Iran Air 655 - Casus Belli Behind Lockerbie?

Caustic Logic
15 March 2010
Last update July 3, 2011

Note, July 3, 2011: I'm simply bumping this post to the top to mark the 23rd anniversary today of this horrific and dubious incident that seems to have sealed the fate of Pan Am 103.

The USS Vincennes and the Downing of IA655:
Iran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled 28-minute flight from Bandar Abbas airport to Bahrain, on July 3 1988. An Airbus A300B2 flown by Capt. Mohsen Rezaian, IA655 left the ground at 10:17 am local time to cross the Straits of Sidra. It seems the plane was talking normally with ground control on open frequencies, was listed in flight registries, flying well within an established civilian air corridor, and transmitting the right civilian transponder code that clearly means something like the car window sign "Baby on Board." [1]

As IA655 steadily climbed to cruising altitude (14,000 feet for this short journey), it was suddenly struck with two powerful SM2 missiles fired from an American ship in Iranian waters below. The 290 passengers and crew (including 66 children) were all killed, either in the explosion and breakup, or after a three mile fall to the Persian Gulf below.

Officially, the crew of the USS Vincennes, which had opted to fire the missiles at that plane, had simply gotten confused in the thick of a separate naval battle they'd gotten into. After missing IA655's listing in the 'do not shoot' registry, misreading its transponder code as of military origin, and erring on its speed, heading/location, and altitude profile, the crew had decided the airbus was a fighter jet swooping down towards them for the attack, as all their misreadings jointly suggested. [2]

The troubling details and explanations of this bizarre accident are worth covering elsewhere, but ascribing the best intentions, the Vincennes fired in what seemed clear-cut self-defense, while they happened to be within Iranian waters. As such they fully earned their later commendations, like the responsible air-warfare coordinator, who won a navy medal for "heroic achievement [...] under fire." [3]

End of the War
At the Iraq-Iran war's commencement in 1980, the United States had sanctioned the bloodshed, so long as Iraq was on top. By the latter 1980s, the situation had shifted. Increased U.S. assistance and even direct shooting reflected fears that Iraq might lose forever the territory Iran was gaining. By the end of 1987, “we became,” a senior U.S. officer told ABC News, “forward air controllers for the Iraqi air force.” [4]

Operation Praying Mantis responded to Iranian mining of the Gulf with escalated U.S. attacks on Iranian gunboats, oil platforms, and tankers in April. [5] Immediately, protection of "neutral shipping" was also expanded; it was to enforce this protection that the Vincennes had been called to the Gulf. 

At the same time, Washington and thence the UN Security Council was calling, with Resolution 598, for the war to simply end with past borders restored. Both sides had to see the benefit of an end to the grueling war, but after their own heavy sacrifices had improved their odds, Iran was reluctant to concede on the West's terms and timetable.

Along with a renewed Iraqi air and chemical offensives into Iran's cities in the spring and summer of 1988, the bizarre accident of IA655 had to have hastened  Iran’s effective surrender a few weeks later. The precise role it played – minor, major, or peripheral - cannot be known for sure. However, an Iranian scholar stated at a conference hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center [paraphrased]

"A turning point in Iran's thinking came with the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in July 1988 by the American cruiser USS Vincennes. That incident apparently led Ayatollah Khomeini to conclude that Iran could not risk the possibility of U.S. open combat operations against Iran and he decided it was time to end the conflict." [6]

There is every reason to believe that’s just what the Americans wanted to get across, after the tragedy if not shortly before as well. Aside from unapologetic "regret” over the loss of innocent life, and blaming Iran for the warship's mistakes, the American message was best put by White House media handler Marlin Fitzwater in putting the accident in context:

Only an end to the war, an objective we desire, can halt the immense suffering in the region and put an end to innocent loss of life. Our goal is peace in the Gulf and on land. We urge Iran and Iraq to work with the Security Council for an urgent comprehensive settlement of the war pursuant to Resolution 598. Meanwhile, United States forces will continue their mission in the area, keenly aware of the risks involved and ready to face them. [7] 

That is, as the Iranians likely read it, "we’ll keep on shooting at anything that might possibly be a threat as long as we “have to” hang around there, which is until Iran surrenders." About seven weeks after IA655 was torn down, an agreement was reached and hostilities between Iraq and Iran were officially and physically ended on August 20 1988. No territory was lost, but nearly a million people were. 

But even after the cease-fire, one more battle loomed. It would be just as one-sided as the battle of IA-655, just about as deadly, and just as unacknowledged. Again, the perpetrators would go unpunished as innocents paid the price for others' crimes.  

Revenge Pronouncements / Connective Tissue
Only in 1996 was a comprehensive legal agreement over the incident settled between Iran and America. Officially Iran accepted the accident story and took a small settlement $132 million and no acceptance of any guilt, exactly as offered by the US eight years earlier. [8] "Official" acceptance doesn't always mean that much; especially when the blood was fresh and tempers hot, Tehran never bought the bland American statements that the shoot-down was purely accidental. It's not even an unreasonable suspicion on their part - it's their apparent response I can't agree with.

Researcher Ludwig De Braeckeleer has assembled a useful compendium of Iranian death threats following the supposed accident. By this, various officials and ambassadors accused the United States of ''a barbaric massacre'' and an "act of terrorism." They pledged to launch "an appropriate response," to the "American crime," to "avenge the blood of their martyrs," and mete out "punishment to prevent further occurrence or recurrence of such unfortunate incidents." Most pointedly, hardliner Ali Akbar Mohtashemi (alt Mohtashemi-Pur), widely believed to have headed up the "appropriate response" planning, publicly "swore that there should be a "rain of blood" in revenge." [9]


This wasn't just hardcore posturing for the Iranian street, but something representing a real danger; everyone in the know expected retaliation, and likely in-kind - the Iranians would seek to now kill American civilians on an airplane and see how we liked it.  While uncertainty persists with no adequate investigation, the supposed payment was $10 million to the Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-GC. An early 1991 report, prepared by the National Security Agency for Gulf War intelligence use, stated:

"Mohtashemi is closely connected with the Al Abas and Abu Nidal terrorist groups. He is actually a long-time friend of Abu Nidal. He has recently paid $10 million in cash and gold to these two organizations to carry out terrorist activities and was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103 in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus." [10]

The revenge moved swiftly, it seems, perhaps starting before the cease-fire even. It was in early October that the GC cell in Neuss, West Germany was set up, October 13 that bomb maker Khreesat arrived and set to work, and October 26 when the cell was busted up in Operation: Autumn Leaves. Most have always suspected their goal had been to destroy an American airliner on Iran's instruction and with support from Syria, using the type of radio-disguised altimeter bomb found in the car with Khreesat.

Three other such bombs were missed in the first raid and only found later, and one bomb at least was never intercepted. Vincent Cannistraro, who headed the CIA's Lockerbie probe, was interviewed for a program Shadow Over Lockerbie:

"[Cannistraro] says authorities focused on the likelihood that Marwan Khreesat's fifth bomb had blown up the Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie. "The immediate feeling was: we've missed someone. That someone in that cell had escaped with one of the explosive devices and succeeded in planting it on Pan Am 103." [11]  

In other words, the terror tree was shaken and the "Autumn Leaves" had fallen and scattered, but they weren't all raked up neat. One may have drifted into the belly of PA103.

Obvious, Then Nothing
When the other shoe fell, the horror and carnage clearly mirrored IA655 with a mid-air explosion leaving 259 to deal with five miles of pure gravity however they did before dying against the cold winter soil of Scotland. To clarify the issue, just hours after the attack, two phone calls were placed from London to the Associated Press and UPI declaring in broken English:

"We, the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, are undertaking this heroic execution in revenge of blowing the Iran Air plane by America a few months ago." [12]

A CIA memo of the following day listed this first among a short list of responsibility claims. Among Islamic Jihad, the Ulster Defense League, and Mossad, the report said "we consider the claim from the Guadians of the Islamic Revolution as the most credible; previous attacks claimed by this group suggest it is pro-Iranian." It then listed several, with responsibility usually called in by an anonymous man: two assassination attempts on exiled Shah era leaders in exile, a plane hijacking a plane to secure the release of said assassins, and killing by car bomb a German businessman accused of selling missiles to Iraq while the war was on. [source]

Avenging the killing of 290 innocent Iranians by a US gunship seems in-line with the Guardians' philosophy, or perhaps some other Iranian agency, and most likely with technical help of the altimeter-triggered kind. Investigators, media reports, and the whole public mind went that way at first for at least a year, from no later than this ABC News broadcast of Feb 16 1989. Behind the suspicions of the PFLP-GC cell and its Khreesat bomb "a senior source overseeing the investigation" revealed that  "some hard-line members of the Iranian revolutionary guard" may have arranged for the attack through these suspects. "Revenge for the shooting down of the Iranian Airliner by the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf last summer was their motive," said reporter Brian Dunsmore in Lockerbie.  [13]

And still in early 1990 Steve Emerson and Brian Duffy wrote in The Fall of Pan Am 103 how sponsorship ran with Syrian supports up to Tehran, driven by revenge for IA655, "shot down for the Fourth of July holiday, the Mullahs believed, to celebrate America's independence." [14] To repay these expensive 4th of July fireworks with an early Black Christmas present, followed by a Body Boxing Day and a few more, might be a potent signal.

Officially, Iran denies involvement in the bombing, but some, like suspected mastermind Mohtashemi, have claimed a leading role on candid occasions. In 1995, an Iranian magazine ran an interview where "Mohtashami-Pur said that he would soon reveal the "Lockerbie files" to the readers." The report was quashed from above and the magazine closed down. [15] Former Iranian president Abdulhassan Bani Sadr also has admitted proudly, in the 1990s, that “Iran ordered the attack and Ahmed Jibril carried it out,” [16] a claim he repeated to deBraeckeleer in 2008. [17]

As these statements were made and as of late 1991 the U.S. was officially and exclusively pursuing Libya for the crime, freeing some Persian tongues to confess with impunity, it seems. And yet, the U.S. says, there was no Iranian revenge. The faint possibility of Tehran's involvement in Libya's atrocity has been whispered, but never clarified or pursued in the slightest. [see: Iranian vs. Libyan Role in the Lockerbie Bombing]

Iranian leaders had planned to take down an American plane (at least one), had paid for it and had bombs built and ready to go. With hard cash, glory, and blood vendetta driving them, Mohtashemi and and his contractors must have given up after the Germany bust. This is just what the FBI, CIA, USG, Scottish Police, Camp Zeist judges, and others claim to find most likely. And then just as precisely as item 8849 from Malta replaced the Bedford suitcases in the luggage container's deadliest corner, the Libyans took their own incidentally identical revenge at just that time. 

It's never been decided which motive drove the Libyans, but it's widely presumed to be the nearly three-year-old Operation: Eldorado Canyon bombings by U.S. forces. For the death of his adopted toddler daughter and a few dozen other Libyans, he ordered the Lockerbie bombing, while the level-headed Iranians waited for the court settlement and reparations after IA-655.  


At least, that's what the FBI's SCOTBOM evidence strongly illustrates. A desperate defector, an amazingly resilient timer fragment, a bizarre unverifiable printout, and a pliable soon-to-be-millionaire witness, all prove the Libyans did it through Malta, however much sense that makes. And nothing solid implicating Iran or Syria or the PFLP-GC was found anywhere in there. Move along, nothing to see here - the real Lockerbie bomber was behind bars for a while.  
---Sources: 
[1] Ghasemi, Shapour. “Shooting Down Iran Air 655 [IA655]” Iran Chamber Society: History of Iran. 2004. http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/shootingdown_iranair_flight655.php
[2], [3] Charles, Roger. "Sea Of Lies: The Inside Story Of How An American Naval Vessel Blundered Into An Attack On Iran Air Flight 655 At The Height Of Tensions During The Iran-Iraq War-And How The Pentagon Tried To Cover Its Tracks After 290 Innocent Civilians Died." Newsweek. July 13 1992. http://www.newsweek.com/id/126358
[4]  "The USS Vincennes: Public War, Secret War" ABC Nightline, Aired July 1 1992. Full Transcript, with extensive notes. ...
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-nightline-19920701.html
[5] Operation Praying Mantis. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
[6] Steinberg, Dana. "The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War: A CWIHP Critical Oral History Conference." http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.print&news_id=90411&stoplayout=true 
[7] See [1]
[8] Wikipedia. Iran Air Flight 655. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
[9] DeBraeckeleer, Ludwig. "Tehran: 'The Blood of Our Martyrs Will Be Avenged' [Diary of a Vengeance Foretold] Part 2." Oh My News International. July 4 2008.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=383015&rel_no=1
[10], [15], [17] DeBraeckeleer, Ludwig. "Former Iranian President Blames Tehran for Lockerbie." http://www.thetorah.tv/misc/Former%20Iranian%20President%20Blames%20Tehran%20for%20Lockerbie.htm
[11] Biewen, John and Ian Ferguson. Shadow Over Lockerbie. 2000, American Radio Works. http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/lockerbie/story/printable_story.html 
[12]  Emerson and Duffy p 56
[13] ABC News. Feb. 16, 1989: Pan Am 103 Flight Investigation. "A bomb hidden in a cassette player brought down Pan Am 103 in December 1988." Anchor, Ted Koppel. Reporter, Barry Dunsmore, Lockerbie. Video currently viewable at:
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=9443717 
[14] Emerson and Duffy, p 59.
[16] The Maltese Double Cross. Produced, written, and directed by Allan Francovich, Hemar Enterprises, released November 1994. 2 hours, 36 minutes. Quote at 34:00 mark. Google Video 

1980s Boom Boxes and Ice Cubes

The Evolution of the Khreesat Bomb, part two: 1985-88
May 31 2010

Audition, Performance, Recycling
Part one covered the early years of Marwan Khreesat’s bomb-making career in the early 1970s. After reportedly leaving Jibril’s PFLP-GC group in 1973, Khreesat remained quiet for twelve years. Then in 1985 he was reactivated by Jibril, and summoned to Syria to show his old altimeter-based skills with current technology.

Khreesat bought five Toshiba BomBeat 453 units, which have their own little story, but for our purposes they were housing only, and good sized. It’s the timers and altimeters – only four of each - that mattered to Khreesat, and he selected these himself. The pricey detonators, tens of thousands of dollars apiece, were presumably provided. It was enough to re-create his fear-inducing 1970s innovation; he described the end results to FBI special agent Edward Marshman in November 1989:

“Of the five, two were almost ready to go; they only needed to have the pins pulled to arm them. One had only explosives inside with no altimeter or timer. The other two needed two wires to be connected. After Khreesat built these devices, they were shown to Ahmed Jibril, who approved them. Khreesat then disassembled the devices, and the components were taken back to the PFLP-GC office.”

Just when Khreesat started working for Jordanian intelligence is not clear, but when he was summoned again to Neuss in mid 1988, Khreesat came with instructions from his GID bosses in Amman. The people who in turn met with friends at the CIA, MI6, etc. told him to only build fake bombs while working undercover within the PFLP-GC. But things didn’t work out so smoothly – by Khreesat’s story, the terrorists gave him something more concrete than these instructions.

By Abu Elias he was given a sense that he’d be caught making fake bombs, and from cell leader Hafez Dalkamouni he was given his old materials from 1985. The timers and altimeters were the same, and the five detonators were probably also the same. He was also given one of his five BomBeat453s to re-wire, so one IED was of completely recycled materials.

Working between October 22 and 25, Khreesat thus made four Ialtimeter bombs total in Neuss: this 453 unit, two hidden in Ultrasound radios, and one inside a Sanyo computer monitor. All three of these housings were bought in two second-hand shops in Dusseldorf on October 18, says Khreesat. [p16] The rigged 453 was seized on October 26 in the Autumn Leaves raid, when Khreesat and Dalkamouni were arrested. The other three IEDs were only found months later in 1989. Only the “fifth device,” which Khreesat barely touched (he says) is unaccounted for. First we’ll look at the specs of Khrresat’s four bombs, element-by-element, and then briefly at what can be gleaned about the other one.

Detonators
In addition to the BomBeat radio, monitor, Ultrasound tuners, timers, and altimeters brought to Khreesat on October 22, my portion of Marshman’s report makes no mention of “detonators.” It does however say “Dalkamoni also brought in four blasting caps that were electrical. [p17] I’m not explosives expert enough to know if that means detonators. All I know is they’re the expensive part of the bomb, and the part Khreesat seems less interested in.

Altimeters
These were provided to Khreesat in neuss. He mentions in his report
Four altimeters which were made in Japan. [p 17]
Marshman’s report specified “the altimeters are the same ones he had in 1985,” and Khreesat “does not know how, when, or by whom these altimeters were smuggled into Germany.” [p 32] He does however note that Dalkamouni was the last stop, handling all Khreesat’s supply needs.

I’ve seen nothing to differentiate the altimeters one from another, and at the risk of error will consider them to all work the same. All I have at the moment to show how they were set is from David Leppard’s On the Trail of Terror. The altimeter from the 453 was tested by the BKA’s Dr. Rainer Gobel in a vacuum chamber. “The circuit would close at a pressure between 940 and 950 milibars - equivalent to an altitude of about 2,400 feet.” [p 11-12] It’s tentative, and Leppard is sometimes wrong, but I can work with this for now.

Ice-Cube Timers
The timers are of interest here, and somewhat more complex. The units themselves were basic – a simple electrical capacitor encased in clear plastic resin, its appearance led to the nickname “ice cube timer”. The timer’s built size determines its resistance to electrical charge and thus the time until it “discharges.” Precise details of that process aside, the time delay is unchangeable but reliable.

These Khreesat picked up himself, as he told agent Marshman. “The timers were made by the Fatah group in Damascus. He first saw these timers at the PFLP-GC camp in Syria and four of them were good, so he took them to use.” [p32] Like the altimeters, they came back to him iin Germany but he doesn’t know how. Where it gets complex is when Khreesat explains how the times vary one unit to the next as far as time delay:

One of the timers was a half-hour timer, one was for three-quarters of an hour, and one was for one hour. Khreesat does not recall what time the fourth timer was set for. None of the timers were for more than one hour. […] Of the four timers he used in the IEDs in Germany, he is not sure of the exact times each one was set for, or which device which timer was put into.

It’s possible to tackle the question of “which device which timer was put into,” but first we must address another issue. Just from the seized BomBeat 453’s timer we have a range, not a set time. Again, David Leppard cites Dr. Gobel’s findings: "The time delay of the electronic component fluctuates over a wide margin since the structure of the circuit is relatively simple. Time delays between 35 and 45 minutes were measured." [p 11-12]

This variation of a supposedly set-in-stone delay might be explained by Khreesat, again via Marshman:

"Khreesat advised that the times are not exact and the time changes depending upon how long the timers have been tested after last being used. They usually reset to zero after a day. He used to test the timers three times in a row before installing the timer in a device. He found that in each test the time decreased. When this happened, he put the timers aside, and the next day when he tested them, they would run for the same time as when he had first started them."

Time delay then varies, with a starting baseline (long time) and shortening with repeated tests carried out too soon. Unless someone was testing it in the field just before use, the long time is what would elapse before detonation.

Timer/Housing Reconciliation
Therefore if Göbel found a range35-45 min for one timer, and Khreesat’s roster can be trusted, that’s the 45 minute unit. That was in the seized BomBeat, leaving for the other three a 30 minute one, a 60 minute, and another he can’t remember, but one hour at most.

The Sanyo monitor was seized intact and just as available for study, but its results are less clear. Dr. Gobel’s notes were read back in part at the Camp Zeist trial, and he include this on the Sanyo's ice cube: “Calculated on the basis of the values of the built-in components, the delay time is put at between 30 and 35 minutes.” [Zeist transcripts p 8769] That’s not a range of test results, but a range of estimates based on, it seems, looking at the circuit. If Khreesat is right, this would most likely be the 30 minute unit.

The two Ultrasound radios were not read as clearly – one defied a top BK explosives expert (Sonntag) and blew him to bits, while nearly killing an assistant. Perhaps some clues from that chain of events could tell us if this is the 60 minute timer or the mystery one. The other Ultrasound was purposefully destroyed, for safety and psychological reasons. But one of the two Ultrasounds (it’s unclear which) did yield enough of its timer for Gobel to note:

“[T]he accompanying capacitor is of the same value as in 1 [BomBeat] and 2 [monitor], but has however, jumped out of circuit. […] it can be assumed from the remains of the circuit that the time delay was in the same region as 1 and 2." [Leppard p 144]

To fit with the above, that’s a possible 30 or 45 minute timer, which are both represented by Gobel’s units 1 and 2. This out-of-circuit timer would be the one Khreesat didn’t remember, likely a duplicate of either the 30 or 45. The other Ultrasound then contained the 60 minute timer, if this should all tie up so neatly (don’t count on it).

The Fifth Device
All of the ahe above is fairly academic for understanding the Lockerbie bombing. As noted, all four of these units were intercepted by police, three of them without fatalities. The fifth mystery bomb is the only suspect here for that atrocity, and this bomb was apparently built by Abu Elias rather than by Khrresat. But his work is said to have informed Abu Elias.

Khreesat does give some details of this unit, which help very little in understanding it. He mentions an altimeter, partly visible under the cassette bay, no mention of timer, but parts of the circuit board and transformer were removed, and some modifications concealed under little cardboard boxes. Khreesat was unable to study it closer, as Dalkamouni stood over him the whole time he soldered two simple wires. This bomb has never been tested in a laboratory setting to determine its settings.

If used on Flight 103, however, the results can be observed from what happened on that December night. If we presume the same altimeter setting, which I did earlier but now seems unjustified, it would start the ice cube charging at about 2400 feet altitude. This low level was reached about two minutes after leaving the ground, according to the AAIB report’s altitude profile (see Thirty-Eight Minutes).

The bomb detonated 36 minutes after that point, so if we also presume a Khreesat-style ice cube timer, and presuming this hadn’t been tested before deployment, 36 or perhaps 35 minutes would be its baseline time. It doesn’t even have to fit Khreesat’s four from the Fatah factory, in their neat quarter-hour time units. Perhaps there was no timer, just an altimeter set to 31,000 feet. But whatever exactly was going on inside it, it is apparently modeled after Khreesat’s 1980s work, and might then be expected to behave about like one of his bombs. And of course whatever blew up PA103 behaved in just that way.
---

Parviz Taheri, Testimony

Day 57, October 7 2000 pp 7720-7759

Extended excerpts in italics. 

Introduction:

Prosecution witness, number 996 on the list, Parviz Taheri, gives evidence in Kurdish. 

Before he is brought in, might I remind Your Lordships that he is one of the persons  mentioned in the special defence  lodged on behalf of each accused.  I don't suggest  to Your Lordships that he should be given a warning, but I remind Your Lordships of his status.

LORD SUTHERLAND:  As he is being used as a Crown witness, he would have immunity  anyway.

Bio up to 1988:

At testimony, Mr. Taheri was 42 years old, lived in Sweden, married with a son, and drove a taxi for a living. He was born in Mahabad, Iranian Kurdistan, all relatives still there, except a brother and a sister who live in Sweden.

Before leaving Iran in 1983, he was "a teacher in the villages on the suburbs of Mahabad." "After the collapse of the Shah, Iran, there were two parties, one called Democrat of Iran and the other one Komola." He says he was suspected of fundraising and organizing for the latter, "so I went via Turkey to Germany."

He arrived on 23 December, 1983, lived in Darmstadt in Germany; then Frankfurt in the early 1985. After a year as a student, he "started working in the council of Frankfurt, then in a publishing house of Frankfurt for a few years."

Q  In 1988, did you become engaged to be married?

A  Yes.  

Q  And in 1988, where did your future wife live?

A  In Sweden, because I had moved -- they had moved to Sweden for a year.

Entrepeneur

"Because I had no constant job, I was using -- I was intending to buy a place with some friends, like a restaurant, or a shop for selling sweets or newspapers.  That was my intention. ... When I moved to Frankfurt in '85, I started thinking of setting up a business ... From '85 to '88. ... I was working from '87 to '88 in -- looking for advertisements in the newspapers.  There was -- then I started looking for auctions or agents for shops.  ... We looked at several places, but it was either because it was unaffordable or because we didn't like the place."

Q  Where did you keep the notes that we've just spoken of?

A  In a notebook which I kept with me.

Q  How many premises did you go to look at?

A  Because it has been for quite a long time since that happened, but as far as I remember -- but I can say that we viewed a place per week. ... I can say in approximately between 40 to 50 places.

Sandweg 28

Q  Did you ever see an advert for premises at Sandweg 28 in Frankfurt?

[...a headquarters of the PFLP-GC cell busted in October, building altimeter bombs like may have downed Flight 103...]

A  I can't remember precisely where that is, but we looked for several places in Frankfurt, but I can't remember all the places.  Even if I was taken to Frankfurt, I might not be able to point out the places -- all the places that we had viewed.

Q  All right.  Does that address mean anything to you now, then?

A  Which address are you referring to?

Q  Sandweg 28 in Frankfurt.

A  It doesn't ring a bell in my recollection.  The only thing that I remember in Frankfurt is my old address and some old addresses that I still keep in contact with them.  Apart from that, I can't remember any other addresses.

21 December, Frankfurt Airport

(cross examination)

Q  ... When you checked in on the 21st of December of 1988 through Pan Am employee Irene Reijheus, did you tell her that you had visited London often and did not require a visa?  It's a simple question, Mr. Taheri.  Did you tell her?

A  I can't remember if I had told anything to her, because I travel in a normal way. You just check in, and you show your documents if required. 

...

Q  Well, if Ms. Reijheus felt so alarmed by what she saw that she called up her colleague, Jasmine Sadiq, to help her with you ... If Ms. Sadiq, Jasmine Sadiq, who was also an employee of  Pan Am, remembered seeing you at the check-in, and indicated that you looked very nervous, can you explain why she would have that view, if this was a perfectly normal check-in by you, Mr. Taheri?

A  Yes.  People usually get upset if they have a fight, but I was very happy and pleased. I was not upset at all, and I was looking forward to arrive to London to meet my friends and my future wife.  There was no disturbance at all.

Catering 

Q  Now, just two final matters.  Your intention was to work in the catering industry; is that right?

[...]

A  Yes.  In English it's called take-away. I was, yes, in such a place.

Q  Where did you get that idea, as a teacher, that you would move into catering?

A  I tried to work in my specialization, but I couldn't find any job.  I followed some courses, but it was very difficult to find the job that I wanted.  Therefore, I started thinking of finding some other job with a -- more profit.

Q  Did the German police tell you that that was another coincidence in your account? Because the individuals who were arrested in connection with the possession of arms, ammunitions, and explosives, at the address you had in your notebook, were also concerned in the catering industry, which they used as a convenient front for their activities. So here we've got another coincidence, Mr. Taheri.  Now, these may be coincidences, but there is now four of them.

Training

A  Yes, I was asked by the German police regarding these matters and if I came across  anything to do with ammunition.  Yes, I said I had served in the Iranian army for two years, and in the first six months, I was trained in arms and ammunition in Iran.

Q  There is maybe a fifth coincidence coming along, Mr. Taheri.  You are a trained individual in weapons?

A  Yes, this is correct, because I had a training in my military service, and then after I finished my military service, I worked as a teacher in the villages in Iran.

Helsinki

Q  Now, I think the West German police said to you that if you were not involved in the tragedy that happened to Pan Am 103, did you, with your connections, have any idea who might be involved; is that right?  They asked you that question?

A  Yes, it is correct.

Q  And you told them to look somewhere in particular, didn't you?

A  I don't know what you are referring to.

Q  Well, let's see if I can jog your memory.  Did you direct their attention to the Iranian embassy in Helsinki?

A  No, I haven't contacted Iranian embassy at all.  I had been to Helsinki just as a tourist.

Q  We are at cross purposes.  When the German police asked you if you could help them by giving advice on who might be responsible, did you say to them that they should look at the Iranian embassy in Helsinki?

A  No, I was not asked about the Iranian embassy in Helsinki by the German police, but they only asked my point of view regarding that incident.  And I said I don't know.

Q  My Lord, that's all I ask.

LORD SUTHERLAND:  Mr. Keen.

MR. KEEN:  No questions.

LORD SUTHERLAND:  Advocate Depute. 

MR. TURNBULL:  I have no re-examination. Thank you, My Lords.

LORD SUTHERLAND:  Thank you.  That's all. 

"Ramzi Diab"

Posted April 5 2010

Role in the Bomb Plot
Ramzi Diab, as he’s known and called herein, is actually an alias for Salah Kwikas [1], born 24 Sept. 1959, Nazareth [2], and in 1988 a terrorist connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command (PFLP-GC). Diab was one of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for three Israelis in 1985 - an agreement negotiated by PFLP-GC veteran Hafez Dalkamouni. [3] In the fall of 1988, he converged with other GC players, under Dalkamouni’s leadership, in Neuss and Frankfurt West Germany for the plot to destroy American airliners with altimeter bombs.

David Leppard writes how cell ringleader Dalkamouni, after his arrest, told BKA police “he was given the second Toshiba on about 18 October by a man called Ramzi Diab in Frankfurt. It also contained two pressure boxes, two clocks and two platinum plates. Diab, Dalkamouni said, was a member of the military section of the PFLP-GC.” [4] Ludwig DeBraeckeleer writes that on October 22, the day Khreesat started his bomb-making work with that radio and four other units, “Dalkamoni and Khreesat travel to Frankfurt […] At 2pm, they meet Ramzi Diab,” for uncertain reasons. [5] The same author notes the earlier meeting, October 18 at 5:10 PM.

In his early thirties, Diab is a member of Jibril PFLP-GC. After their meeting, Diab left in a car that belongs to Bassam Radi, a member of Adnan Younis terrorist cell. Younis, aka Abu Tarek, is also a member of the PFLP-GC. [6]

Dalkamouni later identified Diab as “a key player in the Lockerbie operation,” wrote Emerson and Duffy. “a courier of some of the bomb-making materials.” [7] Two witnesses, Diab’s flatmate Angelika Berner and his “German instructor, a kindly man named German Hoch” recalled a trip to Vienna Austria that Diab said he took in about mid-October. Both later told Emerson and Duffy that the BKA left them with a feeling Diab was thought to have “transported … the materials … to make the bombs,” or “transported the explosive material … of the type that exploded at Lockerbie.” [8]

Arrest, Release, Flight
When the mass arrests happened on October 26, Ramzi Diab was found at his house on Querstrasse 4, Frankfort-Main. [9] His documents were deemed fake, and there was no information on his arrest report other than birthdate. [10] “Under questioning by the BKA, Diab adamantly denied knowing Dalkamouni or being a member of the PFLP-GC,” wrote Emerson and Duffy in 1990. He then recalled meeting the boss, in passing, when presented with photos of him with Dalkamouni. [11]

He was released the very next day, along with most of those hauled in, for “lack of evidence.” The guns and bombs and any plots were all decided to be on Dalkamouni, Khreesat, and Ghadanfar alone. Like so many others, he fled upon release; Leppard cited a later BKA report that Diab “left the Federal Republic of Germany a few days after being released, present whereabouts unknown, possibly Austria.” [12]

This flight was probably guessed from the stories of Diab’s acquaintances Berner and Hoch, testifying to an earlier trip thataway. “One witness, a student called German Hock,” Leppard fumbled, “said he had seen Diab leaving Frankfurt on a train to Vienna. Under his arm was a Toshiba radio.” [13] That’s rather a twist, and unclear if this was the pre-arrest trip or his flight after. At trial, BKA officer Anton Van Treek was asked “when [Diab] was released, was he in possession of a radio/cassette recorder?” and responded simply “I am unable to say anything on that.” [14] The transcripts also offer a full list of October 26 arrestees, including Diab, released the following day, and, interestingly, his teacher friend German Hoch was among those hauled in, also released on the 27th. [15]

Diab is sometimes cited as the man who brought in one radio for modification and slipped away with one armed – both tasks also attributed to “Abu Elias.” An anonymous online comment says “one of Khreesat's bombs however, had been smuggled out of the West German apartment by the PFLP-GC terrorist Ramzi Diab.” [16] In his 1989 series of articles in the Sunday Times, David Leppard explained that the missing fifth bomb made by Khreesat “was smuggled to Malta by a known PFLP-GC terrorist called Ramzi Diab, and handed over to a Palestinian cell there.” [17] This whole theory died in its infancy, but not before spawning a TV movie.

Wherever he got away to and whatever with, as Emerson and Duffy wrote in early 1990 “Lockerbie investigators would like to find Diab, but they have been unable to do so.” But he wasn’t universally considered a villain; “some senior officials” had suspected that Diab called in the BKA raid, and “the Germans were told by Diab’s handlers that everything was under control” with the one bomb seized. “If Ramzi Diab was the second informant, as some investigators believe, he may not have known about Khreesat’s other four bombs, and if that is so, German authorities would would have been using Diab’s partial truth to confirm Khreesat’s wholesale lie.” [18] Further, the writers mused:

“For whom was Diab really working? Again, as with Marwan Khreesat, American investigators are not sure. Some believe that he had convinced the Germans that he was genuinely working for them. Others believe he may have been an informant for Israel. Some intelligence officials believe that, in an even stranger twist, there were Syrian informants in or connected to Dalkamouni’s network … just in case [Jibril] was not as forthcoming as he had promised.”[19]

David Leppard’s slightly later work On the Trail of Terror stated “the CIA had discovered that the other ‘mole’ inside Dalkamouni’s cell was Ramzi Diab.” The Agency, via lead investigator Vincent Cannistraro, believed Diab may have secured Khreesat’s fifth bomb and “may have taken it back to Syria.” It didn’t go well if so - on his return, Leppard writes, “Jibril is understood to have held a tribunal: he wanted to know how the BKA had managed so comprehensively to wind up his European network” Though Dalkamouni blamed Khreesat, “Jibril drew his own conclusions. Ramzi Diab was executed shortly afterwards.” [20] DeBraeckeleer says “the tribunal established that Diab was a mole for the MOSSAD.” [21] It was after this execution, Cannistraro told Leppard, that Jibril contracted with the Libyans to finish the job. [22]
---

Sources:
[1, 3, 10, 11] Emerson and Duffy. pp 134-135
[2, 4, 9] Leppard, David. pp 10-11
[5] De Breackeleer, Ludwig. “Abu Elias Arrives in Germany: Diary of a Vengeance Foretold, part 112.” Canada Free Press. October 22 2008. http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6194
[6] De Breackeleer, Ludwig. “What a Tragedy, What A Mess… Diary of a Vengeance Foretold, part 108.” Canada Free Press. October 18 2008.
[7] Emerson and Duffy p 262
[8] E+D pp 209-211
[12, 13] Leppard 13
[14] Day 76, p 8718
[15] p 9358
[16] http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=3298349
comment 29.
[17] Foot, p 6
[18, 19] Emerson and Duffy p 262
[20, 22] Leppard pp 211-212
[21] PFLP-GC Tribunal Sentences Ramzi Diab to death. Part 124 – NOVEMBER 3 1988
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6746