The Masonic Verses Part V

The Elephant in the Room –
Richard Lawless & “Autumn Leaves”


“I will never apologise for America; I don’t care what the facts are - I’m not an apologise for America kind of guy”. ( 1 )

Vice-President George H.W. Bush



The bombing of Pan Am 103 did not come as a bolt from the blue. It was expected and planned for. While it is widely recognised that the “Vincennes Incident” gave Iran a motive to retaliate, it is not widely recognised that the “Vincennes Incident” also gave the US Government a motive to collude in a measured or proportionate response on a calculation that any alternative course of action would result in far greater loss of life without any political benefit.


Save for those who perished, their friends and families (who at least received substantial compensation) Lockerbie and the creation of the “Libyan solution” worked out quite well. Most relatives, particularly the Americans were largely satisfied with the outcome of Camp Zeist and see no reason to question the guilt of Al-Megrahi or the culpability of the Libyan regime.


Our perception of events are conditioned by assumptions. It is widely, almost universally assumed that in the event of a threat to bomb a civilian airliner the authorities would do all in their power to prevent such an occurrence. This is not necessarily true. (for example credible claims, routinely but not convincingly denied, have been made that the Omagh bombing might have been prevented at the cost of the authorities revealing intelligence sources and surveillance techniques.)


The alternative to “Lockerbie” was not that the supposed warnings were acted on, the bombing prevented and nobody died but that different people, and perhaps many more people, would have died.


It was reputed the Ayatollah Khomeini had demanded the destruction of six aircraft in revenge.(2) Ayatollah Montashemi threatened that “the skies would rain blood”(3) while the Iranian Prime Minister stated the US “would not escape responsibility.”(4) A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in London Mohamed Basti promised or threatened “an appropriate response to the magnitude of the crime”.(5) But what was an “appropriate response” and how would the Americans themselves respond to this unspecified response?



The American Government would have held crisis meetings, the deliberations of which will be likely be secret forever, to consider each possible Iranian response and to plan the US counter-response to each possible Iranian response and to consider in turn how the Iranians would respond to each US response and so on. This is basic International Relations theory. (By pretending retaliation for the Vincennes Incident never happened the proverbial “line in the sand” was drawn and the cycle of response, counter-response, counter counter-response was broken).


The Vincennes Incident would have been top of the agenda for the Inter Agency Group that met on a daily basis in the White House situation room. Comprising representatives of the State Department, the NSC, the CIA and the Military they would have co-ordinated US policy, initially the response of official spokesmen, including the President.


Beyond what was agreed these agencies, who were not only colleagues but rivals, they may have had their own agenda as competing groups within these agencies. For example what would be the collective view of the Military towards a major conflict in the Middle East and what was the view of the Army, Marine Corp and USAF towards the Navy’s conduct in the “Vincennes Incident”?


What where the possible Iranian responses that American planners would consider?

Firstly the Islamic Republic could have decided to forgive and forget, complain to the UNSC and the I.C.A.O., make some threats for domestic consumption, but essentially turn the other cheek. Unlikely as such a response may have seemed this is supposedly what actually happened obviating the need for any US response.



A second option might be that the Islamic Republic might try to pursue the matter under the Montreal Convention, demand the extradition of Captain Rodgers and his crew and put them on trial. This was not a proposition that the USA could countenance.



A third option was that Iran might attempt to destroy several aircraft. Such a plan was conceived and practised by the mastermind of the first World Trade Centre bombing Ramzi Younis who learned his bomb-making skills at Cardiff Polytechnic (an institution also attended by Mr Megrahi) and plans for a similar scheme were thwarted in theUK in the summer of 2006.


There are indications from the “Autumn Leaves” affair in which several aviation bombs were produced that this was the option initially chosen. It may be that different Iranian factions were pursuing different policies. “Autumn Leaves” was presented as a triumph to prevent an attack before “the baton was handed on to Libya.” Was it instead an operation to prevent unacceptable retaliation that would compel the US to make a drastic counter-response?


A fourth option might be that Iran would attempt to destroy a single aircraft. Increased security might prevent this (for a time) but sooner or later “the bomber would get through”. Would the Americans attempt to control the circumstances in which retaliation occurred in order to manage the consequences?


Further possible responses might be a limited or limitless campaign of terrorism, hostage-taking and attacks on US interests. Disproportionate retaliation would lead to counter-retaliation, escalation and war. Was there a way out of the impasse? If Iran retaliated by destroying a single aircraft the US Government could tolerate that (they had few practical alternatives) but it was essential for domestic considerations to pretend that retaliation had not occurred otherwise the pressure for counter-retaliation might be overwhelming.


The Americans could have tried to deter any Iranian reaction by a threat of the use of overwhelming counter-retaliation. There are no indications in the public domain that the US attempted to deter retaliation or even that a threat to the security of US aviation was even acknowledged following the Vincennes Incident.


At a meeting in London an un-named US official told Martin Cadman, father of a Lockerbie victim “my Government knows perfectly well who did this but they will never tell”.(6) This statement may have been absolutely true.




Alleged Meetings between Iranian Officials and a US Envoy:



Following the exposure of Colonel North’s “arms for hostages” operations triggered by the publication of an article in the Beirut newspaper “Al Shiraa” in October 1986 and the eruption of the “Iran-Contra” affair in Washington it might be assumed that the attempt to trade arms for hostages had been brought to an end.


The policy had been recognised by more sober minds in the State Department as being counter-productive. Giving the hostages value only encouraged further hostage-taking, not just of Americans but any Westerner then any foreigner. By the time North left the scene there were more Americans held in Beirut than when he started, his initiative having resulted in the release of just two or three hostages.



In two articles (7) (8) in his series of Lockerbie related articles Diary of a Vengenace Fortold Professor Ludwig De Braeckeleer wrote of a number of meetings that occurred in late September and early October 1988 between a former CIA officer Richard Lawless and four Iranian officials. According to Professor De Braeckeleer the purpose of these meetings were to discuss the ongoing Beirut Hostage Crisis and resulted in the release of one Hostage Mithelswar Singh an academic and US resident who had been held captive for 20 months.


According to other newspaper reports Lawless had handled the release of a South Korean diplomat who had been kidnapped in Beirut, apparently simply as a commercial venture. While the South Korean Government denied a ransom had been paid for his release it is likely that some ransom was paid. This was allegedly paid through Lawless’ Company.(9)


These claims were first made in October 1988 by former Iranian President Bani-Sadr (a man with doubtless very good sources and perhaps an interest in thwarting any rapprochment between the USA and the Islamic Republic) who alleged that both sides in the Presidential campaign had sent envoys to Iran and that an aide to Vice President Bush had held meetings in Switzerland with representatives of the Iranian Government in September and October. (10)


According to White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwalter:-


“There is a fellow named Lawless. He is over there. What he’s up to nobody knows. But he doesn’t represent to United States….he does not represent the Vice President or the President or anybody else.” (10)


Lawless himself denies that these meetings took place or that he has even held negotiations on the Hostage issue or ever met with any Iranian official or person purporting to represent the Iranian Government.(10) Spokesmen for both Presidential candidates also denied their involvement in any negotiations to release the hostages.


Lawless’ business partner Therese Shaheen stated that Lawless’ passport and business charge records showed he was not in the area during that period, (9) a claim at odds with Fitzwater’s statement.


The “Iran-Contra” revelations had severely damaged President Reagan’s credibility. The “Hostage” portfolio was firmly in the remit of the State Department and Ambassador Paul Bremmer’s had instituted a strict policy of no negotiation and no publicity. It was the emotional appeal to the President himself that had wrecked a rational policy and Bremmer was determined Reagan’s sentimentality on this issue was not going to affect policy.


Further Vice-President George H.W.Bush was campaigning for the Presidency. Having been dogged by the claims of the “October Surprise”,* and attempting to distance himself from claims of his direct involvement in the “Iran-Contra” affair the surprise release of more hostages was probably not top of his wish list at that time.


After leaving the CIA in 1987, after the death of CIA Director Bill Casey and considerable recriminations in the agency following the exposure of aspects of “Iran-Contra”, Lawless. a Korean speaker, set up a consulting company dealing in trade with the Far East and developed ties with Taiwanese interests. There is nothing in the public record to link him with the Middle Eastern politics.


For four and a half years 2003-2007 he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defence for North East Asia dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue. The husband of his business partner Therese Sheheen was Chief of Staff to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who resigned in November 2006 and was replaced by former CIA Director Robert Gates. (Deputy Director at the time of the Lockerbie disaster).


According to a number of Internet sources Lawless was the protégé of many senior Republican figures. He served in Korea when the Station Chief was Donald Gregg President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Adviser, one of his two closest friends in politics with whom he also co-authored a book. He was associated with Dick Cheney (later George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Defence) and with other rising stars referred to collectively as the “Lawless Group.”. (Is there a pun intended?) He had been spoken of as a possible Director of a “reformed” (i.e. partisan) CIA earlier in the Presidency of George W.Bush. (11).


However his most interesting relationship was with Jeb Bush, second son of George H.W.Bush. Jeb Bush and Richard Lawless appear to be close business associates and Jeb Bush acquired considerable wealth from his participation in deals involving Richard Lawless. ( 12 ) When Jeb Bush was Florida’s Commerce Secretary Lawless’s Company won contracts to promote Florida in Asia. (13)


In July 1988 Jeb Bush left his post as Florida’s Commerce Secretary to work full-time on his father’s Presidential Campaign (as did older brother George W.Bush). Later Jeb Bush was seen as his father’s political “heir” and far more likely to succeed him that his older brother.


Did Lawless meet with Iranian officials in September and October 1988 and for what purpose? Save for the comments of Marlin Fitzwalter and the claims of Bani Sadr there is little evidence that he did and none about what was discussed. Could they have held discussions about the hostage situation, as Professor De Braeckeleer alleges, and ignore The Elephant in the Room, the shoot-down of an Iranian civilian airliner by a US warship?


The idea of having contacts with the hated Iranian regime was anathema and allegations of such contacts were strenuously denied. But if the Americans were not talking to the Iranians perhaps they should have been. The Republican party were anxious to secure the Reagan legacy and possible Iranian retaliation for the “Vincennes Incident” threatened George H.W. Bush’s road to the White House. In 1980 the Iranians had had a decisive effect on the outcome of the Presidential Election.




Autumn Leaves;

While the “Autumn Leaves” affair occurred eight weeks prior to the bombing of Pan Am 103 as an aspect of Lockerbie it relates largely to the first ten months of the investigation when the Police were convinced of a link between Lockerbie and the activities of the West German cell of Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP-GC). While this link was discounted when evidence of the supposed “rogue suitcase” materialised the Police were probably correct. They were then unable to square the circle having “eliminated” Heathrow as the point at which the bomb was introduced. (14 )


However there are four aspects to the “Autumn Leaves” affair that are of particular significance in the build-up to Lockerbie. These are:

(a) The travel movements of Abu Talb

(b) The existence of a plot to build bombs suitable for use against commercial civilian aircraft

(c) That the Central Intelligence Agency had an active policy

(d) The timing of the arrests.

Abu Talb’s Travel Movements:

Abu Talb was an Egyptian born Palestinian militant who had been granted political asylum in Sweden. His relationship, if any, to the Lockerbie incident, remains unproven. In the film The Maltese Double Cross evidence was fabricated to “prove” a relationship between Abu Talb and Khalid Jafaar a Lockerbie victim who was central to Francovich’s fraudulent claims. (15) He was imprisoned in Sweden in 1989 in relation to attacks on Jewish targets in Copenhagen on the 21st July 1985 and Stockholm and Amsterdam 1986. He was called as a witness in the Camp Zeist trial and was hostile to the defence who were unable to obtain a full and coherent account of his activities.


Interest in Abu Talb centres around his movements in October and November 1988. He left Sweden on the 3rd October 1988 flying to Larnaca. In Cyprus he met his Hafez Dalkamoni a member (leader?) of the “Autumn Leaves group. He then flew to Rome on the 18th October 1988 where he attempted to board a flight for Libya but was ejected from the plane by Libyan security guards. At Camp Zeist he claimed that he planned to fly to Libya in order to enter neighbouring Egypt illegally overland in order to visit his mother. As a deserter from the Egyptian Army he was wanted in Egypt.


In the Lockerbie case the authorites constructed an elaborate scenario to “prove” the primary suitcase was introduced at Malta in order to incriminate Al-Megrahi and Libya. If the Autumn Leaves group planned to bomb one or more civilian aircraft might a subsequent revelation that one of the group had begun his journey in Tripoli be used to “prove” Libyan involvement?


Having been thrown off the plane to Tripoli Abu Talb flew instead to Malta on the 19th October 1988 leaving on the 26th October and returning to Sweden. Despite intense questioning by the defence team at Camp Zeist Abu Talb refused to say by what route he had returned to Sweden. He did not use the unexpired portion of his return ticket to Cyprus. The significance of the matter is that the 26th October 1988 was the date on which the West German authorities moved against the Autumn Leaves group. Was Abu Talb to collect, or did he collect, an aviation bomb on the way to Sweden?


An associate of Abu Talb’s was Imad Chabaan @ Martin Imandi. On the 24th July 1985 Imandi travelled to England by the Gothenburg Ferry to lay low for a while. Imandi had been to England before.to get married. ( 16) This is a possible route by which the primary suitcase was brought to England. As it incorporated a barometric trigger this was probably a lot safer than flying and security on a ferry would not be looking for an aviation bomb.




The objective of the “Autumn Leaves” gang


The central point of the Autumn Leaves conspiracy is that it appears to represent a plot to build several aviation bombs and therefore one mighty deduce a plan to bomb several planes. The extent of the plot are not known because the PFLP-GC bombmaker, the Jordanian Marwan Khreesat was released from custody and left West Germany soon after his arrest. While Khreesat was subsequently interviewed by FBI agents who gave hearsay evidence of what Khreesat said the defence had no opportunity to question or cross-examine him.


In the “special defence” advanced by the defence teams at Camp Zeist Abu Talb and Directors of the Mishca bakery in Malta were named as suspects (lending credence to the “Malta scenario”) while Khreesat was not. As Khreesat had not been named in the Special Defence their Lordships were not inhibited from accepting his “evidence”.


Marwan Khreesat – A CIA Informant:

It was revealed at the Camp Zeist trial that Marwan Khreesat was an “asset” of the CIA. The Camp Zeist Judgement stated that:-

“it is also to be noted that the cell’s principal bomb-maker was one Marwan Khreesat who was in fact an agent who infiltrated the cell on behalf of the Jordanian Intelligence Service. His instructions from them were that any bomb he made must not be primed. Moreover while he himself did not give evidence, there was evidence of a statement given by him to FBI agents in which he said he never used radio cassette players with twin speakers (such as the Toshiba RT-SF 16) to convert into explosive devices”. (17)



Khreesat was suspect in three earlier aviation bombings. In 1970 47 people had died when a Swissair jet from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv exploded and on the same day an Austrian Airways flight from Frankfurt to Israel survived an explosion. Khreesat was also suspect in the bombing of an El Al jet from Rome to Tel Aviv in August 1972.(18) The plane made an emergency landing.


The claim about Khreesat’s supposed instructions not to prime the bombs does not arise from his “statement”. On the contrary he “stated” (via the FBI) that he felt constrained, due to his being closely supervised, from doing this and the devices he built were fully functioning. (19)


Indeed on the 17th April 1989, following an intelligence tip the BKA returned to search the basement of a grocer’s shop belonging to one of the Autumn Leaves group and recovered two further IEDs that had supposedly been there since October the previous year. Later that day two BKA technicians attempted to disarm one of the devices in an armoured workshop at BKA HQ. The device exploded killing one technician Hans Sonntag and seriously injuring another. Contrary to the Camp Zeist Judgement Khreesat’s IEDs (if these further devices were the work of Marwan Khreesat) were lethal.(20) The West German authorities did not pursue the death of Sonntag as a criminal matter.


Their Lordships also saw no reason to question Khreesat’s reported claim that he never used a radio-cassette with twin speakers. He would have had an obvious motive to deny having built the bomb that killed 270 people and his claim may have been self-serving. His claim may however have been true.


The Lockerbie IED was allegedly concealed within a black twin speaker model SF-16, Toshiba radio-cassette player. Khreesat had built an IED within a model RT-f453D single-speaker model (recovered from the boot of Dalkamoni’s Ford Taurus on the 26th October 1988 in Neuss.) Khreesat also possessed a second 453 model single-speaker Toshiba which was also recovered.(21)


However the identification of the radio-cassette in the Lockerbie case, which was blasted to smithereens in the explosion, is extremely dubious. Essentially it is predicated on the recovery of one of the most curious exhibits in the case – a charred owners manual for a twin speaker SF-16 radio-cassette recovered eighty miles away and assumed to relate to the IED radio-cassette. (22) (No other Toshiba radio-cassette was recovered in the wreckage.)


In the official version of events Megrahi (or somebody else) built a bomb within a Toshiba radio-cassette. This was stored in Malta or flown from Libya to Malta. At some point the radio-cassette was placed in a bronze samsonite tourister suitcase together with a quantity of clothing that had been purchased at the Saint Mary’s House Boutique Silema and in the official version the timer was set. But why would they put the owner’s manual into the suitcase as well?


Some observers believe that the IED that destroyed flight PA103 was similar in construction and design to the device recovered from Dalkamoni’s Ford Taurus on the 26th October 1988. It is not known into whose custody this device was eventually entrusted and it is not impossible that this was the device that destroyed flight PA103..


The Timing;

The most significant aspect of the Autumn Leaves case was the timing of the arrests at a point when it appears that the PFLP-GC were about to put their plans into action. The arrests were made on Wednesday 26th October 1988 at which time a fully functioning aviation bomb concealed with a Toshiba radio-cassette recorder was recovered.


Wednesday 26th October 1988 was six days before the US Presidential Election held on Tuesday 1st November 1988. What would have happened if the “Autumn Leaves” group had not been neutralised and what they had planned had gone ahead?


It was George H.W.Bush who had defended the “Vincennes Incident”, George H.W.Bush who said he would never apologise for America. According to Marlin Fitzwalter it was Richard Lawless “over there” a man apparently seen as a representative of George H.W.Bush. Could a terrorist atrocity have had a major impact on the Election? (23)


In 1980 Ronald Reagan had beaten the incumbent Jimmy Carter in a landslide, only the second time in US History that an elected incumbent President had been defeated. The Iranian Government had played a decisive part in that election in holding the US Embassy Hostages. Carter was campaigning against the backdrop of the hostage situation whose release was eventually timed to coincide with Reagan’s inauguration. This was not a gesture of conciliation but tgo underscore how a US domestic election had been affected by the issue.


If Iranian revenge for the “Vincennes Incident” was inevitable it could have come at a worse time for George H.W.Bush. Although he would have to deal with the situation the election was safely out of the way. He was still Vice-President but President-elect working to organise the new administration. Ronald Reagan, who had never recovered from the Iran-Contra revelations of late 1986 where it was revealed that he had little knowledge or control over what officials were doing, was still President perhaps already affected by Alzheimer’s.


Until the announcement of the indictment in the fourth year of Bush’s Presidency (long after the end of the Gulf War) the investigation had, to the disgust of the relatives, had apparently been glacial. It was the 41st President George Herbert Walker Bush who famously announced that Syria and Iran had taken a “bum rap.”


As pointed out in Parts I & III the object of the indictment was not a trial but sanctions against Libya. These could not be introduced without the changes to the Security Council that took effect on the 1st January 1992 and the main sanctions resolution 738 was passed on the 31st March 1992. That summer Bush was to campaign for re-election essentially on his foreign policy record and presumably had some foreign policy plans for his second term involving the Middle East.

*The “October Surprise” was the claim, almost certainly a hoax, that prior to the 1980 Presidential Election the Republicans had made some agreement with Iran that the US Embassy hostages would not be released until after the Presidential Election ensuring Reagan’s victory. (In the event their release coincided with the inauguration.)

Central to this claim was a purported former CIA officer Oswald Le Winter who claimed to have been involved in arranging security for a meeting that occurred in Paris attended by Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W.Bush. Unfortunately for Le Winter’s story on this day Bush was filmed in Washington.


A claim was therefore made that another native Austrian Gunther Russbacher, who purports not only to be a master spy but a USAF test pilot had flown Bush from Paris to Washington in two hours in an experimental plane. (Russbacher’s astonishing exploits and incredible adventures can be enjoyed on the Rumour Mill website run by his ex Raylean.)

The “October Surprise” hoax was exposed in a BBC current affairs expose made by the late Alan Francovich and Jane Ryder with whom he was romantically involved. Le Winter (filmed with a bag on his head) confessed it was a hoax. A decade later Francovich employed Le Winter as his “consultant” in the fraudulent documentary The Maltese Double Cross purporting Le Winter had been employed by the CIA even after exposing the “October Surprise”. Some of the “evidence” staged by Le Winter for The Maltese Double Cross, notably a telephone conversation between Le Winter and a supposed former CIA colleague was so blatantly fabricated even lawyers at the Scottish Crown Office noticed it.


After Francovich died Russbacher dumped his wife, divorced her without her knowledge in Mexico, and married Jane Ryder in California apparently forgetting he was already married!


Oswald Le Winter ended up in gaol in his native Austria in 1999 having been convicted of having tried to sell Mohamed Al-Fayed “evidence” the CIA colluded with MI6, Prince Philip ect. in the murder of Dodi Fayed and Princess Diana. This was (according to Winter and his ilk) a CIA/FBI plot to prevent Le Winter appearing as a witness in the Camp Zeist trial. (see Other Theories of the Spiro Murders in Part II The Mysterious Life and Death of Ian Spiro.)


( 1 ) Vice-~President George H.W.Bush quoted at a campaign rally 2.8.88 quoted in “Perspectives” in Newsweek Magazine 15.8.88.

(2) Claim attributed to Vincent Cannistraro reported in David Leppard On the Trail of Terror Jonathan Cape, London 1991 page 212

(3) Susan and Dan Cohen PA103 New American Library 2000
page 34

(4) PA 103

(5) Film library clip featured in BBC2 Correspondent The Other Lockerbie

(6) Interview with Martin Cadman featured in Alan Francovich’s The
Maltese Double Cross


(7)Former Iranian President Reveals Secret US Talks With Iran by Professor Ludwig De Braeckeleer Ohmynews International 9.10.08

(8) US Official Denies Arms for Hostages Deal With Iran by
Professor Ludwig De Braeckeleer Ohmynews International 10.10.08

( 9) Hostage Deals; Koreans Look to the US by Robert Neff 23.8.07
www.atimes.com

(10) Exiled Iranian President Connects Both Candidates to Hostage Talks

New York Times 5.10.88

(11)Tompaine.commonsense 15.11.2004

(12) Alecia Swasy & Robert Trigaux Make the Money and Run St
Petersburg Times Online 20.9.1998

(13) The Masonic Verses Part III Lockerbie – Criminal Justice or War
by Other Means section The Historical/Political Background refers
to Jeb Bush’s association with right-wing Cuban exiles linked to the
bombing of Cubanair flight 455 when George H.W. Bush was
Director of the CIA .

(14) The Masonic Verses Part I Lockerbie – the Heathrow Evidence

(15)See Francovich The Maltese Double Cross or any version of the
“Drug Conspiracy Theory”.

(16) Leppard page 184

(17) Judgement para.75

(18) Leppard page 8, 141

(19) Evidence of Hal Hendershott of interview with Marwan Khreesat
(get Glasgow Law School Lockerbie Trial website.

(20) Leppard 142

(21) Leppard p.11

(22) Camp Zeist Judgement para.10

(23) In the event Bush beat Dukakis by 426 – 111 in the Electoral College
and by 53.8% to 42.6% in the popular vote a considerable margin of
victory.

The Masonic Verses Part IV The Shootdown of Iranair Flight 655 - The "Vincennes Incident"

“All our misfortunes come from Amrika”
- the Ayatollah Khomeini

The Iran-Iraq War:


In September 1979 Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Iran with the objective of annexing “Arabistan”, the Arabic speaking provinces of Iran. Saddam Hussein had become President in 1977 following a Palace coup against his predecessor. Iraq had a recent history of conflict and rivalry with the more populous (and better armed) Persian neighbour ruled by US client Shah Pavlazi who a 1953 American sponsored coup d’etat had transformed from a constitutional to an absolute monarch. Iraq had given refuge to senior Iranian clerics including the Ayatollah Khomeini who were later expelled to Paris under pressure from the Imperial Iranian Government.


The 1979 Islamic Revolution (which Iraq had done much to encourage) posed a fundamental threat to the Iraqi regime. The Iranian revolutionaries threatened to export their Islamic revolution. While there were significant Shi’ite minorities in Saudi Arabia, Western Afghanistan, Pakistan and some Gulf States the majority of Iraqi citizens, almost entirely excluded from the ruling elite, were Shi’ites. If the Islamic revolution were to be spread it would be exported to Iraq.


The revolution had fundamentally weakened Iran’s armed forces, largely concerned with crushing internal dissent rather than defending the state. Many senior officers had fled Iran or had been imprisoned or executed. Having been lavishly equipped with the most advanced American weapons, American trainers and contractors had been expelled. Spare parts and new equipment would not be forthcoming. It was Saddam Hussein’s first opportunity to flex his military muscles possibly encouraged by the United States whose citizens were being held hostage.


While the US and the West were officially neutral de facto western policy was pro-Iraq. This pro-Iraq tilt was obscured following the Iran-Contra revelations that elements of the US administration, had tried to achieve some understanding with Iran or at least purported to, as a rationale for their arms dealing activities that also became entwined in the Beirut Hostage Crisis. (For example the “Hakim accords”, negotiated by an associate of Richard Secord’s in “The Enterprise” committed the US to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein)


Iraq was supplied with weapons by the West and by the Soviet Union. More importantly Iraq was received credit from the West and it’s Arab allies, notably Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Later the Americans supplied Iraq with intelligence and satellite photography.


Iraqi forces were numerically inferior and morale on the Iranian side was high. The fighting was largely confined to the disputed territory to the East of the Shatt Al Arab waterway where Iranian human wave tactics were often met by the Iraqis resorting to the use of chemical weapons. As the war ground on it was the Iraqis who sought a way out.

The Deployment of Western Naval Forces to the Persian Gulf:

Both Iran and Iraq were major oil producers and the Iranians attempted to exert an economic blockade on Iraq and its Arab allies by attacking tankers transporting oil to the West (and East.) Geography gave the Iranians a marked advantage. Tankers headed to and returning from Basra, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern ports had a long journey through hostile waters then through the chokehold of the Straits of Hormuz, the eastern shore of which was Iranian territory (the western shore being the Omani peninsular).


The Iranians had a small navy and the remnants of the Shah’s air force. Their main weapon to harass merchant vessels were small Swedish made motor patrol boats known as “boghammers” armed with machine guns, light weapons and RPGs. They had also acquired a number of Chinese made surface-to-surface Sikworm missiles which posed a threat not only to merchant shipping but to military vessels..


In response to the “War of the Tankers” which posed a significant threat to Western oil supplies the US Government and its Western allies deployed a Naval presence to the Persian Gulf and the approaches to the Arabian Gulf, where a US Aircraft carrier was deployed, in order to escort merchantmen flying the flag. Many Panamanian and Liberian registered vessels were hastily re-flagged.


The rules of engagement were imprecise. Although supposedly neutral, in 1987 in the United States had destroyed many of Iran’s off-shore oil installations in retaliation for an attack on a merchantmen flying the Stars and Stripes and for a US Navy vessel hitting an Iranian mine.


On the 17th March 1987 occurred an incident of crucial importance to the “Vincennes Incident”. The frigate, the USS Stark, was hit by two Excocet missiles fired from an Iraqi Mirage. 35 sailors were killed and the career of the Stark’s skipper Glenn Brindel, came to an ignominious end. Iraq was not supposed to be a threat to the US Navy.


The “Stark Incident” gave rise to grave concerns amongst the press and Congress. The President was widely criticised for putting American lives at risk on some vaguely defined mission. The fact that the Iraqi jet and missiles had been supplied by France, who while far more dependent on Gulf oil than the Americans was not contributing to the Naval presence, was noted. The rules of engagement were “clarified” and extended. The US Navy could fire on any aircraft that approached within 20 miles at the discretion of the Captain in order to eliminate any potential threat. (1) (The Iraqi Mirage had launched from a far greater distance - 40 miles.)

The Vincennes and Captain William J. Rogers III

 

The ROEs (rules of engagement) were modified to underscore the responsibility of the onscene commander to exercise the inherent right of self-defence in a timely fashion

The appropriate question should be: Are the ROEs weighted to protect American lives and property?

The answer – “absolutely” - Captain William Rogers III” (2 )

    The billion-dollar Aegis class guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes was one of the most sophisticated pieces of military hardware in the world. Packed with the most up to date computer system it was designed to be part of a carrier taskforce to fight a battle against Soviet forces and to track and intercept hundreds of incoming aircraft and missiles.


  The Captain of the Vincennes Captain Will Rogers III had been commissioned in 1965 at the age of 27.  He had spent the bulk of his career in staff postings. At the age of 50 The Vincennes was his first combat posting. It was a prestigious appointment. Captain Rogers was reputedly still ambitions and to reach the highest ranks of the navy would have been looking to be promoted to flag rank following a successful tour of duty. Indeed being given the Vincennes as his first command might indicate that this was the route planned for him.


The Vincennes soon acquired a reputation for aggression. The Vincennes had arrived in Bahrain on the 29th May 1988. During its first patrol on the 2nd June 1988 an Iranian frigate the Alborz had stopped a merchantman and had boarded it (as was it’s right) to search it.


The Vincennes closely approached the scene. Rogers took under his command another Navy ship the frigate USS Sides and ordered it in position close to the Vincennes. Captain Hatttan of the Sides protested to fleet HQ believing this might be seen by the Iranians as a threatening manoeuvre. The order was over-ruled and the Sides withdrew. The Vincennes was ordered to observe the search from a distance.(3)


In his memoirs Captain Rogers dates the incident as the 14th not the 2nd June and omits the dispute with Captain Hattan.(4) He also describes how, as a civilian helicopter carrying a news team flew across the bow of the Alborz, the Iranians fired two machine-gun bursts in their direction.


At 0633hrs on the 3rd July 1988 the USS Elmer Montgomery was entering the Straits of Hormuz from the Northwest side. Some 13 Iranian gunboats had emerged from their bases on Abu Musa Island and were said to be milling around a Liberian tanker the Stoval. (The Stoval may not have actually existed. It may have been a phantom created by fake radio communications to confuse the Iranians.) (5)


The Vincennes was situated south of the Straits in the Arabian Sea covering any threat from Silkworm missiles at the approach to the Straits. Fleet HQ at Bahrain ordered the Vincennes to dispatch its helicopter to observe the scene. Some thirty minutes later the Vincennes Apache helicopter was circling over the Iranian gunboats.


Under the rules of engagement the helicopter was forbidden from flying within four miles of the Iranians. The pilot, Lieutenant Mark Collier, subsequently denied being closer than two or to three miles. (He had been ordered to “investigate”.) It appears that a shot, possibly an RPG round was fired at or close to the Vincennes’ helicopter. The helicopter backed off and reported to the Vincennes. Rogers ordered the Vincennes north in support of his helicopter.(6)


Captain Rogers’ account was that he wanted to bring his helicopter under the protection of his air defence umbrella a result that could be achieved by the helicopter flying south towards the Vincennes. In 1992, Rogers later claimed that due to atmospheric conditions, communication with the helicopter was limited to 15 miles.(7)


As the Vincennes steamed north at 30 knots the Iranian gunboats were ordered by the Omani coastguard to withdraw as was the Vincennes which was warned that high-speed manoeuvres were not consistent with the rights of innocent passage.


At about this time (0840) Captaiin Richard McKenna, the surface operations commander and Captain Rogers’ immediate superior at Bahrain HQ was startled to see the position of the Vincennes and the Elmer Montgomery moving into the Persian Gulf and ordered the ships to return to their position south of the Straits of Hormuz.(8)


Also in the vicinity was the USS Sides under new Skipper David Carlson. The Sides was equipped with a computer system that allowed it to share information with the Vincennes, to “see” what the Vincennes saw. The taskforce commander in Bahrain did not have this facility.


As the Vincennes steamed north supported by the Elmer Montgomery the US ships passed two Iranian gunboats drifting in the swell. They did not seem to regard the Americans as a threat. At about this point, 0934hrs, Captain Rogers sought the permission of Fleet HQ to open fire on Iranian gunboats, which were retreating into Iranian waters. He claimed they were closing in on his position. Under the rules of engagement he did not require permission if under threat.


However the Vincennes was not under threat. A few minutes later the Vincennes (0940hrs) entered Iranian territorial waters in pursuit of Iranian gunboats that had not fired on the Vincennes. The claim the ship was under attack from a swarm of Iranian gunboats was untrue.(9)



At 0943 the Vincennes opened fire with its single five-inch gun lobbing shells at the distant Iranian gunboats that returned fire, their RPGs or mortars falling hundreds of yards short.


At 0947 Captain Rezian pilot of flight 655 commenced his take-off at Bandar Abbas Airport for the short journey to Dubai.(10) As the Airbus took off it was immediately monitored by the Sides and the Vincennes and was assigned a track number. Commander Carlson had being following the manoeuvres of The Vincennes with increasing alarm and incredulity. He was concerned at the Vincenes engaging in combat with small gunboats and felt the best course for The Vincennes would be to clear the area. (11)


On the Sides Captain Carlson followed the track of Iranair 655 as it ascended. Attempts to contact the plane on the International Air Distress (IAD) and Military Air Distress (MAD) bands met with no response. Carlson ordered that the plane be “lit-up” with targeting radar that generally served as a deterrent. The plane did not respond.


According to Carlson he made a verbal assessment that “track 4131” was not a threat. It was slow; it was ascending and did not respond to being “lit-up.” There was no precedent for an F-14 attacking a surface ship. Carlson overheard Rogers’ informing Bahrain HQ of his intention to shoot down “track 4131” if it approached within 20 miles.(12)


(Lieutenant Colonel David Evans’ analysis of the “Vincennes Incident” (13) refers throughout to the Vincennes’ perception that the plane was an F-14. The F-14 Tomcat was a formidable fighter plane 79 of which had been sold to the Imperial Air Force from 1975 onwards. The Iranian Air Force was the only overseas Air Force supplied with the Tomcat. Equipped with Sidewinder, Sparrow or Phoenix air-to-air missiles the Tomcat outclassed most Iraqi fighters. It was not equipped with air-to-surface missiles.


Captain Rogers’ memoir however refers to a message from Vice-Admiral Less of the 18th June 1988 warning of Iranian attempts to convert their Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom fighters to a ground attack role by equipping them with iron bombs or unguided Eagle missiles. (14)


Unknown to US Intelligence the Iranians may have had some new weaponry or may have acquired Excocets on the black market. These were the types of weapons the Vincennes was designed to defend against.


On board the Vincennes Captain Rogers was in the commander’s chair in the darkened Combat Information Centre (CIC) crammed with computers and VDUs. As the single gun fired there were temporary blackouts of the background lighting and as the ship rapidly charged course manuals and papers were thrown to the floor. Many of the crew were unfamiliar with the CIC and had not been in combat before.


According to the information passed to Captain Rogers the contact was not ascending but diving. (It is possible that this information was not clearly available). Attempts were made to contact “track 4131”. It is possible that Captain Rezian, several minutes into a routine flight did not realise these transmissions, if he received them, were addressed to him i.e. unidentified military plane. The black boxes were unofficially recovered by the US Navy but their transcripts were not released.(15)


While flight 655 was a scheduled flight it has been hinted that there was some confusion over the four different time zones used in the Gulf and the flight was not identified in the timetable in time. There was also confusion over the flights transponder, an automatic beacon that emits a signal identifying the flight as civilian or military.


Flight 655 was emitting a signal identifying it as a civilian flight and was identified as such by the Sides moments before it was destroyed. The Vincennes may have confused flight 655 with signals emanating from Military flights on the ground at Banda Abbas.


The Shooting-down of KAL 007:

On the 1st September 1983 a Soviet interceptor had shot-down a Korean Airlines Boeing 747 flight KAL 007 from Anchorage to Seoul over the Soviet Island of Sakhalin killing all 269 passengers and crew (including a US Congressman). Either by accident or design the flight was hundreds of miles off course. There have been allegations that the flight was deliberately off-course as part of an intelligence gathering operation.


American officials castigated the Soviet Union for the callousness with which a civilian flight had been destroyed. Speaking that day from Santa Barbara California President Reagan called it “a horrifying act of violence” and in a national broadcast of the 5th September called for “a national day of mourning” stating “this was the Soviet Union against the world and the normal precepts which govern human relations among people everywhere.”(16) The Soviets tried to defend themselves against this PR disaster claiming, as with the Vincennes Incident, the plane had failed to respond to repeated warnings.


The US rhetoric was not backed up by any reprisals. The shooting down of flight KAL 007 was essentially used for propaganda purposes to castigate the inhumanity and incompetence of the “evil empire”.



The American Response;


The first official US comments on the “Vincennes Incident” were made by Admiral William J.Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at a Press conference given at 1.30 p.m. in Washington some eleven hours after the shooting down. His comments were based on the initial account of Captain Rogers. Crowe was of course a naval officer.


In his briefing, while admitting his information was incomplete Admiral Crowe claimed that flight 655 was flying outside commercial corridors, had not responded to repeated warnings, that the flight was descending and picking up speed and that the Vincennes was defending itself in international waters. Nearly all these claims were untrue. It was a mistake that an officer of Crowe’s seniority should have given a press briefing before the full facts were known.


Within 48 hrs. the tapes and logs of the Aegis system were being analysed at the Pentagon and information contradicting Admiral Crowe’s initial account began to emerge.


The Iranians took the matter of the “massacre of 290 innocent civilian passengers” (18) to the United Nations Security Council chaired by the United States. Vice-President Bush was delegated to present the US response. The Secretary of State or the US Ambassador could have responded. While evidence was emerging contradicting elements of the initial account, the Pentagon did not share these doubts with the White House. In his speech Vice-President Bush claimed the shootdown occurred as the Vincennes was rushing to the defence of a merchantman under attack by Iranian gunboats.


The Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati described it as a “dastardly attack by a reckless and incompetent naval force led by aggressive and expansionist policymakers”.

The crew of the Vincennes were awarded combat ribbons and several of the officers including Captain Rogers and a Commander Lustwig, the air warfare commander for “heroic action” “in maintaining his poise under fire”.

The Investigation of Admiral Fogarty;
An investigation into the “Vincennes Incident” was conducted by a senior naval officer based at Central Command HQ, Tampa, Florida Admiral Fogarty. The enquiry, aspects of which were made public, has been the subject of some criticism.


This criticism was that the enquiry failed to interview other senior officers who had some involvement in the incident for example Commander Carlson skipper of The Sides, Captain Rogers superior Captain McKenna and the commander of the aircraft carrier the USS Forrestal who was, electronically, observing the incident.


The enquiry, allegedly, did not properly investigate Captain Rogers’ claim that The Vincennes had been fired on a claim that could have been substantiated or otherwise by an examination of the hull. The enquiry glossed over the fact that The Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters. Above all the investigation was criticised for its conclusion of “scenario fulfilment” to explain how the staff of the CIC concluded that track 4131 was diving and accelerating when in reality it was climbing at a steady speed.


According to the now retired Commander Dave Carlson, a critic of Captain Rogers’ actions in the shoot-down of flight 655 the Navy faced a huge problem in confining responsibility to Captain Rogers. Rogers had sought permission to open fire from his superior Vice-Admiral Anthony Less who had apparently, if reluctantly concurred.

However Less and fleet HQ were not equipped with the sophisticated computer link that allowed, for example, The Sides to view the same data that the crew of The Vincennes saw. Carlson also believed that to discipline Rogers would have brought the Navy’s training and selection procedures under unwanted scrutiny.(18)


Charles Bilyeau:


A very interesting comment on the “Vincennes Incident”, Captain Rogers and the shoot-down was made in a review of Captain Rogers’ memoirs Storm Centre posted on Amazon. Lieutenant Commander Charles Bilyeu, an officer on the Vincennes, castigates Captain Rogers giving the book one star out of five. He drew attention to the fact that on return to San Diego 32 members of the crew were arrested and discharged for drug offences. “ WAS THE CREW THINKING CLEARLY AT THE TIME IT HAPPENED” (Bilyeu’s capitals.) “The book fails to even fully disclose what did happen between July 1988 and May 1989. The NCIS, FBI, myself and those onboard know what happened but no-one is talking.” Despite this he concludes without a breath of explanation “yes, the downing was justified.” (19 )

Conclusion;

Was the downing “justified?” How do you justify killing 290 innocent civilians? Captain Rogers has been widely presented as an officer who was over-aggressive, looking to take on the Iranians on any pretext, an officer who sought to impress his senior officers. Were these the qualities looked for in an officer of flag rank? Rogers’ actions that day had done nothing but irritate his immediate superior Captain McKenna and dumped responsibility for his own decisions onto the taskforce Commander Rear Admiral Less for whom the “fog of war” arose only from Captain Rogers’ actions.


Save for the failure to respond to the transmissions, for reasons known to the US Government, who have declined to release the transcripts of the black boxes or share them with the I.C.A.O. or the Iranian authorities the pilot of flight 655 behaved correctly. He was not to know he was flying over a “fire-fight”. Indeed even the Iranian gunboats didn’t know they were involved in a “fire-fight” until minutes before the shoot-down.


In his own mind and in terms of the Rules Of Engagement Captain Rogers saw the shoot-down as justified. Captain Rogers knew there were commercial aircraft crossing the Straits. He was probably aware that the Iranians had nothing flying, even some sort of kamikaze attack, that could threaten The Vincennes.


Rogers was in a critical situation, under appalling pressure of time to make a decision, but it was a situation entirely of his own making. He had been erroneously told the target was accelerating and descending. His primary, indeed sole responsibility was to the safety of his crew and command. The Vincennes did not share the fate of the USS Stark.


At the time The Vincennes was having enormous difficulty trying to hit the Iranian gunboats with his single 5” gun and the Captain was starting to look foolish. With its array of missiles an airplane was a different proposition and The Vincennes did what it was designed to do.



The Americans did not help the situation by their response of blaming the Iranians for this wholly avoidable disaster and far greater care could have been taken with the response.


However none of this really mattered. A discussion of whether or not Captain Rogers was justified in his actions or whether the US response could have been more considered is to a large extent futile. Captain Rogers did what he did and his actions could not be undone.


Yet in the official version of events the “Vincennes Incident” had no further significant consequences. The Iranians complained to the security council and to the I.C.A.O. but with the regime on the brink of collapse following its capitulation in the Iran-Iraq war decided to let bygones be bygones.  They apparently accepted that the United States had every right too shoot down an Iranian civilian aircraft if it posed a potential or theoretical threat to the safety of a US warship looking for a fight in Iranian territorial waters.


There were bloodcurdling threats of revenge but these were apparently for domestic consumption despite the statements of official spokesmen such as Mohamed Beshti who said at a press conference at the Iranian Embassy in London:-

“What our response will be we do not say – but it will be an appropriate response to the magnitude of the American crime.”
A statement in English at the London Embassy was not for the Iranian public.

While there is copious evidence that the Iranians tried to retaliate in October 1988 through the PFLP-GC “Autumn Leaves” cell this effort was foiled as the cell had amongst its members at least one CIA informant. After this they gave up.   The Americans were obviously too clever for them and the task of smuggling a single IED on a single aircraft was obviously beyond their capabilities. Curiously Libya managed it quite easily.






( 1 )Sea of Lies Newsweek 13th July 1992 reporters John Barry, Roger
Charles

(2) see also Captain Will Rogers comments in the postscript to Naval Science 302, Navigation and Naval

Operations II, Lesson 20 Crisis Decision Making USS Vincennes a case study byLieutenant

Colonel David Evans US Marine Corps (Retired). (online)

(3) Naval Science 302, Navigation and Naval Operations II, Lesson 20 Crisis Decision Making USS

Vincennes a case study by Lieutenant Colonel David Evans US Marine Corps (Retired). (online)


(4) Storm Centre Will and Sharon Rogers (with Glen Gregson) Naval
Institue Press 1992 page 88 – see also Newsweek Sea of Lies


(5)& (6) Newsweek Sea of Lies & Naval Science 302, Navigation and Naval Operations II, Lesson 20

Crisis Decision Making USS Vincennes a case study by Lieutenant Colonel David

Evans US Marine Corps (Retired). (online)

(7) Navy Times 3.8.92 (quoted in Evans)

(8) (9) & (10) Newsweek & Evans
(11)BBC Correspondent The Other Lockerbie features critical interviews with Commander Carlson,

Captain McKenna and “real-time” footage of the “Vincennes Incident”.

(12) & (13) Evans

(14) Storm Centre page 89

(15) BBC Correspondent The Other Lockerbie (on which Lieutenant Colonel Evans is credited asconsultant).

(16) Statement of President Reagan Santa Barbara 3rd September 1983.

(17) Newsweek Sea of Lies

(18) Security Council expresses “deep distress” at downing of Iranian
civilian plane UN Publications December 1988 (online)

(19) Sea of Lies Newsweek 13th July 1992 reporters John Barry, Roger
Charles see also Captain Will Rogers comments in the postscript to
Naval Science 302, Navigation and Naval Operations II, Lesson 20 Crisis Decision Making USS

Vincennes Case Study. by Lieutenant Colonel David Evans US Marine Corps (Retired). (online)
Also BBC Correspondent The Other Lockerbie


( 20) Review of Storm Centre by Lieutenant Commander Charles Bilyeu
USN (Retd.) at Amazon.com

The Masonic Verses Part X The Bombing of UTA 772 - 19th September 1989.

Sanctions were brought against Libya in 1992 not only to (supposedly) compel Libya to hand over the two suspects in the Lockerbie case but to compel Libyan co-operation in the UTA case. ( 1 )


In the “official” version of events the UTA case demonstrates a pattern of Libyan behaviour. For some who dispute Libyan responsibility for Lockerbie there is also a suspicion that evidence in the UTA 772 case was manipulated to implicate Libya, perhaps even to ensure French support, as a permanent member of the Security Council, for sanctions.


There are similarities between the UTA 772 case and Lockerbie as well as significant differences, not only in the way the investigation was conducted but in the different method by which UTA772 was attacked.


The evidence in the UTA case against the six Libyan officials eventually convicted is essentially circumstantial and sometimes quite flimsy. There appears to be stronger evidence against other Libyan officials and a Congolese who were not charged. The names of persons implicated in the attack will be in bold type and those accused (and convicted in absentia) in bold print and underlined.

The Bombing of UTA 772 The Initial Response;

The second demand communicated to Libya on the 2nd April 1992 subsequent to the passing of Security Council Resolution 731 was that Libya “co-operate with France in the matter of the UTA flight.” ( 2 )

This referred to flight 772 of the French airline Union des Transports Aeriens destroyed on Tuesday 19th September 1989. The McDonnell DC-10 was on a flight from Brazzaville in the Congo to Paris having stopped on route in N’Djamena the capital of Chad.


The plane exploded at 13.59 45 minutes after take-off (having crossed a time zone) at an altitude of 35,000 feet breaking up over the Tenere Desert in the neighbouring Republic of Niger. Wreckage of the aircraft was discovered the following morning 800km north-west of N’Djamena spread over a corridor of 600 sq.km by a French military flight searching for the plane. The wreckage was in four large pieces. (The front and rear section and the wings.) However the forward area between the cockpit and the point at which the wings were attached to the aircraft had disintegrated. ( 3 )


As flight 771 from Paris the DC10 arrived at Brazzaville’s Maya Maya Airport just before 7 a.m. on the 19th September. After refuelling and cleaning the plane took off for N’Djamena at 08.47 landing in Chad at 11.13 where nine people got off and took off again from Paris at 12.13. The public papers do not indicate how many passengers embarked at N’Djamena only that all 156 passengers and fourteen crew perished. ( 4 )


It is known that a diplomat at the Libyan Peoples Bureau N’Djamena, Saleh Mahdi Mansour, was booked to fly on UA 772 but failed to show taking the same flight to Paris a week later. ( 5 )


The immediate concern was with the recovery of the bodies and the flight’s black boxes. 170 bodies were recovered and transported to Paris for post-mortem many carbonised as parts of the fuselage burned after the crash. Only 105 of these were positively identified. ( 6 )


The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were transported to Paris where initial analysis indicated no technical failure or any warning of the impending catastrophe. ( 7 )


Apart from the four major pieces of debris some fifteen tons of debris consisting largely of the forward fuselage were recovered and sent to Paris with the intention of reconstructing the fuselage. On the 23rd September traces of the explosive Pentrite were detected on parts of the forward hold recovered and a formal murder investigation was opened that day under the direction of the investigating Magistrate Jean-Louis Bruiguiere and carried out by Police Commissioner Romuald Muller. ( 8 )


Amongst the debris was found piece of the shell of a grey suitcase (later identified as a Samsonite 2000 model in Oxford grey) on the inside of which was a 3mm coat of the explosive Pentrite. ( 9 ) (There was no explanation as to how this survived an explosion).


Further forensic reconstruction indicated the IED had exploded within container 7044RK containing economy class luggage loaded at Brazzaville and positioned at the front right hand side of the cargo hold. In this position it could not have been accessed at N’Djamena. (10)


Following the explosion there were several calls claiming responsibility on behalf of several organisations. ( 11 )


The “Bruguire report” names a number of suspects in the case. It notes threats to “punish” France made by the President of Syria for France’s support in the Lebanon of General Michel Aoun (leader of the Iraqi backed “Lebanese Forces.”) It also notes the enmity between France and the Lebanese Hizbollah which was involved in the kidnapping of several French citizens and which conducted a terrorism campaign in Paris in 1986 following the arrest of a Hizbollah operative. (Throughout the English translation of this section, produced for the American civil action, “Lebanese” in the phrase "Lebanese Hizbollah" is mistranslated as “Libyan” i.e. the "Libyan Hizbollah") ( 12 )



The 15th May Organisation;

The use of a suitcase lined with Pentrite explosive was associated with a Palestinian group the 15th May Organisation. The organisation had been disbanded in 1986 and its members were believed to have joined other groups. The French had come into possession of one of these suitcases following the arrest of a Tunisian in Paris in 1986 and five other samples had been seized in Germany, Italy and Israel. ( 13 )


A witness in the case was Palestinian Adnan AWAD who had been sent by the organisation from Baghdad in 1982 with such a suitcase and a bomb concealed in a shoulder bag to bomb a hotel in Geneva. He had been given the suitcase by a leader of the organisation Abou Ibrahim who was in possession of a dozen such cases.(14) On arrival in Switzerland on the 1st September 1982 AWAD surrendered himself to the US Embassy. He was granted political asylum in the USA where in 1991 he was questioned by French officers investigating the UTA bombing. ( 15 )


According to the Bruguiere Report “AWAD stated that the 15th May organisation received financial and moral support from Libya.” ( 16 ) While this may well be true what he was actually reported to have said was “everybody knew that the May 15th organisation received moral and financial help from Libya” ( 17 ) Awad had received the suitcase after the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the list of states supporting terrorism on the 28th February 1982.. ( 18 )

Franco-Libyan Relations;

Relations between France and Libya were poor arising from Libyan opposition to France’s close “neo-colonial” relationship to several states in the region including autocratic and brutal dictatorships. In 1987 and 1988 Colonel Gaddafi had proclaimed Libya’s right to self-defence against French “aggression”. France was a supporter of the Government of Chad with whom Libya had a border dispute over the Aouzou strip and who had recently routed Libyan forces in battle. One of the UTA victims Jacques Renaudet, was an arms dealer who had been in Chad negotiating to buy captured Libyan arms and material. ( 19 )


The investigation into UTA772 also touches on a number of incidents involving attacks on French interests in a number of countries in which Libyan diplomats were implicated. These were notably a plot to assassinate the French President in the Central African Republic in 1984, an attack on French soldiers in Senegal and the bombing of another flight UTA 772 that exploded on the runway on N’Djamena Airport in May 1984 with one fatality and a number of injuries. ( 20 )


In March 1984 a Zairean dissident Celestine Ongala bombed a Kinshasha radio station and the Post Office using two suitcase bombs that he had been given by the cultural attaché at the L.P.B. in Brazzaville Mohamed Astiwi. Ongala and his friends were subsequently invited to Tripoli where they were trained in the use of SAM 7 missilies by Ibrahim Naeli. ( 21 ) Under pressure from the Zairean authorities Astiwi was expelled from the Peoples Republic of the Congo. (22)

Senegal Februatry 1988 – A Lockerbie Connection?

The Bruguiere report mentions twice a very significant episode that occurred at Dakar Airport Senegal on the 20th February 1988 which relates to the Lockerbie case. Two Libyan men were arrested disembarking from a flight from Cotonou, Benin via Abidijan, Ivory Coast. They were said to be in possession of weapons, several kilos of semtex, explosives and MST-13 timers which were in a briefcase found on board. They were not actually carrying the briefcase. Their stay in Benin had been paid for by the L.P.B. Benin and as a result the Libyan Ambassador Mustapha Abucetta was expelled.(23) Later in the Bruguiere report the Ambassador is named as Mohamed Astiwi. (24)


The two men were travelling on Lebanese passports in the names of Mohamed al-Marzouk and Mansour Omran Saber. They were detained until June when they were released, despite the protests of American diplomats. It was suspected or insinuated that Libyan agents had bribed Senegalese officials. ( 25 )

The MST-13 Timers;

According to David Leppard the key exhibit in the Lockerbie case (a fragment of MST-13 timer) was recovered by Allen Feraday of RARDE on the 18th June 1989 melted into the remains of a suitcase belonging to passenger Karen Noonan which had been positioned directly on top of the bomb bag. ( 26 ) Leppard refers to a memo written by Detective Inspector Williamson dated the 19th December 1989 entitled “Items of Interest at RARDE – Circuit Board” outlining this discovery by Feraday in June from “part of severely explosive-damaged American Tourister.”

The memo continued that “a description of the item together with a photograph were supplied to the Productions/Property team to search for any similar material.”(27) On the 14th September 1989 Allen Feraday visited Dexstar in Lockerbie, where exhibits were stored, to examine a number of items of circuitry, none of which was a match. ( 28 ).


This is quite at odds with the version of events presented at Camp Zeist where it was claimed that this fragment of circuit board was found in a piece of cloth recovered by DCs Gilchrist and McColm in January 1989. The fragment was discovered not by Feraday but earlier by his colleague Dr Hayes on the 12th May 1989. The Camp Zesit Judgement states “we are nevertheless satisfied that this fragment was extracted by Dr Hayes in May 1989 from the remnant of the Slalom shirt found by DC Gilchrist and DC McColm.” ( 29 )  (As my later article "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil" demonstrates it is not possible that Dr Hayes note of this discovery could have been legitimately written on the date claimed.)


It was only in June 1990 that Dr Hayes realised the fragment of circuit board formed part of the timer. At this point Vincent Cannistraro, who was in charge of the CIA “investigation”, indicated possible similarities with a batch of ten timers recovered from two men arrested in Senegal. In August (1990) officers were sent to Senegal to retrieve photographs and control samples that Dr Hayes immediately identified as being identical to the recovered fragment. (31)

The Revelations of Vincent Cannistraro;

Cannistraro retired from the CIA in September 1990 and Leppard’s book continued with some revelations of his and his insights into the bombing. Cannistraro attributed responsibility for Lockerbie to the Iranian Government as revenge for the Vincennes Incident and claimed they had commissioned “simultaneous attacks against no less than five Western Aircraft” - “there is a lot of evidence which puts this at the doorstep of the Iranian Government”. ( 32 )


According to Cannistraro bomb-maker Marwan Khreesat was not the informant within the PFLP-GC. Another member of the “Autumn Leaves” cell Ramzi Diab slipped out of Germany with Khreesat’s “fifth” radio-cassette bomb. (Four had been recovered). Diab was interrogated and executed in Damascus. With the arrest of the “Autumn Leaves” cell PFLP-GC head Ahmed Jibril sent a representative to Colonel Gaddafi asking Libya to take over the task. ( 33 )


Cannistraro claimed that in November 1988 a meeting was held at the HQ of the Libyan Intelligence service and that the CIA knew of the meeting before the Lockerbie bombing. Present at the meeting were the head of Libyan intelligence Major Jalloud and his deputy Abdullah Sanussi. Jalloud selected the men arrested in Senegal, Marzouk (real name Mohamed Al-Naydi) and Saber (real name unknown), to direct the bombing. The bomb would be smuggled into Malta where the Libyans had a network in place with an intimate knowledge of Luqa Airport. (35)



In Malta the two arranged for a third junior Libyan agent to buy clothes to wrap around the bomb. The CIA identified him by comparing photographs of Libyan agents which matched the photofit given by Gauci to the FBI. In November 1990 the Maltese shop-keeper finally identified the Maltese third man and signed an affidavit. (36) (If Gauci made a photofit it was never put in evidence and should have been disclosed to the defence team.)


Astonishingly a Libyan secret agent Mansour Omran Ammar Saber was called as a witness by the prosecution at Camp Zeist and gave evidence on the 16th November 2000. (How and why the prosecution called him is unknown). He admitted to having been arrested in Senegal in 1988 but denied any relationship with the briefcase found on the plane. Apparently Saber was travelling on a false Lebanese passport in his true name but nobody asked him about that! Astonishinly (according to Cannistraro) this person was one of the masterminds of the Lockerbie bombing! ( 37)



The I.C.A.O. Montreal 19th September 1989;

The Bruiguiere report notes another possible link to Lockerbie. On the day of the UTA bombing the International Civil Aviation Authority held a meeting in Montreal and were expecting a Libyan delegation of 40. The meeting would be discussing both the Iranair 655 and PA103 incidents. In the event no Libyans actually attended. ( 38 )



The Libyan Peoples’ Bureau, Brazzaville;

Central to the UTA case was the activities of the Libyan Peoples’ Bureau (L.P.B.) in Brazzaville, capital of the Peoples’ Republic of the Congo (PRC) and it’s involvement with the African representatives of a number of clandestine opposition groups. Due to the suspected involvement of Libyan diplomats in terrorist activities the L.P.B. was under the surveillance of Congolese Military Intelligence.


Since 1987 the first counsellor of the L.P.B. was Abdallah Elazragh. (39) Elazragh had formerly been posted to Libya’s Paris Embassy and was known to the French Security Services as a Libyan Security official. (40) (While many Libyan intelligence agents posed as diplomats the practise is not exclusively of Libyan usage!)


The case also involves a commercial company SOCALIB, a joint venture run between Libya and the Congo dealing in valuable hardwoods. The venture was run by a Libyan Mohamed Hemmali as a subsidiary of the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company. (LAFIC) ( 41)


Elazragh inherited from his predecessor a relationship with a Zairean opposition group whose leaders were Appollionaire Mangatany and his friend Bernard Yanga. Mangatany was a passenger on UTA 772 and it is the official case that the bomb was in his luggage. Mangatany’s body was not identified. Congolese Military Intelligence knew of his links to the L.P.B., doubted he had the means to buy a ticket and suspected his involvement soon after the bombing.


Mangatany had been to Libya twice, in 1986 to undertake some sort of training course with the Mathaba the Libyan organisation dedicated to supporing liberations movements headed by Gaddafi’s nephew Moussa Koussa. Mangatany’s group had become dependent on Libyan support and in 1987 there was, allegedly some talk with Libyan diplomats about bombing a UTA flight out of N’Djamena.



Ibrahim Naeli & Arbus Musbah:

Ibrahim Naeli arrived in Brazzaville late on the 23rd Aug.1989 having travelled Athens-Brussels then taken the Sabena flight Brussels – Brazzaville. (41) His alleged assistant Arbus Musbah arrived on the 24th August 1989 having flown Tripoli-Rome-Brazzaville. Naeli had been head of security at the Athens Embassy from October 1987 until December 1988 and Musbah had also been posted to Athens. In 1986 a visa had been sought for him to work at the Rome Embassy. (42)


The morning after he arrived Naeli reported his suitcase lost. This was reported as being a greyish-blue Samsonite. It appears the bag was sent by SABENA on a Portuguese flight via Lisbon and it arrived at Brazzaville on the 24th. There is no record of Naeli recovering the bag. He may just have picked it up from the luggage carousel on the bag’s arrival. The bag was not physically traced otherwise. ( 43 )


The two men initially stayed at hotels after which they were the houseguests of Elazragh or Hemmali, their expenses being met by Elazragh. (40) In the hotel Naeli called several numbers in Libya one of which was later admitted to belong to Abdelsalam Hamouda a Libyan intelligence official and assistant of Abdullah Sanoussi. (44 (45)


According to Hemmali the men were supposedly there to conduct an investigation or audit of SOCALIB on behalf of the Libyan parent LAFIC and had a letter of introduction to that effect which Hemmali could not subsequently locate despite having (allegedly) been given a further copy. (46 ) Hemmali’s mistress (who also had a relationship with the head of Congolese Military Intelligence) claimed he expressed alarm when she announced she was flying to Paris indicating Hemmali’s knowledge of a plan to bomb a UTA flight. ( 47 )


Hemmali had not been notified of this inspection and while the two men held discussions at SOCALIB nothing of substance was discussed. The enterprise’s Congolese Director never saw the two in the office.( 48 ) Hemmali surmised that their visit was a cover and indeed a legitimate inspection would not have taken almost four weeks.(49)


Naedi and Musbah left Brazzaville in the early hours of the 19th September 1989 (3 hours before UTA 772) on an Ethiopian Airways flight to Addis Abbaba. Their onward connection was not traced. They had no hold baggage.(50)


The implied conclusion of the investigation was that the two went to Maya-Maya on the 19th September 1989 simply for the purpose of catching their flight. Despite the flaws in security the investigators appear not to consider that it may also have been related to the smuggling of a bomb on board flight UTA 772.


Also on the flight to Addis Ababa was an Iranian Diplomat Emmanjomah Shadid who had arrived in Brazzaville on the 10th August as a temporary replacement for another Iranian diplomat. (51 )


On the 25th September 1991 Elazragh hurriedly left Brazzaville. He told Hemmali he was retiring (which was untrue) and he had failed to give notice to terminate the lease on his accomodation. (52) (53)



Enquiries in Brazzaville:

From May 6th to June 8th French investigators conducted enquiries in Brazzaville. They were particularly keen to interview Mangatany’s friend Bernard Yanga whose whereabouts were supposedly unknown to the Congolese authorities. They did interview Appolinaire Mangatany’s widow and three sisters. The family lived in poverty and Mangatany only announced his plan to fly to Paris the day before his flight. The family owned only one suitcase which Mangatany did not use. The family could not help to identify the suitcase that he did use but were aware he was looking for a suitcase the week before his trip. (54)


The investigators conducted enquiries at the Maya-Maya Airport where they found security to be very poor. There was poor segregation between passengers and members of the public, even after check-in and investigators found luggage checked-in at a Hotel on the eve of a flight was left unguarded overnight. There was plentiful opportunity for a bag to be smuggled aboard a flight. (Amongst the debris recovered were the corpses of two dogs and three apes). (55) (56)


Evidence of the Libyan Oppostion;

Statements were taken from several opposition figures including leader Mohamed el Megarief who was visiting Chad using an alias at the time and suspected he was the target of the bombing. (When Sanoussi produced to the French investigators another “May 15th” suitcase the Libyans alleged it had been seized from a member of Megarief’s group.) Megarief claimed that after the bombing Abdelsalam Hamouda and Ibrahim Naeli had received special promotions (an issue that would be raised later). (57) (58)


Another opposition witness claimed to have worked with Saleh Mahdi Mansour (the Libyan booked on UTA 772 but who missed the flight) in Damascus in 1991. Mansour told him he had been ordered to miss the flight.


Another witness claimed that a Colonel Whalil Jdik had been approached by Sanoussi to participate in a mission which Jdik later understood was the bombing of UTA772. Jdik declined and joined the opposition (and may have been executed). (59) The "witness" continued that it was “well-known” in Army circles that Hammouda and Naeli were involved in the UTA case. (60)



The Evidence of Bernard Yanga:

Following the receipt of further intelligence received about the involvement of Mangatany and Yanga in the bombing Yanga was found. Since January 1990 he had been in the custody of the Congolese Security Services and escaped in January 1992. He made a number of statements in custody and following his escape. (61) (His initial statement is not amongst the papers published by Crowell & Morning but are referred to in the Bruguiere and Muller reports).


According to Bernard Yanga's account Mangatany was President of a Zairean opposition group and Yanga the Secretary. Elazragh’s predecessor had made Mangatany “sensitive to the commission of an attack against a French plane at N’Djamena.” (62)


In August 1989 Elazragh had two Libyan guests who gave Mangatany a mission at a meeting at the Olympic Hotel attended by a Chadian.  Elazragh provided Mangatany with a ticket, money and an outfit including a red tie. He also provided a suitcase a rigid dark suitcase on wheels. The purpose of the tie was so that at N’Djamena Mangatany could exit the plane and an Ivory Coast national would help him escape. (This story was amended in that this person was to board and recognise Mangatany on the plane). (64)


The precise details of how Mangatany received a suitcase from Elazragh are vague. According to Yanga Elazragh gave Mangatany the suitcase the evening before he departed. (65) (If the suitcase was empty Mangatany might have noticed the timer!)


Mangatany told Yanga the suitcase had been brought into the Congo as a Libyan diplomatic suitcase (“la valise diplomatique”) (properly translated as “diplomatic bag”.) (66) On the 20th and 28th August two diplomatic bags had arrived for the P.L.B. (67)


On the morning of his flight Yanga went to Mangatany’s "plot". Also there was Ngalina, a member of their group whose job it was to set the explosive device. Yanga accompanied Mangatany to the airport but left the taxi short of the Airport then walked as he didn’t want to be seen by the Libyans as Mangatany had been told to keep the mission secret. Yanga saw Elazragh was at the airport together with the two Libyans seen at the Olympic Hotel. (68)


Yanga’s statement indicates that Mangatany was quite aware his suitcase contained a bomb. However it transpired that Yanga's version of events was largely untrue and his story had been crafted to corroborate the version of events favoured by Congolese Military Intelligence!


According to Bruguiere “In the absence of any Congolese pressure Yanga confirmed his previous statements almost entirely. The divergences (Ngalina coming over to Mangatany’s to check the bomb, pretence of the two Libyans at the airport) were due to the Congolese Polices’ pressure under torture”


In the next paragraph Bruguiere wrote “He admitted that the meeting at the Olympic Hotel had been suggested to him by the members of the Congolese Military Security.” (69)


These “divergences” altered Yanga’s story completely inventing a meeting between Mangatany and Naeli and Musbah that never happened and creating the illusion Mangatany knew his suitcase would contain a bomb. The two Libyans could not have been at the airport – they had left for Addis Ababa hours before! Was Elazragh there as Yanga claimed? Did Yanga actually accompany Mangatany to the airport?


Apparently the claim Ngalina was to set the explosive device was another invention. Ngalina was simply passing by Mangatany’s house that morning when Mangatany approached him in his pyjamas asking for help to tie his tie! ( 70 )


In a later statement Yanga claims he gave Mangatany 9 letters to post in Paris to avoid Congolese censorship that Mangatany placed in his suitcase - why would YANGA do this if he knew Mangatany was carrying a bomb? (71)


After the bombing Yanga wrote five letters to Elazragh (who had left Brazzavile) the Mathaba, the Libyan Ambassador and two friends.  Yanga sent copies of these letters anonymously to the Congolese Military Security leading to Yanga’s detention.(72).   (Of course he might just have written them at the behest of Congolese Military Security as "evidence"  Yanga also claimed to have sent Ngalina to the Libyan People's Bureau, to solicit money for Mangatany’s wake an allegation Ngalina denied. (73) (74 ) 



On the 30th October 1991 (two weeks before indictments were announced in the Lockerbie case) international arrest warrants were issued for Elazragh, Naeli, Musbah & Senoussi. International research notices were issued concerning Muss Koussa and Abdusalam Zadma another employee of Libyan intelligence. (75 )



The Fragment of the Timer;

As in the Lockerbie case a piece of circuit board was found in the wreckage of UTA772, which was identified, and proved to be a crucial piece of evidence particularly against Colonel Abdessalam Isa Shibani.


The date of the discovery of the fragment is not known. The investigating magistrate was made aware on its discovery on the 15th October 1991. The fragment bore no trace of explosive residue. The help of the FBI was sought in tracing the origin of this fragment. (76) (It is understood that Thomas Thurman, as in Lockerbie, played a role in identifying this fragment.) Enquiries were conducted after the first four suspects were named and after UN Sanctions were imposed.


The fragment was identified as having been produced by Tai Yuen Electronics Ltd. a Taiwanese Company. Enquiries in Taiwan indicated that Tai Yuen had supplied several thousand printed circuit boards to a company called Costa Electronics, later acquired by another Taiwanese concern Ming-Yong which used them in “temporising devices”, (timers). The chief engineer of Ming-Yong gave the investigators his last such timer. The fraction of circuit board recovered matched part of the circuit board in the timer. A meticulous search of the debris recovered from the Tenere desert did not turn up any other fragment of the timer. ( 78)


Ming-Yong had a relationship with the Taiwanese subsidiary (Grasslin Far East) of a German Parent Company (Grasslin) who took 25% on Ming-Yong’s output. In 1989 another German firm H.P.Marketing had purchased 101 timers from a German Company Kremser who had bought the timers from Grasslin. (79 )


Hans Peter Wurst of H.P.Marketing had known Colonel Isa Shabbani since 1980 and believed him to be an officer in Libyan intelligence and had previously supplied the Libyans with electronic devices. In November 1988 Shabbani asked him to provide a number of timers for use in lighting desert runways servicing some warehouses that Shabbani owned. He was asked to modify them to increase the voltage.so they could be powered by a 12 volt battery. H.P.Marketing acquired from Kremser 101 timers which were modified and sent to Libya in July 1989. Shabbani later indicated his satisfaction with the timers. (80)


While the circuit board in the sample timer supplied by Ming-Yong was identical to the fragment recovered this did not prove this fragment came from one of the timers supplied to Shabbani which involved 101 of the several thousand circuit boards supplied by Tai Yuen.


The Libyan Responseto the Arrest Warrants and Sanctions;

The Libyans purported to co-operate with the French investigation and appointed Mohamed Mursi an official of the Libyan Supreme Court to liase with the French. Mursi interviewed a number of suspects whose statements were often terse in which they denied any involvement. (81)


Of significance Mursi produced evidence one of the accused Arbus Musbah died in a traffic accident in November 1990. Naeli’s evidence to Mursi referred to Musbah having died in a painful accident. (82)


Mursi passed on to the French information concerning the Libyans being in possession of two suitcases similar to those produced by the “May 15th” group. (83) It appears that in July a senior officer of the French security service the D.S.T. was shown one of these suitcases by Abdullah Sanoussi in the latter’s office. (84)

In late 1992 the investigating Magistrate was invited to Libya to continue his enquiries.(85) The Libyans withdrew their invitation and there was no progress until 1996 when Colonel Gaddafi wrote to the French President pledging co-operation and seeking a solution that would preserve Libyan sovereignty. (86)


Commission Rogatoire in Libya July 1996;

Investigations were conducted by the investigating Magistrate and his team in Libya. A number of witnesses were interviewed iuncluding four of the six accused. Ibrahim Naeli was not questioned and Arbus Musbah was supposedly dead. The salient points were as follows.

The responsible senior officer of the Libyan Army could neither confirm or deny that Naeli and Hammouda had been given special promotions following the bombing. Neither then nor later where the French allowed to see their files. Hammouda, who admitted to being Sanoussi’s chef de cabinet, claimed he had been promoted in 1992. (88)


The administrative director of the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company (LAFIC) claimed that L.P.B. in Brazzaville had alerted LAFIC to problems in SOCILAB. (89) He was evasive as to who paid for the inspection or why Naeli and Musbah had diplomatic status. Their report was not in the file but was forwarded later and was a “bland document.”(90)


Elazragh’s administration file did not contain any document that indicated Tripoli had decided the date of his return from the Congo. (91)


Enquiries were made into the documentation proving Musbah had died on the 14th November 1990 including the reports of Traffic Police, Doctors Report ect. Which were inconsistent as to the date. The Magistrate was aware that on the 1st April 1991 Musbah had applied for a visa to travel to Athens and had actually done so between the 6th & 9th April. The Libyans claimed this was a case of mistaken identity although the same passport number featured in both the visa application and the traffic accident documents. ( 92 )


The French also took possession of the “May 15th” suitcase that the French security official had seen in Senoussi’s office. (93)



The Criminal Trial:

In 1999 the six defendants were convicted in absentia following a brief trial for which no defence was entered. The Court ordered the Libyan Government to pay compensation of $3,000-$30,000 Euros. The Libyan Government, in the form of a charitable trust controlled by Colonel Gaddafi offered $170 US million to the families of the victims. The US families rejected the offer and sued the Libyan Government and the six defendants in the US Courts.



Civil Proceedings:

A Civil case was brought in the USA Robert L.Pugh et.al. v. Libyan People’s Arab Jamariyah et.al. on behalf of the estate of the seven American victims, their relatives and dependants and the owners of the plane itself. Judgement was for the plaintiffs in January 2008 and the defendants (including the six Libyans convicted in absentia) were ordered to pay the plaintiffs in total $6 billion US dollars. ( 94 ) ( 95 )   Of interest Ambassador Pugh had been deputy to the US Ambassador to Beirut at the time of the Lockerbie bombing.


Conclusion Concerning the Investigation and Evidence;

The depth and breadth of the French investigation of the UTA 772 and the competence and clarity of the Bruguiere and Muller reports obscure some of the shortcomings in the strength of evidence. (96)


Firstly many of the victims were never identified due to the charring of the bodies. Regrettably this meant that it is not known for certain that Appolinaire Mangatany was actually on flight UTA 772 when it exploded..


Further it was never proven that the suitcase checked-in by Appolinaire Mangatany contained the bomb. Evidence that Elazragh gave Mangatany a suitcase is based on the word of Bernard Yanga who in other respects appears to have greatly embellished his statement. According to the Muller report “the youngest sister Guillaumette affirmed that Appolinaire had informed her of having purchased a bag from the market a few days ago.” (97) It seems a fair inference that Mangatany’s ticket and expenses were paid by the Libyans but Mangatany had been to Libya twice before at Libyan expense.


It is implied the “bomb” suitcase was sent to Brazzaville as a diplomatic bag. There is no evidence of this. Alternately it was transported by Ibrahim Naeli as his own suitcase on his trip from Athens to Brazzaville. His bag was lost or delayed, possibly deliberately before it was sent on to Brazzaville. While there is no evidence of Naeli pursuing a claim for a lost bag there is no evidence he was reunited with this bag either.


In political terms there is strong circumstantial inference of Libyan involvement which involved actions beyond those of the six individual accused.  They had motive.  In Legal terms was there sufficient evidence to convict the six individuals, noting the evidence was never tested and an investigation report is always more coherent than a trial? There was a case to answer against Elazragh, Naeli and Musbah. The evidence against the other three Libyans is of a different nature.


Colonel Abdullah Senoussi was implicated as head of the external service of the Libyan Secret Service, the number 2 man in the organisation. He denied being in command of Elazragh, Naeli and Musbah and his guilt is conditional on theirs. He was also in possession of a “May 15th” suitcase similar to the device that destroyed UTA 772. Was this evidence that he was at some time in possession of the suitcase that did destroy UTA772?  There was also hearsay evidence he had tried to recruit another officer into the plot.  Musa Koussa, Senoussi's boss was never charged and appears to have enjoyed close relations with Western intelligence agencies.   He fled Libya for Britain before the fall of Gaddafi, was supposedly debriefed by MI5 and went into exile in the Gulf.

Colonel Abdelsallam Isa Shibbani was implicated as the purchaser of the 101 timers from H.P.Marketing and for his failure to account for all of them. Is there sufficient evidence one of these devices was used in the bomb that destroyed UTA 772 and is there any evidence of guily knowledge? Again evidence of his involvement would have been conditional on the guilt of Elzaragh, Naeli and Musbah.


Save that he was employed by the Libyan Secret Service the evidence against Abdelsalam Hammouda was thin. Ismael Naeli had telephoned his number from Brazzaville and according to opposition sources Hammouda and Naeli received special promotions after the bombing.



Conclusion – The Link Between Lockerbie and UTA 772


The one undoubted link between the two aviation bombings is that employees of the Libyan JSO have been convicted for both cases. This may be seen and has certainly been represented as a pattern of Libyan involvement in terrorism. There is also evidence of Libyan complicity in the earlier attack on flight UTA772 at N’Djamena in 1984.

There are of course dissimilarities in the official version of events although both cases appear to involve the introduction of an IED concealed within a suitcase onto a civilian aircraft.


Lockerbie involved the supposed mimicking of the method of Marwan Khreesat and the PFLP-GC – the concealment of an IED within a Toshiba radio-cassette recorder. (According to Cannistraro’s account the Libyans actually used Khreesat’s “fifth” bomb and the two Libyans chosen to run the operation had, by astonishing coincidence, been arrested earlier that year in possession of a number of MST-13 timers.)


UTA 772 involved the use of a modified suitcase made several years earlier by the “May 15th” group. According to the UTA investigation the Libyans were in possession of at least two such suitcases prior to the Lockerbie incident but didn't use them for the Lockerbie bombing, then after Lockerbie changed this successful method for the UTA attack..


Lockerbie (officially) involved the introduction of an unaccompanied suitcase at Luqa. UTA 772 (supposedly) involved a “mule” at Maya-Maya Airport, a method similar to the false claims that the Lockerbie bomb was introduced at Frankfurt in the luggage of supposed drug mule Khald Jafaar.


However as pointed out in my first article “Lockerbie – the Heathrow Evidence” the official version is untrue and security was subverted (or bypassed) not at Luqa Airport but at Heathrow. (and had nothing to do with Libya.)


There is however a great deal of circumstantial evidence and “intelligence” to link Libya to the UTA case and indeed much of the Bruguiere Report concerns “intelligence” rather than evidence. Libya had a discernible  motive in the UTA case.


But was the official version of events in the UTA case really true or was Bernard Yanga’s account an example of gilding the lily for the purposes of a criminal prosecution. Did Appolinaire Mangatany really check-in the bomb suitcase? Is there any real evidence "the Libyans" supplied him with a suitcase or was his involvement an improvisation to provide an evidential link to Libyan intelligence. The investigation revealed that security at Maya Maya was appalling.- Lockerbie supposedly involved the introduction of an unaccompanied bag with the right luggage tag that circumvented good security at Luqa Airport by unknown means. (However the official version of events is untrue.)  Was it not even simpler matter to introduce an unaccompanied suitcase onto UTA772?  If "the Libyans" had done this with PA103 why not repeat this tried and true method?


Ibrahim Elazrhag was also at Maya Maya Airport that day, (at least according to the evidence of Bernard Yanga.  However Yanga had also claimed to have seen the two Libyans he had met at the Olympic Hotel there (Naeli and Musbah) although he later admitted that meeting had never happened (and therefore he would be unable to recognise them).   However the key evidence may be the presence at Maya Maya Airport on the 19th September 1989 of Ibrahim Naeli and Arbus Mushab for their own flight to Addis Ababa, which later drew suspicion on them because it supposedly indicated foreknowledge of the bombing. But were they at the Airport simply to exit Brazzaville or to introduce the bomb suitcase?

Was there a possible link between the Lockerbie bombing and the UTA772 case in that the former was the inspiration for the latter?


Finally one might also conclude that having decided to co-operate with the investigation the Libyan strategy was a failure. For example by pretending one of the accused had died the Libyans had not really co-operated with the investigation.. Hoping to draw a line under the case by not contesting the trial and paying compensation in order to bring an end to sanctions the Libyan strategy was shattered by the US Civil case. The quantum of compensation obtained by the relatives in the UTA case may now carry over into the Lockerbie case..





Unless otherwise stated references are to files on the website of the Washington Law firm Crowell Moring (for which I am most grateful) who represented the US victims in the liability suit at www.crowell.com. “BR” refers to the Bruguiere Report.


( 1 ) & Matar Khalil I. And Thabit Robert W. Lockerbie and Libya A Study in International Relations  McFarland & Company Inc. 2004 page 24.

(3) (wreckage) BR page 19

(4) (victims) BR page 23

(5)(Libyan diplomat no-show) BR page 37 (see also 59)

(6) (victims identified/unidentified) BR 31 – full list in French original

(7) (black box) BR page 26

(8) (criminal investigation opened) BR page 27

(9) (fragment of suitcase with Pentrite) BR page 28

(10) (point of explosion) BR page 38

(11) (claims of responsibility) BR page 45-46

(12) (mistranslation) BR page 48 (French original page 60-61)

(13) (schedule of seized “May 15th” devices) Muller Report page 91

(14) (Abou Ibrahim/”May 15th) BR 50-51

( 15) (AWAD –US asylum) BR 51

( 16) (AWAD “quote”) BR 51

( 17) (AWAD quote) Investigation Report on Mission to Washington page 4

(18) (Iraq dropped as sponsor of terrorism) Contemporary press releases

(19) (“Renaudat theory”) BR page 46

(20) (1984 attack on UTA 772-Libyan involved) BR page 93

(21) (Naeli as Sam 7 instructor) BR page 78

( 22 ) (Astiwi allegedly expelled from Congo) BR page 78 Muller 45

(23) (Mustapha Abucetta expelled as Ambassador to Benin) BR page 79

(24) (Mohamed Astiwi expelled as Ambassador to Benin) BR page 94

(25) David Leppard On the Trail of Terror Jonathan Cape London 1991 page 210 para.5

(26) Leppard page 207 para.4

(27) Leppard page 207 para 7

(28) Leppard page 208 (top)

(29) Lockerbie Judgement para.13


(31) Leppard page 208 (bottom)

(32) Leppard page 212 para. 4

(33) Leppard page 212 para.2

(34) (Naeldi described as “Enayli”) BR page 54

(35) Leppard page 214 para.2

(36) Leppard page 214 para.4

(37)

www.gla.ac.uk/media/media

(38) (I.C.A.O.Montreal) BR page 53

(39) (Elazragh posted to Brazzaville) BR page 65

(40) (Elazragh security official in Paris) BR page 65

(41) (Affairs of SOCIALIB/LAFIC) BR page 52,80,117

(42) (Musbah’s posting to Rome) BR page 71 Muller report 73-74

(43) (Naeli’s lost suitcase) BR page 70 Muller report 50, 52-53, 55.

(44) (Naeli call to Hammouda Libyan admission) BR page 119

(45) (ID of Hammouda’s phone number) BR page 119

(46) (LAFIC “letter of introduction”) BR page 80 (Denied by LAFIC) BR
page 116,117 121 Muller report 63-64

(47) (Evidence of Guilhermino Araujo a.k.a. Greta) BR page 84

(48) (evidence of Francois Ntsiba) BR page 83 Muller report 69

(49) (length of inspection) BR page 81

(50) (Naeli/Musbah no hold baggage on departure) Muller report 86-87
(basis of this assertion in Muller report unstated).

(51) (Iranian diplomat on Addis Ababa flight) Muller report page 23

(52) (Elazragh departs Brazzaville) BR page 65

(53) (Elazragh lease/retirement) 82-83 125

( 54) (Interview Mangatany family) Muller report 18 90

(55) (Security at Maya-Maya) BR page 35-36

(56) (Recovery of apes/dogs) BR page 37

( 57) (Evidence of opposition) BR page 104-5

( 58 )(Libyan refusal to release military files) 105 112 122

(59) (“Evidence” ref; Sanoussi soliciting Walil Jdik) BR page 107

(60 ) (“Evidence” ref; “common knowledge involvement of Naeli
/Hammouda) BR page 107

(61) (Yanga’s evidence) BR 90 132 Muller report 20-48

(62)(Outline of opposition groups/plan in 1987 to bomb UTA) BR 72 87 Muller report 20-21

(63) (Alleged meeting at Olympic Hotel) BR 87 88 90 Muller 31

(64) (Mangatany’s “mission” financed by Libya) BR 86 88 Muller 79

(65) (Suitcase) BR 91 Muller 31

(66) (“valise diplomatique”) Muller 18

(67) (Arrival of diplomatic bags) Exhibit 41 “Yanga Deposition”

(68) (Mangatany, Yanga, Ngalina morniung of 19/9/89) BR 85 88 89

(69)(Yanga’s initial statement untrue) BR 86 90

(70) (Yanga’s false claims ref;Ngalina) 88 Muller 25,26, 31

(71) (Yanga gives Mangatany 9 letters) BR 88

(72) (Yanga copies 5 letters to Congolese Security) BR 90-91 Muller 89 Exhibit 40 “Yanga Report”

(73) (Ngalina denies soliciting cash from P.L.B.) BR 79

(74) (Yanga’s further statements Jan 1993) Exhibit 40 Yanga report

(75) See “The Responsibilty” BR 124-132

(76) (Discovery of circuit board fragment) BR 40

(77) (Enquiries in Taiwan Tai Yuen/Ming Jong) BR 41 Mueller 10-15

(78) (Search of debris) Muller report 15 (final para.)

(79) (Grasslin/H.P.Marketing) BR42

(80) (Wurst and Shabbani) BR42-3 117-8

(81) (Libyan investigation – Mursi) BR 97 Muller 56

(82) (Musbah’s “death”) BR 98-99 102

(83) (Mursi and “May 15th” suitcase) BR 100

(84) (DST view suitcase in Sanoussi’s office) BR 100 123

(85) (Libya ceases co-operation) BR 103

(86) (Letter of colonel Gaddafi restarts enquiry) BR

(87) (Hammouda/Naeli promotion) BR 112, 122

(88)(Evidence of Hammouda re; promotion) BR118-119

(89) (LAFIC & SOCIALIB inspection) BR 116, 117 &121 Muller 63-64

(90) (Bland Report forwarded) BR 121

(91) (Alazragh’s Admin file) BR 115 122 Muller 83

(92) (Musbah’s “death” and later trip to Athens) Muller 72-4 BR 120-121

(93) (Surrender of May 15th suitcase) BR 123

(94) (See evidence summary) BR 124 –

(95) District of Columbia Civil Action 02-02026 HHIC Memorandum

(96) District of Columbia Civil Action 02-02026 HHIC Judgement

(97) Muller report page 90