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J.
The Washington Post
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—
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Pan Am Bomb Probers Differ on Courier Report
By David B. Ottaway
and Laura Parker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Government
sources
disagreed
yesterday over a report that named
a college student as the passenger
who
unwittingly
carried
a
bomb
onto Pan Am Flight 103, destroyed
• Dec, 21 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
<
Some
U.S.
intelligence
sources
confirmed a CBS.report Wednesday
C that
, the
dupe
- who
unknowingly,
brought
the bomb
aboard was
a
Lebanese-American collegestudent
traveling home to visit relatives in
;; Detroit for the Christmas holidays.
But
other
sources
involved
in
building a
criminal case based on
the
evidence
available
cautioned
that the number of possible dupes
has only been narrowed to a “hand-
ful.”
U.S.
antiterrorist
officials
said
Khalid Jaafar, a Lebanese-American
college student returning to Detroit
from Frankfurt for the holidays,
is
on the
list of suspected dupes, but
added that several other passengers
with Middle East “connections” are
being studied as well.
Jaafar’s parents, who operate a
gasoline
station
in
Detroit,
have
told FBI agents their son was not
involved in the bombing,
U.S.
intelligence
agencies have
reached
conclusions
sooner
than
FBI and other European
law
en-
forcement officials who are seeking
to
obtain
conclusive .evidence
be-
fore making their findings public.
The
U.S.
intelligence
sources
said they believe the prime suspect
in the bombing
is a relative of an
official in the Syrian-backed Popular
Front. for the Liberation of Pales-
tine-General
Command.
Hafez
Dalkamoni, who was among 14 sus-
pected members
of the PFLP-GC
arrested in an antiterrorist sweep in
West Germany last October, is still
in prison there.
But other sources said that while
Dalkamoni
has
brothers
in Tunis
and 'Algiers,' he has no known
rel-
atives in Europe, and denied that he
is cooperating with investigators.
“If someone
[in the group] was
cooperating, we would have broken
the case some time ago,” said one
official.
Investigators believe the courier
on the Pan Am flight was given a
radio cassette recorder, which con-
tained
a
well-disguised
plastic
bomb, without realizing what it was.
The cassette recorder was put in-
side
a
suitcase
and
was
placed
aboard Flight 103 as checked bag-
gage. The Boeing 747 exploded at
high altitude over Lockerbie, killing
all 259 people on board and 11 on
the ground.
In the October raid, police seized
weapons
and
three
Toshiba
cas-
sette
recorders
containing
hidden
explosives.
The White House announced that
President Bush will visit Lockerbie
on his way back from a NATO sum-
mit
in. Brussels and visits to
Italy,
England and West Germany in late
May.
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2_
JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN ATIA
Hiding the Story on Flight 103
I resident Bush and British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher secretly agreed last
spring to play down the truth about who blew
up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
After both leaders had intelligence reports
pointing the finger aha terrorist hired by Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, Thatcher called Bush. In that
conversation, they agreed that neither could stand
the political heat of making the evidence public
because both were impotent to retaliate.
Highly placed White House sources told us that
the phone call took place about mid-March. By that
time, both the British and U.S. intelligence services
had followed the trail of evidence to terrorist Ahmed
Jibril as the hit man who was paid by Iran to blow up
the plane. The intelligence services had evidence
that Khomeini and his successor, Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, had approved the bombing.
Pan Am 103 originated in Frankfurt, West
Germany, stopped in London and was bound for
New York when a bomb exploded at 30,000 feet
over Scotland on Dec. 21,1988. Ali 259
passengers were killed, along with 11 people in the
village of Lockerbie:
Iranian-sponsored terrorists quickly asserted
responsibility, but the British and U.S.
governments put out the story that there were
several suspects. Behind the scenes, all the
evidence pointed to Jibril. He had been shopping for
money for his terrorist group, the Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
His usual sponsors, Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi and Syrian President Hafez Assad, were
short of cash.
The intelligence reports told Bush and Thatcher
that Jibril went to Iran in July 1988 and struck the
deal with Khomeini and Rafsanjani to blow up an
American plane in retaliation for the accidental U.S.
downing of an Iranian airliner earlier that month.
When the intelligence reports began to leak last
March, Thatcher called Bush to discuss their
problem. She said no purpose would be served by
making public the evidence against Iran because
,
neither the United States or Britain could respond.
Bush knew that Khomeini had proved the
undoing of Jimmy Carter and had nearly proved the
undoing of Ronald Reagan. Carter lost an election
because he couldn’t get American hostages back
from Iran, and Reagan suffered the biggest blow of
his presidency when he tried to trade arms to Iran
for American hostages.
So Bush didn’t argue when Thatcher suggested
that they “low-key” the findings—say that the
investigation was inconclusive and long-term.
After the call, word was quickly passed to top
officials conducting the Pan Am investigation that
they were not to make any off-the-record remarks
implicating Jibril or Iran. In Britain, when the press
speculated about possible perpetrators, investigators
called the speculation “wild” and “irresponsible.”
U.S. intelligence sources who told us about the call
said the decision was political cowardice.
Thatcher, the “Iron Lady,” earned her reputation
in a war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.
But by last March, her popularity was on the wane
and she didn’t need to be embarrassed by Khomeini.
Bush, still fighting his "wimp” image, didn’t want to
face the ultimate calls for retribution.
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