of Hewitt’s principal sources were the former hostage David Jacobsen and former Ambassador for refugees Eugene Douglas. According to Jacobsen’s memoirs he met Spiro in New York at the office of a “prominent civilian” presumably Douglas. At this meeting Spiro using the alias “John Smith” told Jacobsen that his wife worked as a nurse at the American University Hospital in Beirut. Curiously Jacobsen, who was Director of the American University Hospital didn’t seem to know her. Later the Californian Jacobsen became involved in Spiro’s fundraising efforts to release the Hostages by sponsoring a scheme of medical relief in Shi’ite Southern Lebanon.(9)
29. Hewitt had written that -
“Not long after Waite’s disappearance ‘Spiro’ received what he considered to be a ransom demand. It was put not in crude financial terms but in the form of requesting financial assistance for the relatives of the seventeen men imprisoned in Kuwait.” – “As ‘Spiro’ explored the idea, it became larger in scope. His contacts wanted a relief programme for Southern Lebanon, involving hospitals, schools and housing: - the project could cost as much as $20 million dollars”. ( 10 )
30. Waite had been kidnapped because he believed Spiro’s lie of having influence with the Kuwaiti Royal Family. If Spiro didn’t receive this “ransom demand” he concocted it as a way of making money from his friend Waite’s horrible ordeal. Is this the sort of person who was going to suffer anguish because he owed money to the Banks?
31. Hewitt’s biography of Spiro was not based on facts but was what Spiro had told Jacobsen and Douglas. Indeed the portrayal of Spiro as having attended a religious school in the Lebanon and being an intimate of the leading Shi’ite families or having “direct contact with Islamic Jihad” is preposterous. He was a friend of a family of exiled Lebanese Christians the Badouns who lived in London. The claim that he had obtained Buckley’s “confession” is interesting. Buckley was admired for how little real information he gave away.
32. While “Spiro” seems to be a Greek name in fact the family name was “Spirowicz” and is of Polish origin. At the 1996 inquest in Workington, Cumbria into the deaths of Gail Spiro and her children Eugene Douglas was quoted as stating that Spiro was of interest to the CIA because of his “twenty year” experience of living in Beirut. He also described Spiro as a “low-level conduit.” This was a person who supposedly held face-to-face meetings with Islamic Jihad.
33. The Spiro myth was represented as fact in a TV presentation of a "True Crime" story "When the Lies Stop" written and directed by Paul Greengrass.. This depicted Spiro, (played by Alfred Molina) bumbling around a Beirut dungeon in which hostages were being held speaking in English to a turbaned mullah and boasting of being a personal friend of the Director of the CIA. Is it credible that Spiro could have done this and walked away? (11)
34. In a BBC Inside Story production created to publicise the release of Waite’s memoirs the BBC arranged a meeting or confrontation in Waite’s Cambridge rooms with Oliver North who was touring Europe in 1993 prior to his unsuccessful bid to win a seat in the US Senate. The two had not met for over six years. In that televised meeting North described Waite as “the only living person I have ever met who has had direct access to the hostage-takers.” (12) By the time of this meeting Spiro was no longer living. While Waite was being duped by North and Spiro, North himself had been duped by Spiro.
MI5, Libya and the IRA.
35. Following Spiro’s death the publication Intelligence newsletter wrote
“CIA probably contacted him in early 80’s and led to regular meetings with William Buckley COS Beirut. He one of North’s principal intermediaries 85-87 for negotiations re hostages. In 85 he developed close ties to Libyan intel in West Beirut. Spiro got names two Libyan re bombing of Pan Am flight 103. He sent names of Abdel Basset Al-Mugrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fahima to U.S. and English intel services.” (13)
36. Was this why Spiro and his family were living in rented villa in San Diego? Was he in the Witness Protection Programme?
37. Perhaps in some real sense he was a spy. The British took a keen interest in North’s activities as they undermined official policy in the Iran-Iraq War and the Beirut Hostage Crisis. North’s arms dealings took no account of the balance of power in the region and led to more hostage-takiug. Who better placed to report back on North’s activities than Spiro?
38. In 1994 the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 Dame Stella Rimington gave the televised Reith Lecture outlining the role of the service. She explained that the bulk of MI5’s resources were devoted to combating the threat posed by the IRA. In the lecture she boasted that “MI5 supported the investigation up to the point where the atrocity was laid at the door of Libya.” (15)
39. In the Camp Zeist Judgement Megrahi’s arrival on Malta on the 20/12/88 using a passport in a false name was of great significance to the Judges. (16) Yet how was his true identity known unless he was already under surveillance? According to released CIA documents Megrahi's coded passport was known of on the 22/12/89 in relation to his previous visit to the island on the 8/12/89. (When he supposedly purchased some clothing at the St.Mary's House boutique.
40. In the years prior to Lockerbie and the interception of the Eksund Libya had supplied hundreds of tons of weapons and millions of dollars to the IRA enabling the IRA to carry on with it’s armed struggle indefinitely. (17) The Eksund had begun it’s trips from Malta picking up it’s lethal cargo on the way. Libya trained IRA terrorists in its camps. Patrick Magee, who attempted to murder Mrs Thatcher at Brighton in 1984 was reputedly trained in Libya. His bomb was set 13 days before detonation. Meghrahi was in the business of procuring sophisticated timers.
41. Naively Colonel Gaddafi felt he could interfere in the affairs of any country with impunity and sponsored numerous armed groups. By happy coincidence the identification of the two Libyans as the culprits in the Lockerbie case facilitated the UK Government’s objective of decommissioning IRA weaponry.
42. One of the four demands made of Libya subsequent to the passing of UNSC Resolution 731 on January 21st 1992 was that Libya ;
4. Cease all support and aid to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and provide the British authorities with all available information regarding that relation. (18)
43. In short the creation of the “Libya solution” to Lockerbie had laudable objectives and saved many lives. Libya, and in particular Colonel Gaddafi and his ruling clique had brought sanctions on themselves.
Other Theories of the “Spiro Murders”
44. Spiro’s supposed discovery from Libyan intelligence of the identity of the two “culprits” in the Lockerbie case was not the only occasion when a foreign intelligence service had been horribly indiscreet in it’s dealings with Spiro. In his 1994 book “Terror, the Inside Story” Professor Yossef Bodansky, Director of the Republican Congressional Taskforce on Terrorism ascribed the “Spiro murders” to the publication of Hewitt’s book. (19)
45. Quoting verbatim (but without acknowledgement of his source) Hewitt’s potted biography of Spiro (see above) Bodansky claimed that the identification of Spiro as a CIA “asset” in the Lebanon exposed the Iranian terror network he claimed existed in the USA to danger. (Bodansky ascribed the bombing of PA103, and indeed all the evil in the world, to Iran.)
46. Through his “links” to Iranian intelligence Spiro had learned of the Iranian plot to bomb the World Trade Centre (thet bombing occurred more than three months after his death on the 19th February 1993. (Bodansky is now an expert on Al-Qaeda who did not receive a mention in his book).
47. The “disturbing” phone-calls received by Spiro were from Iranian agents threatening Spiro to keep his mouth shut. According to Bodansky’s account Spiro was defiant. His family were seized by a team of former Russian and East German hitmen. At the time he received his maid his family were alive, being held captive in the house. Spiro was taken to the desert, tortured, then escaped, was recaptured and killed. Bodansky learned this from his access to “highly classified” CIA files.
There are a number of other theories concerning the Spiro murders the most significant of which is this ;
48. On January 30th 2004 the Michigan Daily (student newspaper of the University of Michigan) published a letter under the title;
“Real (we swear) Letters to the Editor”.
The text reads in full:-
Spiro did not kill self, family; ‘Libyan agents’ most likely responsible.
To the Daily:
I recently encountered an article on your website concerning the alleged murder-suicide of Ian Spiro and his wife and children at Rancho Sante Fe in San Diego.
Spiro did not kill himself or his family.
My final meeting with Spiro took place the day before his death. My encounters with Spiro were part of covert UC operations to tag and trace certain of Spiro’s chilling activities for his covert client, Libya.
I believe that Spiro and his family were killed by agents of Libya.
EpicEraser@aol.com
Reader
49. The article in question is no longer on the Michigan Daily website (if it ever was.) It appears that the author “Epiceraser” is one M.J. Carson of Grand Rapids, Michigan the recent vendor of some sapphires online. Was this Spiro’s jeweller friend?
50. In November 2002 Carson was the vendor of seven patented lode claims (gold deposits) in Western Montana. ( 20 ) Potassium cyanide is used by jewellers and for the extraction of gold from ore.
Lester Coleman, Juval Aviv, Alan Francovich and the "Drug Conspiracy" theory.
51. One of the most problematic “witnesses” in the Lockerbie affair is an American journalist Lester Coleman currently (2009) Professor of Communications at the Beirut University of Technology co-author of Trail of the Octopus which related the Lockerbie case to his time as a Drug Enforcement Agency employee in Cyprus. Coleman also claimed to have been simultaneously an agent of the Military Defence Intelligence Agency a claim that adds little to his story. (21)
52. Coleman is a proponent of the “Drug Conspiracy Theory” of Lockerbie first advanced by private investigator Juval Aviv. This is the most popular alternative to the official version of events and versions of it have been widely advanced by Aviv, Coleman, Paul Foot Alan Francovich (writer/director of the controversial documentary The Maltese Double Cross ) and by Francovich’s researcher and Deputy John Ashton.
“What greater pain can mortals have than this - than see their children dead before their eyes?”Euripedes - The Supplicant Widow
The Murders at the Rancho Sante Fe;
1. In the northern suburbs of San Diego (formerly home port to the USS Vincennes) is situated the Rancho Sante Fe, per capita the richest community in the USA. The Rancho Sante Fe achieved some notoriety in March 1997 when 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed mass suicide.
2. Five years earlier the Rancho Santa Fe had been the scene of another shocking and apparently equally pointless multiple homicide when four members of a British family were murdered. Gail Spiro aged 42 and her three children Sarah (16) Adam (14) and Dinah 10) were shot in the head at the family’s luxurious rented villa sometime on the night of Sunday 1st – Monday 2nd November 1992.
3. For the San Diego Police there was only one suspect in the case Gail’s husband Ian a British businessman and reputed “spy” and “arms dealer” with a murky past when based in the Middle East.
4. Spiro had been at the villa and had fled the scene. At 8 a.m. on Monday 2nd November the family’s Mexican maid Maria Roxas had arrived at the villa. The door was answered by Spiro in his gown. Spiro told her that his family were away and that there was no work for her that day. Spiro, who had only hours before slaughtered his family, drove the girl to her shanty home.
5. Save for a single sighting at a gas station payphone in the California Desert Spiro was not seen alive again. On Thursday the 5th November the Police entered the villa and recovered the bodies. Spiro had been married before. He had been a successful and prosperous London property developer but was ruined by the 1974 crash. He abandoned his wife and two daughters and moved to the USA living with his Uncle Joe in the Queens District of New York. He had met Gail in London and the couple married in London in 1976 at the Westminster Registry Office.
6. On Friday 6th November Spiro’s body was discovered by hikers at a beauty spot in the Anza-Borrego Desert inside his locked RV. He had died by ingesting potassium cyanide. A vial of cyanide was found by his side. A suitcase of Spiro’s personal papers was later found in the desert.
7. The weapon Spiro had used to murder his family, a .45 Colt magnum revolver, was never recovered. Spiro had borrowed a similar weapon from his friend and neighbour James Streeter a San Diego Attorney and former Colonel in the Marines Legal service. ( 3 )
8. Spiro had (allegedly) confided to Streeter that he had felt threatened to such an extent that Streeter had lent him the gun for protection. In phone-calls to his brother-in-law Ken Quarton (Gail’s half-brother), a resident of Vancouver, Spiro complained of having received a number of “disturbing” (not “threatening”) phone-calls and said that “something from his past had come back to haunt him”. He told Quarton “the answer lay in Terry Waite’s book”.
9. The story was first reported in the UK by the Sunday Times. (4) The Police were from the start in no doubt that Spiro had murdered his family and committed suicide. There were no signs of forced entry and little doubt that Spiro had been in the house at the time of the killings. Of course Spiro may have known the killer or killers or somebody else could have had keys to his home – in the full circumstances not a possibility but a likelihood.
10. Spiro’s conduct after the murders was taken as conclusive evidence of his guilt. Why else would he have fled the scene and taken his own life? (The US authorities refused to release Spiro’s autopsy report and the body was cremated in the US). It was also rumoured Spiro had left a rambling taped message confirming his guilt.
11. The Sunday Times quoted an unnamed Policeman to the effect that Spiro was a very scary guy whom he would not like to encounter on a dark night. Spiro, it was claimed had “suddenly gone berserk” and murdered his family. The logic was cyclical. As he had senselessly murdered his family therefore he must have gone berserk. It was difficult to pinpoint the time of the murders as no witness had heard gunshots.
12. Spiro was alleged to be depressed by his debts to several Banks in respect of failed business ventures. The source of this allegation is unknown. It was an allegation that Gail’s family strenuously denied. Spiro had made and lost several fortunes. As the family home was rented and even his car leased Spiro had few tangible assets that could be recovered.
13. However it may be that Spiro was not the sort of man who would be depressed by his debts. On the contrary he may have regarded them as a triumph. Indeed there were major flaws with the official version of events. Why did Spiro feel threatened and what were the “disturbing” phone-calls he had received? Were they of no relevance? What was it from his past that had come back to haunt him? What of his background in the Middle East where he had played a role in the Beirut hostage crisis?
14. Above all there was one glaring inconsistency in the official version of events – Spiro’s acquisition of the murder weapon.
15. Spiro had “suddenly gone berserk.” Yet he had acquired the murder weapon in advance by convincing his neighbour an Attorney and respected Military Officer that his life was threatened. Then having murdered his family he disposed of the murder weapon and acquired a quantity of potassium cyanide, not the easiest substance to find. According to the Police this was given to him by an unidentified jeweller friend although they did not say if this was prior to or after the murders. Had he acquired the potassium cyanide prior to the murders it would indicate considerable advanced planning, (despite forgetting to cancel the maid.) But why dispose of the gun then poison yourself?
16. On the other hand why would somebody kill his family, leaving him unscathed, and why would he not tell the truth to the authorities? Would he be believed? In due course Spiro would be convicted of murder for if Spiro wasn’t the culprit that must surely have been the intent. Whether or not he killed his family he faced the rest of his life in prison.
Spiro and the Beirut Hostage Crisis
17. Spiro had told Ken Quarton the answer lay in “Terry Waite’s book.” At the time Terry Waite’s memoirs “Taken on Trust” had yet to be published. When they were they made only the briefest mention of Spiro as a man with whom Waite had once had breakfast. ( 5 ).
18. Waite had been kidnapped in Beirut on Tuesday 20th January 1987. After 1763 days in captivity he was released on the 18th November 1991. Four days earlier Britain and the USA had announced the indictment of two Libyan suspects for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing removing one obstacle to his release as US President George Bush announced that Syria and Iran had taken a “bum rap” in the Lockerbie case. ( 6 )
19. The object of the indictment however was demonstrably not a trial but sanctions against Libya for political objectives largely unrelated to the bombing itself. Only with changes to the composition of the UN Security Council made on the 1st January 1992 when Cuba and Yemen lost their seats was the composition of the UN Security Council such that the USA, Britain and France were able to achieve their objective.
20. Shortly after Waite’s release the BBC correspondent Gavin Hewitt published “Terry Waite Why Was He Kidnapped?” a book he had substantially completed earlier but which could not be published while Waite was still in captivity.
21. This superb book concerned the relationship between Colonel Oliver North and Waite and their efforts to obtain freedom for the Hostages held by Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and freelance kidnap gangs in the Lebanon. Waite represented himself as an honest broker, a disinterested humanitarian whose previous efforts in Libya and Iran had met with a great deal of success.
22. North pinned his hopes for freeing the hostages on a series of increasingly ambitious arms deals with the kidnap gangs’ Iranian sponsors in order to fulfil what he discerned to be President Reagan’s wishes. His Herculean efforts in this mission, sponsored by CIA director William Casey, and in support of the Contra rebels in Central America were not entirely selfless. North had his own Presidential ambitions.
23. North exploited Waite using him as “ecclesiastical cover” for hostages released as a result of his arms dealing. Waite in turn was taking credit for the release of hostages who had been freed as a result of arms dealing. North’s activities were self-defeating. By giving the hostages real value they became a valuable commodity and North’s efforts only encouraged further hostage taking.
24. The priority of the kidnap gangs was not to serve the interests of Iran to whom they owed religious and political allegiance. Their central objective was to achieve freedom for a group of Shiite prisoners who included relatives of the kidnappers. They had been imprisoned in Kuwait following a 1983 bombing campaign the object of which was to discourage Kuwaiti financial support for Iraq in the middle of Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran.
25. North and Waite’s strategy to resolve the Beirut hostage crisis was to give the kidnappers what they wanted. In this they were foiled by the determination of the Kuwaiti Government not to make concessions in which they were officially supported by their American allies. (The prisoners were actually freed a year before Waite’s release when Saddam Hussein invaded his Kuwaiti ally. The prison guards melted away and the prisoners fled.)
26. Hewitt’s book made a number of references to “Spiro” part of North’s “inner circle.” Hewitt described “Spiro” as follows,
“ ‘Spiro’, as it turned out, had been at an influential school in the Lebanon. He knew most of the religious leaders, including the leading Shiite families. He had direct contact with Islamic Jihad, the group behind the hostage taking, and offered to make some introductions for Terry Waite.
Who he really was remained unclear. He was sparing with details. He was a Greek who had ‘business’ in the Lebanon; his wife had worked as a nurse in the American University Hospital. He had a house just outside Nice and another in California. He was paranoid about his security and always operated under a number of aliases; he possessed five passports in different names.
In fact ‘Spiro’ worked for both British and American intelligence although he was closer to the latter. He was described as a man who carried out ‘deep covert operations’. One person who knew him said that ‘he was on no intelligence register but a man without whom no agency could operate’. After the blowing up of the American Embassy in Beirut and the abduction of William Buckley, the CIA Station Chief, he was regarded as one of the few resources the CIA had left in Lebanon. Later in 1988 ‘Spiro’ was to play an important role in acquiring Buckley’s confessions, what he had revealed under torture. ” ( 7 )
27. Another section of Hewitt’s book gives some insight into Spiro’s true character. On his previous visit to Beirut Waite had been warned by the kidnappers not to return to Beirut unless he had some concrete proposal on the issue of the Kuwaiti prisoners. (8) According to Hewitt Spiro offered to use his influence with members of the Kuwaiti Royal Family with whom he had been to school. Waite returned to Beirut and was kidnapped. In reality Spiro had been educated at Carmel College a Jewish Public School situated near Oxford. It is unlikely to number members of the Kuwaiti Royal Family amongst it’s old boys. Although part of North and Waite’s “inner circle” Spiro was duping them both.
28. Two of Hewitt’s principal sources were the former hostage David Jacobsen and former Ambassador for refugees Eugene Douglas. According to Jacobsen’s memoirs he met Spiro in New York at the office of a “prominent civilian” presumably Douglas. At this meeting Spiro using the alias “John Smith” told Jacobsen that his wife worked as a nurse at the American University Hospital in Beirut. Curiously Jacobsen, who was Director of the American University Hospital didn’t seem to know her. Later the Californian Jacobsen became involved in Spiro’s fundraising efforts to release the Hostages by sponsoring a scheme of medical relief in Shi’ite Southern Lebanon.(9)
29. Hewitt had written that -
“Not long after Waite’s disappearance ‘Spiro’ received what he considered to be a ransom demand. It was put not in crude financial terms but in the form of requesting financial assistance for the relatives of the seventeen men imprisoned in Kuwait.” – “As ‘Spiro’ explored the idea, it became larger in scope. His contacts wanted a relief programme for Southern Lebanon, involving hospitals, schools and housing: - the project could cost as much as $20 million dollars”. ( 10 )
30. Waite had been kidnapped because he believed Spiro’s lie of having influence with the Kuwaiti Royal Family. If Spiro didn’t receive this “ransom demand” he concocted it as a way of making money from his friend Waite’s horrible ordeal. Is this the sort of person who was going to suffer anguish because he owed money to the Banks?
31. Hewitt’s biography of Spiro was not based on facts but was what Spiro had told Jacobsen and Douglas. Indeed the portrayal of Spiro as having attended a religious school in the Lebanon and being an intimate of the leading Shi’ite families or having “direct contact with Islamic Jihad” is preposterous. He was a friend of a family of exiled Lebanese Christians the Badouns who lived in London. The claim that he had obtained Buckley’s “confession” is interesting. Buckley was admired for how little real information he gave away.
32. While “Spiro” seems to be a Greek name in fact the family name was “Spirowicz” and is of Polish origin. At the 1996 inquest in Workington, Cumbria into the deaths of Gail Spiro and her children Eugene Douglas was quoted as stating that Spiro was of interest to the CIA because of his “twenty year” experience of living in Beirut. He also described Spiro as a “low-level conduit.” This was a person who supposedly held face-to-face meetings with Islamic Jihad.
33. The Spiro myth was represented as fact in a TV presentation of a "True Crime" story "When the Lies Stop" written and directed by Paul Greengrass.. This depicted Spiro, (played by Alfred Molina) bumbling around a Beirut dungeon in which hostages were being held speaking in English to a turbaned mullah and boasting of being a personal friend of the Director of the CIA. Is it credible that Spiro could have done this and walked away? (11)
34. In a BBC Inside Story production created to publicise the release of Waite’s memoirs the BBC arranged a meeting or confrontation in Waite’s Cambridge rooms with Oliver North who was touring Europe in 1993 prior to his unsuccessful bid to win a seat in the US Senate. The two had not met for over six years. In that televised meeting North described Waite as “the only living person I have ever met who has had direct access to the hostage-takers.” (12) By the time of this meeting Spiro was no longer living. While Waite was being duped by North and Spiro, North himself had been duped by Spiro.
MI5, Libya and the IRA.
35. Following Spiro’s death the publication Intelligence newsletter wrote
“CIA probably contacted him in early 80’s and led to regular meetings with William Buckley COS Beirut. He one of North’s principal intermediaries 85-87 for negotiations re hostages. In 85 he developed close ties to Libyan intel in West Beirut. Spiro got names two Libyan re bombing of Pan Am flight 103. He sent names of Abdel Basset Al-Mugrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fahima to U.S. and English intel services.” (13)
36. Was this why Spiro and his family were living in rented villa in San Diego? Was he in the Witness Protection Programme?
37. Perhaps in some real sense he was a spy. The British took a keen interest in North’s activities as they undermined official policy in the Iran-Iraq War and the Beirut Hostage Crisis. North’s arms dealings took no account of the balance of power in the region and led to more hostage-takiug. Who better placed to report back on North’s activities than Spiro?
38. In 1994 the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 Dame Stella Rimington gave the televised Reith Lecture outlining the role of the service. She explained that the bulk of MI5’s resources were devoted to combating the threat posed by the IRA. In the lecture she boasted that “MI5 supported the investigation up to the point where the atrocity was laid at the door of Libya.” (15)
39. In the Camp Zeist Judgement Megrahi’s arrival on Malta on the 20/12/88 using a passport in a false name was of great significance to the Judges. (16) Yet how was his true identity known unless he was already under surveillance? According to released CIA documents Megrahi's coded passport was known of on the 22/12/89 in relation to his previous visit to the island on the 8/12/89. (When he supposedly purchased some clothing at the St.Mary's House boutique.
40. In the years prior to Lockerbie and the interception of the Eksund Libya had supplied hundreds of tons of weapons and millions of dollars to the IRA enabling the IRA to carry on with it’s armed struggle indefinitely. (17) The Eksund had begun it’s trips from Malta picking up it’s lethal cargo on the way. Libya trained IRA terrorists in its camps. Patrick Magee, who attempted to murder Mrs Thatcher at Brighton in 1984 was reputedly trained in Libya. His bomb was set 13 days before detonation. Meghrahi was in the business of procuring sophisticated timers.
41. Naively Colonel Gaddafi felt he could interfere in the affairs of any country with impunity and sponsored numerous armed groups. By happy coincidence the identification of the two Libyans as the culprits in the Lockerbie case facilitated the UK Government’s objective of decommissioning IRA weaponry.
42. One of the four demands made of Libya subsequent to the passing of UNSC Resolution 731 on January 21st 1992 was that Libya ;
4. Cease all support and aid to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and provide the British authorities with all available information regarding that relation. (18)
43. In short the creation of the “Libya solution” to Lockerbie had laudable objectives and saved many lives. Libya, and in particular Colonel Gaddafi and his ruling clique had brought sanctions on themselves.
Other Theories of the “Spiro Murders”
44. Spiro’s supposed discovery from Libyan intelligence of the identity of the two “culprits” in the Lockerbie case was not the only occasion when a foreign intelligence service had been horribly indiscreet in it’s dealings with Spiro. In his 1994 book “Terror, the Inside Story” Professor Yossef Bodansky, Director of the Republican Congressional Taskforce on Terrorism ascribed the “Spiro murders” to the publication of Hewitt’s book. (19)
45. Quoting verbatim (but without acknowledgement of his source) Hewitt’s potted biography of Spiro (see above) Bodansky claimed that the identification of Spiro as a CIA “asset” in the Lebanon exposed the Iranian terror network he claimed existed in the USA to danger. (Bodansky ascribed the bombing of PA103, and indeed all the evil in the world, to Iran.)
46. Through his “links” to Iranian intelligence Spiro had learned of the Iranian plot to bomb the World Trade Centre (thet bombing occurred more than three months after his death on the 19th February 1993. (Bodansky is now an expert on Al-Qaeda who did not receive a mention in his book).
47. The “disturbing” phone-calls received by Spiro were from Iranian agents threatening Spiro to keep his mouth shut. According to Bodansky’s account Spiro was defiant. His family were seized by a team of former Russian and East German hitmen. At the time he received his maid his family were alive, being held captive in the house. Spiro was taken to the desert, tortured, then escaped, was recaptured and killed. Bodansky learned this from his access to “highly classified” CIA files.
There are a number of other theories concerning the Spiro murders the most significant of which is this ;
48. On January 30th 2004 the Michigan Daily (student newspaper of the University of Michigan) published a letter under the title;
“Real (we swear) Letters to the Editor”.
The text reads in full:-
Spiro did not kill self, family; ‘Libyan agents’ most likely responsible.
To the Daily:
I recently encountered an article on your website concerning the alleged murder-suicide of Ian Spiro and his wife and children at Rancho Sante Fe in San Diego.
Spiro did not kill himself or his family.
My final meeting with Spiro took place the day before his death. My encounters with Spiro were part of covert UC operations to tag and trace certain of Spiro’s chilling activities for his covert client, Libya.
I believe that Spiro and his family were killed by agents of Libya.
EpicEraser@aol.com
Reader
49. The article in question is no longer on the Michigan Daily website (if it ever was.) It appears that the author “Epiceraser” is one M.J. Carson of Grand Rapids, Michigan the recent vendor of some sapphires online. Was this Spiro’s jeweller friend?
50. In November 2002 Carson was the vendor of seven patented lode claims (gold deposits) in Western Montana. ( 20 ) Potassium cyanide is used by jewellers and for the extraction of gold from ore.
Lester Coleman, Juval Aviv, Alan Francovich and the "Drug Conspiracy" theory.
51. One of the most problematic “witnesses” in the Lockerbie affair is an American journalist Lester Coleman currently (2009) Professor of Communications at the Beirut University of Technology co-author of Trail of the Octopus which related the Lockerbie case to his time as a Drug Enforcement Agency employee in Cyprus. Coleman also claimed to have been simultaneously an agent of the Military Defence Intelligence Agency a claim that adds little to his story. (21)
52. Coleman is a proponent of the “Drug Conspiracy Theory” of Lockerbie first advanced by private investigator Juval Aviv. This is the most popular alternative to the official version of events and versions of it have been widely advanced by Aviv, Coleman, Paul Foot Alan Francovich (writer/director of the controversial documentary The Maltese Double Cross ) and by Francovich’s researcher and Deputy John Ashton.
53. Essentially the “Drug Conspiracy Theory” is that the US Drug Enforcement Agency used Pan Am flights out of Frankfurt to ship “controlled” deliveries of drugs to the US and that the only Arab passenger on the flight a 19 year old US citizen Khalid Jafaar was a drug courier. Jafaar took his vacations in the Bekaa Valley in the Lebanon.
54. At Frankfurt Airport the suitcase containing the drugs was switched for the “bomb” suitcase (or alternately in the Francovich/Ashton version) drugs were secretly recovered at Tundergarth and the drug smugglers had introduced a further suitcase containing the bomb.
55. Neither version of the theory is supported by a shred of real evidence. Aviv never had any and Francovich and his associate, conman Oswald Le Winter fabricated theirs. Indeed some of the “evidence” concocted for the Maltese Double Cross was so blatantly fabricated even the Scottish Crown Office picked up on it. Coleman and his associate LeWinter brought a preposterous lawsuit against several US agencies including the CIA falsely claiming they had been subpoenaed as witnesses in the Camp Zeist trial. (22)(23).
56. Like the official “Libyan solution” the theory claims that the “primary suitcase” containing the bomb arrived at Heathrow Airport on the feeder flight PA103A from Frankfurt. It didn’t. If, as the official version of events claims, the bomb was contained within a bronze samsonite “tourister” suitcase then it is irrefutable that the primary suitcase was at Heathrow Airport before flight PA103A arrived from Frankfurt. Like the official version of events the “Drug Conspiracy Theory” is untrue. Even if drugs were smuggled from Frankfurt to the US on Pan Am planes (and there is no evidence that they were) it had nothing to do with the bombing.
57. Coleman, who had a bitter dispute with his boss Michael Hurley claims to have seen Khalid Jafaar at the DEA offices in Cyprus and concluded that the claims he was a drug courier were true. Jafaar may (or may not) have been a DEA informant. There is no evidence he was anything but an innocent victim at Lockerbie.
58. Coleman’s basic premise is untrue and much of what he describes is outside his personal experience. He worked in Cyprus whose only known connection to Lockerbie is that four US Government employees flew from Cyprus to connect with PA103 at Heathrow having made their bookings through the Eurame Travel Agency in Nicosia. (Abu Talb, a terrorist associated with the “Autumn Leaves” group is alleged to have met another member of the group Hafez Dalkamoni in Cyprus between the 3rd and 5th October 1988.) (24). Talb’s relationship, if any, to Lockerbie is unproven.
59. These four Government employees were the Deputy CIA Station Chief in Beirut Matthew Gannon, Army Major Charles “Tiny” McKee, Ron LaRiviere a security official at the Beirut Embassy and Daniel O’Connor a State Department employee at the Nicosia Embassy. Often described as “a team” the four men may only have been acquaintances.
60. It is known that McKee and Gannon had travelled from Beirut to Cyprus by different routes Gannon having travelled by helicopter with the US Ambassador, McKee having taken the Jounieh Ferry. At Heathrow it was the luggage of McKee, Gannon and LaRiviere that was placed first in luggage container AVE4041 prior to the mysterious appearance of two further suitcases, one of which, a brown samsonite, being otherwise unaccounted for, must have contained the bomb. (O’Connor’s suitcase was never loaded onto PA103). (25)
61. In his book Coleman claimed that in the days prior to the Lockerbie bombing an American double agent “David Lovejoy” made a number of telephone calls to Hussein Niknam, charge d’affair at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut revealing the movements of these US agents. (This story was lifted from the Arabic language publication Al-Quds.) These calls were monitored. Coleman wrongly identified “Lovejoy” as a news cameraman Michael Schafer. Time Magazine had run a story based on the claims of Aviv and Coleman also naming Schafer. Schafer sued for defamation.
62. Coleman never mentions Ian Spiro although curiously a sub-plot in Coleman’s book concerns the INSLAW case with which Spiro has been associated. Indeed there is no direct evidence in the public domain that there was such a person as David Lovejoy or that these calls were made and the story could just be dismissed as one of Coleman’s tall tales.
63. However in the epilogue to the 1993 edition of his book Hostage published after Spiro’s death the respected British journalist Con Coughlin, a man with real experience of Beirut and the Lebanon during the Hostage crisis, wrote of “wild allegations Spiro betrayed the travel plans of the US agents who perished at Lockerbie.” (Prior to the 1993 Edition Ian Spiro is not mentioned).(26)
Conclusion
64. The “businessman”, “spy” and “arms dealer” Ian Spiro was a professional fabricator, a man who made money from selling bogus information. He duped many people including Terry Waite and Oliver North. Having made a good living from the misery of others in the Beirut Hostage Crisis is it likely that he would miss out on the El Dorado of fabricated intelligence the Lockerbie case?
65. Intelligence newsletter claimed that in West Beirut he had come into contact with Libyan intelligence and passed the names of Megrahi and Fhimah to US and British intelligence. Even if Spiro lived in Beirut it isn’t credible that “Libyan intelligence” would disclose such information and indeed as the bomb was introduced at Heathrow Fhimah and Megrahi can have had nothing to do with bombing. However Spiro may never have set foot in Beirut. So how would he even know the names of Megrahi and Fhimah unless it was US or British intelligence that gave them to him not vice versa?
66. Spiro could never have given evidence in a Court case which may be one of the reasons Majid Giaka was recruited to replace him. (Another might be that he was marked for death.) His ludicrous story would have been ripped to shreds. But the object of the indictment of the two Libyans was demonstrably not a trial but sanctions.
67. Spiro had complained to his brother-in-law, and possibly also to James Streeter of having received a number of “disturbing” phone-calls and said “something from his past had come back to haunt him”. Why was he not more specific? One would assume that in these phone-calls the distant party would engage Spiro in conversation. Is that necessarily true? What if the calls were extracts of earlier telephone conversations and they were “disturbing” and “haunting” because one of the two voices he heard was his own? Was somebody playing him tapes of "Lovejoy's" calls?
(1) www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal
(2) Spokesman at Press Conference at Iranian Embassy in London featured in BBC Correspondent “The Other Lockerbie”
(3) Findalawyer.com
(4) James Dalrymple Strange Death of Middle East Mystery Man Sunday Times 8th November 1992
(5) Terry Waite Taken on Trust Coronet GB 1994
(6) President George Bush remark on White House Lawn 14.11.88
(7) Hewitt, Gavin Terry Waite, Why Was He Kidnapped? Bloomsbury 1991 (titled in the USA Terry Waite and Ollie North) page 33
(8) Hewitt
(9) David Jacobsen with Gerald Astor Hostage. My Nightmare in Beirut Donald I.Fine Inc. 1989 (1993 or later edition).
(10) Hewitt page 200
(11) London Weeekend Television True Crime drama When the Lies Stop – the Ian Spiro Story written and Directed by Paul Greengrass.
(12) BBC TV Inside Story-Terry Waite British Film Institute library
(13) Intelligence Newsletter 3.12.92
(14) Reith lecture Security and Democracy is there a Conflict? Broadcast on BBC2 12.6.94 British Film Institute Library (Also University of Sussex library.)
(15) Dimbleby lecture Security and Democracy in the Modern World is there a Conflict? official transcript at www.MI5.gov.uk
(16) Camp Zeist Judgement para.80
(17) Brendan O’Brien The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Fein O’Brien Press 1999 (see Chapter 6 section Libyan Arms at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/abstensionism/obrien99.htm
(18) Demands communicated to Libya by three Western representatives Khalil I.Matar & Robert W.Thabit Lockerbie and Libya A Study in International Relations McFarland 2004 page 24.
(19) Professor Yossef Bodansk y “Terror, the Inside Story of the Terrorist Conspiracy in America Today” Shapelsky Publishers Inc. 1994
(20) Zeroko Mining – Mining properties offered for sale http://zeroko.com/listings/propoffered.htm
(21) Trail of the Octopus by Lester Coleman & Donald Goddard Bloomburg Publishing PLC October 1993
(22) Some information on the Coleman/LeWinter lawsuit is attached to a quite unrelated Interview with Deirdre McNamer on the web.
(23) See Ex-CIA Agents claim they were smeared to cover up the truth Sunday Herald 7.5.2006
(24) On the Trail of Terror by David Leppard Jonathan Cape 1991 page 195-7
(25) Leppard page 117-8
(26) Con Coughlin Hostage Little Brown & Co.1992 (Epilogue to 1993 paperback edition.)
54. At Frankfurt Airport the suitcase containing the drugs was switched for the “bomb” suitcase (or alternately in the Francovich/Ashton version) drugs were secretly recovered at Tundergarth and the drug smugglers had introduced a further suitcase containing the bomb.
55. Neither version of the theory is supported by a shred of real evidence. Aviv never had any and Francovich and his associate, conman Oswald Le Winter fabricated theirs. Indeed some of the “evidence” concocted for the Maltese Double Cross was so blatantly fabricated even the Scottish Crown Office picked up on it. Coleman and his associate LeWinter brought a preposterous lawsuit against several US agencies including the CIA falsely claiming they had been subpoenaed as witnesses in the Camp Zeist trial. (22)(23).
56. Like the official “Libyan solution” the theory claims that the “primary suitcase” containing the bomb arrived at Heathrow Airport on the feeder flight PA103A from Frankfurt. It didn’t. If, as the official version of events claims, the bomb was contained within a bronze samsonite “tourister” suitcase then it is irrefutable that the primary suitcase was at Heathrow Airport before flight PA103A arrived from Frankfurt. Like the official version of events the “Drug Conspiracy Theory” is untrue. Even if drugs were smuggled from Frankfurt to the US on Pan Am planes (and there is no evidence that they were) it had nothing to do with the bombing.
57. Coleman, who had a bitter dispute with his boss Michael Hurley claims to have seen Khalid Jafaar at the DEA offices in Cyprus and concluded that the claims he was a drug courier were true. Jafaar may (or may not) have been a DEA informant. There is no evidence he was anything but an innocent victim at Lockerbie.
58. Coleman’s basic premise is untrue and much of what he describes is outside his personal experience. He worked in Cyprus whose only known connection to Lockerbie is that four US Government employees flew from Cyprus to connect with PA103 at Heathrow having made their bookings through the Eurame Travel Agency in Nicosia. (Abu Talb, a terrorist associated with the “Autumn Leaves” group is alleged to have met another member of the group Hafez Dalkamoni in Cyprus between the 3rd and 5th October 1988.) (24). Talb’s relationship, if any, to Lockerbie is unproven.
59. These four Government employees were the Deputy CIA Station Chief in Beirut Matthew Gannon, Army Major Charles “Tiny” McKee, Ron LaRiviere a security official at the Beirut Embassy and Daniel O’Connor a State Department employee at the Nicosia Embassy. Often described as “a team” the four men may only have been acquaintances.
60. It is known that McKee and Gannon had travelled from Beirut to Cyprus by different routes Gannon having travelled by helicopter with the US Ambassador, McKee having taken the Jounieh Ferry. At Heathrow it was the luggage of McKee, Gannon and LaRiviere that was placed first in luggage container AVE4041 prior to the mysterious appearance of two further suitcases, one of which, a brown samsonite, being otherwise unaccounted for, must have contained the bomb. (O’Connor’s suitcase was never loaded onto PA103). (25)
61. In his book Coleman claimed that in the days prior to the Lockerbie bombing an American double agent “David Lovejoy” made a number of telephone calls to Hussein Niknam, charge d’affair at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut revealing the movements of these US agents. (This story was lifted from the Arabic language publication Al-Quds.) These calls were monitored. Coleman wrongly identified “Lovejoy” as a news cameraman Michael Schafer. Time Magazine had run a story based on the claims of Aviv and Coleman also naming Schafer. Schafer sued for defamation.
62. Coleman never mentions Ian Spiro although curiously a sub-plot in Coleman’s book concerns the INSLAW case with which Spiro has been associated. Indeed there is no direct evidence in the public domain that there was such a person as David Lovejoy or that these calls were made and the story could just be dismissed as one of Coleman’s tall tales.
63. However in the epilogue to the 1993 edition of his book Hostage published after Spiro’s death the respected British journalist Con Coughlin, a man with real experience of Beirut and the Lebanon during the Hostage crisis, wrote of “wild allegations Spiro betrayed the travel plans of the US agents who perished at Lockerbie.” (Prior to the 1993 Edition Ian Spiro is not mentioned).(26)
Conclusion
64. The “businessman”, “spy” and “arms dealer” Ian Spiro was a professional fabricator, a man who made money from selling bogus information. He duped many people including Terry Waite and Oliver North. Having made a good living from the misery of others in the Beirut Hostage Crisis is it likely that he would miss out on the El Dorado of fabricated intelligence the Lockerbie case?
65. Intelligence newsletter claimed that in West Beirut he had come into contact with Libyan intelligence and passed the names of Megrahi and Fhimah to US and British intelligence. Even if Spiro lived in Beirut it isn’t credible that “Libyan intelligence” would disclose such information and indeed as the bomb was introduced at Heathrow Fhimah and Megrahi can have had nothing to do with bombing. However Spiro may never have set foot in Beirut. So how would he even know the names of Megrahi and Fhimah unless it was US or British intelligence that gave them to him not vice versa?
66. Spiro could never have given evidence in a Court case which may be one of the reasons Majid Giaka was recruited to replace him. (Another might be that he was marked for death.) His ludicrous story would have been ripped to shreds. But the object of the indictment of the two Libyans was demonstrably not a trial but sanctions.
67. Spiro had complained to his brother-in-law, and possibly also to James Streeter of having received a number of “disturbing” phone-calls and said “something from his past had come back to haunt him”. Why was he not more specific? One would assume that in these phone-calls the distant party would engage Spiro in conversation. Is that necessarily true? What if the calls were extracts of earlier telephone conversations and they were “disturbing” and “haunting” because one of the two voices he heard was his own? Was somebody playing him tapes of "Lovejoy's" calls?
(1) www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal
(2) Spokesman at Press Conference at Iranian Embassy in London featured in BBC Correspondent “The Other Lockerbie”
(3) Findalawyer.com
(4) James Dalrymple Strange Death of Middle East Mystery Man Sunday Times 8th November 1992
(5) Terry Waite Taken on Trust Coronet GB 1994
(6) President George Bush remark on White House Lawn 14.11.88
(7) Hewitt, Gavin Terry Waite, Why Was He Kidnapped? Bloomsbury 1991 (titled in the USA Terry Waite and Ollie North) page 33
(8) Hewitt
(9) David Jacobsen with Gerald Astor Hostage. My Nightmare in Beirut Donald I.Fine Inc. 1989 (1993 or later edition).
(10) Hewitt page 200
(11) London Weeekend Television True Crime drama When the Lies Stop – the Ian Spiro Story written and Directed by Paul Greengrass.
(12) BBC TV Inside Story-Terry Waite British Film Institute library
(13) Intelligence Newsletter 3.12.92
(14) Reith lecture Security and Democracy is there a Conflict? Broadcast on BBC2 12.6.94 British Film Institute Library (Also University of Sussex library.)
(15) Dimbleby lecture Security and Democracy in the Modern World is there a Conflict? official transcript at www.MI5.gov.uk
(16) Camp Zeist Judgement para.80
(17) Brendan O’Brien The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Fein O’Brien Press 1999 (see Chapter 6 section Libyan Arms at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/abstensionism/obrien99.htm
(18) Demands communicated to Libya by three Western representatives Khalil I.Matar & Robert W.Thabit Lockerbie and Libya A Study in International Relations McFarland 2004 page 24.
(19) Professor Yossef Bodansk y “Terror, the Inside Story of the Terrorist Conspiracy in America Today” Shapelsky Publishers Inc. 1994
(20) Zeroko Mining – Mining properties offered for sale http://zeroko.com/listings/propoffered.htm
(21) Trail of the Octopus by Lester Coleman & Donald Goddard Bloomburg Publishing PLC October 1993
(22) Some information on the Coleman/LeWinter lawsuit is attached to a quite unrelated Interview with Deirdre McNamer on the web.
(23) See Ex-CIA Agents claim they were smeared to cover up the truth Sunday Herald 7.5.2006
(24) On the Trail of Terror by David Leppard Jonathan Cape 1991 page 195-7
(25) Leppard page 117-8
(26) Con Coughlin Hostage Little Brown & Co.1992 (Epilogue to 1993 paperback edition.)
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Lockerbie bombing - Google "the selective use of polygraphs"
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