PFLP-GC Radio Recycling and the Khreesats' Luggage

Coincidences, or Clues of a frame-Up?
May 28 2010

Onetime suspect in the Lockerbie bombing, Jordanian double-agent Marwan Khreesat, has quite a fascinating tale, laid out in an 1989 interview with FBI special agent Edward Marshman [PDF download] and other sources. Two minor but interesting threads of the story are a curious set of five recurring Toshiba radios, and a matching set of luggage that eerily resembles another I’ve been wondering about.

The Toshibas originated when Khreesat was summoned to Damascus in 1985 and tasked with building five hidden altimeter bombs to show to PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril. Khreesat says he bought five of the same model radio-cassette player - the aptly-named BomBeat 453 – on “Smuggler’s row” in Syria. [p 10] (model at left, but Khreesat's were black) He also secured his own timers and altimeters - four of each - but the pivotal and pricey detonators were apparently provided. [p 32] Khreesat left one bomb radio absent its altimeter and timer, two ready but for loose wires needing soldered, and two fully ready to go. A pin pushed in would arm them, and a sustained climb past a certain altitude would cause the detonation. [p 10]

After Khreesat built these devices, they were shown to Ahmed Jibril, who approved them. Khreesat then disassembled the devices (aside from one shown in 1987 to Jibril’s nephew Abu Elias) “and the components were taken back to the PFLP-GC office,” the report states. [p 10] “The radios themselves were left in Khreesat's cousin's house.” Compared to America’s culture of disposable electronics, these five boom boxes were treated like golden heirlooms passing from hand to hand. Someone was later sent to retrieve them, but the cousins were allowed to keep one and “only four were picked up.” Of these, Khreesat insists he “saw one in an office in Syria being used as a regular radio.” [p 10] The one kept by Khreesat’s cousins “stayed upstairs at the house,” the report continues, until “Khreesat's wife later reclaimed this radio.” [p 10]

Now when he arrived in Neuss, West Germany in mid-October, Khreesat brought his wife with him; he explains that she wanted to visit her brother in prison there, a wish Dalkamouni granted. [p 5]. David Leppard in On the Trail of Terror (1991) reported that they brought a matching luggage set – two brown hardshell Samsonites - and inside Khreesat’s case was a black BomBeat 453. “He had brought it from Damascus,” Leppard writes. [p 6]

But by Khreesat’s story to agent Marshman, it was the wife who had brought this radio from Jordan, after reclaiming it from Syria, “to give to her brother, who was in prison” in Germany. She was reportedly “unable to give this radio to her brother, and this radio was left in Hashem Abassi's house,” where they stayed while in Neuss. “This radio was clean,” Khreesat advised, and he “assumes that it was seized by the Germans.” [p 10] There is a Yaesu FT-211RH that was seized but found to be unmodified [Zeist trial, day 72, pp 8829-31], but I’ve seen no mention of a clean 453 found.

The only sample of that familiar model the BKA are known to have seized was rigged for altitude-based killing and in the trunk (boot) of Dalkamouni’s car when he and Khreesat were arrested on October 26. This was the unit studied by BKA scientists, with Dr. Rainer Gobel measuring time delays between 35 and 45 minutes after the pressure switch.

Leppard seems to have decided that was the BomBeat that Khreesat brought in his case, but the bomb maker’s own story conflicts with that. He says it was yet another of his omnipresent 1985 radios. On October 18 or 19, on returning to his room at Abassi’s place, he found all his supplies laid out across the bed, including his original timers and altimeters, and that Toshiba. [p 17] He didn’t know how any of this got there, but it was presumably brought by Dalkamouni, who handled all his supplies. All the timers and altimeters were the same he used in 1985 [p 32] and the radio “was one of these five radios that he worked on in 1985,” [p 10] while he and his wife just happened to have another of the five there with them.

It’s not clear what this might mean, but for one thing we should wonder if it’s completely accurate. Was Khreesat more involved than he lets on, and brought his own 453 radio to modify? And if his wife really brought one, did he really just leave it in the Abassi home, or did it disappear, say, along with Abu Elias?

And then there are the suitcases – what if these were stolen and used for the bombing? Here we have the bombmaker with brown, hardshell Samsonite suitcases, forensics on the other end suggesting the 103 bomb was in such a case, and between them one credible report - John Bedford’s story - widely noted as seeing one such case quite near the blast area of fateful container 4041. However, few realize he describes two such cases, apparently a matching set. Like the Khressats' (per Leppard). This must be either a fairly steep coincidence, an error by Leppard, or a clue of something else. Khreesat doesn’t mention any missing luggage, and Leppard reports clues that the wife took her bag when she returned home on the 22nd, which of course makes sense.

But other clues point to the infiltrator being essentially framed by the PFLP-GC. Khreesat didn’t even build the bomb that may have done in 103; at least by his own telling, all four of his  own products were (eventually) taken in by the BKA. The fifth device that Abu Elias escaped with was apparently of his own making, and not a black BomBeat 453 (Khreesat thinks it was a bronze Toshiba RT-F423). [p 37] Its modifications were apparently mimicked based on earlier study (1987) of the master's work, and Dalkamouni only had Khreesat do a token finish on this unit (solder two wires) before taking it back to its maker, perhaps just passing it through the Jordanian’s workshop to get his “fingerprints” on it.

Such co-option is one way to respond to an infiltrator in their midst, if they had found that out. If so, Abu Elias might also have secured his own copy of the double-agent’s double Samsonites and put his “Khreesat bomb” in one. It would also do to snag the extra 453 unit (if there indeed was one) to put in the other case.

Even without awareness of this spooky suitcase match, I can imagine how investigators would be apoplectic seeing BomBeat 453 debris at Lockerbie after the famous Khreesat bust weeks earlier. There’s no evidence of such debris and I’m not arguing for this. However, it's an interesting thought, and  if it had been there it would be reflexively covered up with rigor. And otherwise the possibility stand that a clever PFLP-GC worked right around Khreesat, doing the bombing themselves but making it appear like the West's agent had done it.  Embarrassment upon embarrassment as cover, and no surprise, it wasn't looked into.
---

Just a Passing Magic Touch, and the Rest Unseen

Khreesat, Abu Elias, and the Fifth Device
April 15 2010
last edits May 24

ref throughout: Khreesat Advises, PDF

Two Men, Tangled
Setting aside the cartoon storyline of Libyan guilt and dealing with the surprisingly coherent body of discarded facts along the SCOTBOM highway, we’re left with a separate and well-known set of most-likely villains. A cell of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command (PFLP-GC) had formed in Germany in October 1988, convened on behalf of Iran and $10 million to avenge the U.S. shoot-down of Iran Air Flight 655 in July. The cell was not-quite-thwarted with the “Autumn Leaves” raids of October 26; one airliner altimeter bomb and an expert in getting it onto a plane had slipped away, just weeks before Flight 103 blew up in exactly the way it would if the missing bomb had been loaded at Heathrow.

This is a all a common and familiar theme here and elsewhere, but amidst this, there is some confusion over the relative roles and culpability between Jordanian ‘double agent’ bomb-maker Marwan Khreesat and elusive PFLP-GC member “Abu Elias,” supposedly the expert set to sneak the device(s) onto aircraft. The tangle cannot be sorted out with much certainty, as almost all we have is Khreesat’s word, as told in November 1989 to FBI special agent Edward Marshman. Based on his debriefings, Khreesat’s bosses with the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) “produced a composite sketch of Abu Elias,” Marshan noted, and attached a copy to his own report. Khreesat had examined this “and affirmed that the likeness was that of Abu Elias who [sic] he met in Damascus, Syria.” [p 29]

The two met again before Khreesat’s assignment with the PFLP-GC cell in Germany, when he took a separate trip to Yugoslavia. There he was met by Mobdi Goben, the PFLP-GC coordinator for that country, whom he knew as Abu Fuad. Khreesat’s GID case officer had “instructed him not to arm any explosive devices while in Yugoslavia,” and that ”he would be protected while in Yugoslavia.” He didn’t build any bombs while there, but did meet Hafez Dalkamouni, right-hand man to PFLP-GC founder Ahmed Jibril, and (allegedly) Jibril’s nephew Khaisar Haddad, whom Khreesat knew as Abu Elias.

“Khreesat did not know the function of Abu Elias in Yugoslavia,” Marshman’s report notes, “nor did he know the purpose of the meeting that was to be held in Yugoslavia.” [p 5] The meeting itself must be described in the pages not shared at trial, but apparently it was where he was assigned to the cell forming for the big revenge job. “Dalkamoni introduced Khreesat to Abu Elias,” the report states, and “said that Abu Elias was an expert in airport security," and he learned that "in 1987 Abu Elias was shown one of the BomBeat 453s that Khreesat worked on in 1985.” [p 10]

Khreesat's Bench Work
The 1985 job was, as Khreesat related it, to come to Syria and work up five altimeter bombs, similar to those he’d been making since 1970, but inside Toshiba BomBeat 453 model radios. These were for demonstration purposes only, and in different states when inspected. Two were ready to arm, one had no altimeter or timer in it, and "the other two needed two wires to be connected," Marshman recorded. [p 5] Khreesat went to great detail on the later history of each radio unit after being disassembled, but one was apparently kept intact for Jibril to show his nephew, and I'm guessing it was one of the two-wire-short ones (see below).

Strangely, Khreesat's original four altimeters and four timers were brought back to him after he arrived in Germany on October 13 1988, to rebuild as part of his new batch of four bombs. He's not as clear on the pricey detonators.  One of the five 1985 radio housings was also handed back to Khreesat; this completely recycled BomBeat 453 is the unit he and Dalkamouni were arrested with on the 26th. The other IEDs that were intercepted months later, two Ultrasound radios and a computer monitor, were bought by Khreesat and Dalkamouni at a second-hand shop on October 18, according to the report. The fifth device we’ll discuss below.

Abu Elias as Watcher
“Khreesat never saw Abu Elias in Germany,” he told Marshman, but was made well aware of his presence. For October 22 Khreesat recalled Dalkamouni leaving him at the zoo for an hour before taking him back home. Following this:

“There was a lot of traffic on the way home, and on the trip Dalkamoni mentioned that Abu Elias had arrived in Germany that day. Previously Dalkamoni had said that Abu Elias was coming to Germany. Khreesat asked Dalkamoni why Khreesat was there if Abu Elias was such an expert. Dalkamoni replied that Abu Elias was an expert in airport security and Khreesat was the expert in building the IEDs. Abu Elias was of concern to Khreesat because Khreesat felt that he could not render the IEDs inoperable as Abu Elias would probably know it.”

This last is of great importance, as Khreesat started to work on the bombs later that evening. He had presumably taken the same directions from the GID about keeping his bombs dud that he’d been given before Yugoslavia. But here he feels he’s being watched closely and must not disappoint. Thus were born five live altimeter bombs, one of which most likely tore down PA103 two months later. According to Khreesat, Abu Elias was the reason for that.

Following his arrest along with the others on October 26, Khreesat “told the Germans that they should have waited one more day to make the arrests, as Dalkamoni was on the way to meet Abu Elias when they were arrested.” [p 2] Just from the read portions, we have Khreesat repeating this anticipated meeting four times in the report (p 2, 7, 22, 23) Yet “the Germans also asked Khreesat about Abu Elias. Khreesat advised that he did not tell the Germans anything about Abu Elias,” other than he was on his way to meet him, obviously.

The Fifth Device
This trip to bring the mystery man a bomb on the 26th is curious, considering he already got hold of the one he needed – the “fifth device” - two days earlier. This isn’t known but inferred; Marshman’s report has for October 24:

“Around 2.00 p.m. Khreesat took a shower. When Khreesat was in the shower, Dalkamoni knocked on the door and said that he was leaving to go to Frankfurt. After getting out of the shower, Khreesat went back to work on the IEDs. At this time he noticed that the fifth device was no longer in the workroom. He did not pay a lot of attention to this, as he was thinking about the upcoming meeting with Abu Elias. Khreesat speculated that Dalkamoni took the fifth device with him, as only Khreesat and Dalkamoni ever went into the room. After working on the IEDs until late that evening, Khreesat went to bed.” [p 23]

It was only the following day that the agent again called his case officer and said “that he had prepared a device and given it to Abu Elias. Khreesat advised that he had assumed that the fifth device went to Abu Elias, as related above.” [p 24]

The unit used for that escaped IED was brought into the Abbasi home the 22nd in some boxes with the other devices and tools. “Also in the boxes was the fifth device, which was a Toshiba radio/cassette recorder. This device is further described infra. Khreesat does not know where the radio came from. It was not in a new box.” [p 21] He later described it, after looking at a catalog, as a bronze-colored RT-F423 model. [p 37]

The next day, October 23, “Dalkamoni came into the workroom with the fifth device. Dalkamoni told Khreesat that two wires had to be soldered together. Khreesat. […] soldered the two wires together.” He also noted for Marshman numerous strange modifications, some involving cardboard, and said that he “told Dalkamoni that the device was not very good, as the authorities could very easily discover that the radio had been altered into an IED.” The altimeter could be seen beneath the cassette relay. [p 22]

The bomb maker did not know where it came from but thought it might have been “obtained by Dalkamoni when he left Khreesat at the zoo for the hour” the day before. “Khreesat speculated that Dalkamoni may have met Abu Elias, as on the way back to Neuss from the zoo, Dalkamoni mentioned that Abu Elias was in Germany.” [p 20]

It was Built by Abu Elias
Indeed, it’s a decent guess that the interloper brought the fifth device with its (reportedly) sloppy work, and considering his earlier inspections of Khreesat's work, it's even possible he built the thing himself. Some unspecified intelligence held by Arafat’s PLO (among PFLP-GC’s competitors) said as much in 1992, as reported in Time:

The bomb that ended up on the Pan Am jet could have been assembled by Khreesat. However, last month the Palestine Liberation Organization reported that it was built by Khaisar Haddad (a.k.a. Abu Elias), who is also a member of Jibril's Popular Front. Haddad purchased the detonator, the P.L.O. said, on the Beirut black market for more than $60,000. [source]

All this helps clarify what first seemed a rather confusing statement in Marshman’s report.

Khreesat advised that he does not know what type of device was used to bring down Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988. Khreesat advised that he does not think he built the device responsible for Pan Am 103, as he only built the four devices in Germany which are described herein. [p 37]

If Abu Elias built that bomb, then indeed Khreesat only built four devices, none of them the one that apparently escaped with Abu Elias. It almost seems that Khreesat himself suspects the fifth IED - that he only finalized - to have brought down Flight 103, as so many others suspected.

The interloper was apparently to take his work back after Khreesat’s modification and slip away to do his real work. But the modification was one even Dalkamouni knew – solder two wires. Why didn’t Abu Elias just solder it up himself? Why insist on Khreesat’s token touch? If Khreesat’s tales are true, we’re faced with a clue and a mystery about the thinking of Jibril and Dalkamouni. If not, we’re faced with a compound mystery and a lot of small uncertain clues. The issue can now be considered “explored” but nowhere near “resolved.”
---

"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

Marwan Khreesat: How Many Times an Agent?

Caustic Logic 
Completed March 4 2010
last edit June 1

Note, June 1: I'm leaving thispost as-is, but much of it must be qualified by later findings. The text in red below is that explained better in later posts, primarily "A Passing Magic Touch..."
---
A Suspect at Large
Iran’s non-involvement in the Pan Am 103 bombing is one of the few points Washington and Tehran can publicly agree on, while both secretly knowing better. Following the July 1988 shoot-down of Iran Air flight 655, "accident" was not accepted and vengeance was vowed. And as former Iranian president Abdulhassan Bani Sadr told The Maltese Double Cross in 1994, “Iran ordered the attack and Ahmed Jibril carried it out.” [1]

If Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), did carry out the attack, as it seems he was planning, it was through his right-hand man Hafez Dalkamouni. And Dalkamouni’s known plans to that end, operating in West Germany in October 1988, relied on the airliner-bombs made by the experienced Jordanian expert Marwan Khreesat (alt Kreeshat, Khreeshat).

Khreesat reportedly produced five improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Germany during late October 1988. These were apparently all triggered by an altimeter and timer so that the detonation would occur once the plane was well airborne, around 35-45 minutes after takeoff. Pan Am 103 fell apart 38 minutes after taking off from Heathrow. Scottish police and FBI did reject this direct clue as they decided the bomb had first come in from Frankfurt and probably somewhere else before that, and didn’t blow up then. But Scottish police did continue to suspect that a Khreesat bomb, with some hypothesized modification, had gone aboard in Germany.

Paul Foot, in Lockerbie: The Flight from Justice (2001), cited a report compiled by the Dumfries and Galloway police in March 1989, referring to Khreesat, then living freely in Jordan after fleeing from Germany, as "a suspect” they’d like to interview. “There can be little doubt that Khreesat is the bomb-maker for the PFLP-GC," the report is quoted, "and there is a possibility that he prepared the explosive device which destroyed Pan Am 103. As such he should not be at liberty.” [2]

Off The Hook: He’s One of Ours
By now of course Khreesat has been officially absolved of suspicion and remains fully at Liberty. To be sure, he made five deadly altimeter-triggered airliner bombs on behalf of the PFLP-GC, just weeks before the bombing of Pan Am 103. But he did so undercover, for friendly Jordanian intelligence, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID). In testimony at the Camp Zeist trial on December 5 2000, FBI Special Agent Edward Marshman confirmed that Khreesat “would be what we refer to as a -- commonly as a double agent, yes.” [3]

Originally listed as Crown witness 1157, Khreesat declined the invitation to trial, and a report written by Marshman took the place of Khreesat’s testimony. Based on Scots/FBI interviews with the bomb-maker on Nov 12 and 13 1989, the report passes on Khreesat's word that "he was sent to Europe in order to infiltrate the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command; he was sent by the GID and was acting as an agent of the GID at all times” [4]

Scots police officer John Crawford, in The Lockerbie Incident: A Detective's Tale (2002) concluded “there is little doubt that he was a double-agent working for the Jordanian Intelligence Service.” Further, Crawford spoke of “the integrity of Marwan Khreesat, who had assisted [Jordanian authorities] to help the West escape a bombing campaign in the late eighties.” [5] It's highly ironic that he did this by building five airliner bombs, one of which was possibly slipped onto Flight 103. But they were supposed to be phony. Marshman’s Report, referring to a stay in Yugoslavia prior to entering Germany, stated:

“Before Khreesat left for Yugoslavia, he met his GID case officer, who instructed him not to arm any explosive devices while in Yugoslavia. He was told to build any improvised explosive device necessary, but he was instructed to alter the device so that it would not detonate even if used against an Israeli target. Khreesat was told by his case officer that he would be protected while in Yugoslavia.”[6]

Apparently he was to assemble the bombs there ahead of delivery, but it seems the actual work was done later in Germany, and as we’ll see, they were indeed armed to the teeth. The Zeist judgment of 2001 explained: “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.” They also expanded the geographical scope of his ordered harmlessness: “His instructions from [GID] were that any bomb he made must not be primed.” [7]

Even tough he did arm the bombs he made, for whatever reason, it seems almost impossible to deny - if the Jordanian authorities are all in agreement and corroborated his employment and mission - then he was indeed official and undercover. So what did he do within that role?

Field Work
At Jibril’s request, Dalkamouni’s crew had gathered at Hashem Abbasi's flat in Neuss, West Germany (near Frankfurt) in early October to work on the airliner bombing plot. Khreesat first appeared at their flat on October 13 [8] German authorites watched the men for the next two weeks in Operation: Autumn Leaves. They were seen purchasing electronics and mysterious brown stuff, and meeting different people for unheard conversations. [9]

Khreesat’s history with the PFLP-GC was a key alarm; Steve Emerson and Brian Duffy wrote in 1990 “according to Israeli intelligence files, it is almost certain that Jibril, in 1970, was responsible for the very first plane bombing carried out with a barometer-triggered explosive,” and this was done by “Merwad Abd Rezak Mufti Kreeshat” AKA Marwan Khreesat. On Feb 21 1970 two flights from Europe to Israel were bombed the same day with radio-based IEDs. One crashed 15 minutes after takeoff, killing all 47 aboard, while the other was able to land. Khreesat struck again on August 19 1972, with an El Al flight, Rome to Tel Aviv, that again failed to destroy the plane in mid-flight. Khreesat’s work there was decided to be concealed in a record player. [10] [more details]

It’s not clear if he was a double or single agent at the time, but he did some more work in 1985, similarly modifying five Toshiba radios, model BomBeat 453. These were apparently just demos – Jibril was shown how they were done, then Khreesat disassembled them, according to Marshman’s report. [11] And here he was three years later, apparently doing something again. On October 19, Dalkamouni made an intercepted phone call to contacts in Syria, and Khreesat popped on the line to announce “changes in the medicine” that had so far shown a high failure rate. [12] It was like the 1985 operation but for real - five concealed live bombs that were not meant to be broken back down.

According to Marshman’s report, only on October 22nd did Khreesat get to work on building the bombs, after receiving five new electronic items, including “a Toshiba radio/cassette recorder … not in a new box.” [13] As for the model, he was later shown a catalog and decided it “looked exactly like a model RT-F423 radio/cassette recorder. It was bronze in colour just like the model in the catalogue” that he was shown.” He did specify some knob modifications in the one he saw. [14]

That same day, another player arrived in Nuess; “Khreesat never saw Abu Elias in Germany,” Marshman’s report states, “but was told by Dalkamoni that Abu Elias had arrived. (This occurred on October the 22nd, 1988)” [15] This mysterious terrorist was to link up with Khreesat’s bombs and arrange the airport security end, or how to get the IEDs onto the aircraft. [16]

It never was determined which target(s) they had in mind, but the police made their move on the evening of October 26. Khreesat and Dalkamouni were arrested on their way to meet Elias, with one altimeter bomb in the trunk of their car. It was in a black Toshiba Bombeat 453 radio cassette recorder, with an altimeter set to detonate 312 grams of Semtex-H.[17] The base apartment and another were raided and over a dozen suspects taken in, along with a huge weapons and explosives cache, the largest “ever found in the Federal Republic” [18]

All the apartment arrestees but one – eleven total – were released by a Judge for lack of evidence. Besides Dalkamouni and Khreesat, only Abdel Ghadanfar, who claimed the weapons cache (educational props, he said), remained in custody. [19] And then Khreesat made his one phone call and soon the German authorities were getting a call from Jordanian intelligence asking for their man back. And he was sent back, leaving two of fourteen.

And that's just the people. Only the altitude-triggered bomb radio in Dalkamouni’s car was recovered. As far as anyone knew, all that trouble had been to build only one deadly bomb, and that was safely in custody.

Lost in the Shuffle?
Then, less than two months after Marwan Khreesat stepped off the plane back in Jordan, another plane was destroyed just after leaving Heathrow airport in London on the Winter Solstice. The Autumn Leaves had been shaken down, raked, sorted, and bagged, it had seemed. Now one could wonder if a stray leaf had drifted across the channel and lighted in the belly of Pan Am 103. What if those Neuss bombers had made a second bomb?

Emerson and Duffy reported that unspecified U.S. intelligence officials learned “in the early part of February [1989],” that “Marwan Kreeshat had surfaced,” and was ready to help. “And this is what the man said: He had made five bomb in Germany, not one. At least that’s what the Jordanians told the U.S. officials.” [20] A sworn statement followed to clarify that's what he meant to say, stating that if they hadn’t been intercepted already, the remaining IEDs were still in the Neuss flat - the one that was raided for suspected bomb-radio-type work.

This spurred the FBI to urge the German BKA to find the remaining bombs. After initially insisting there could be no more, they finally re-checked the Abbassi home (or rather, his storage by then) and found two suspect radio tuners on April 13 [21]. In an inexplicable episode at BKA headquarters, a bomb tech named Sonntag was killed and another (Ettinger) was maimed while trying to defuse one of these on April 17 [22] Following this unusual scare, the BKA destroyed the other bomb in revenge rather than study it, and again checked Abbasi’s storage for anything electronic at all. They netted another IED, again with Semtex and altimeter, this time concealed in a computer monitor. [23]

On April 26 Hafez Dalkamouni, still in custody, was told he might be charged with the murder of Sonntag and agreed to talk. But then he said the bombs were to go back to Israel to kill Israelis in the high mountains. [24] Khreesat in Jordan was giving them details but they weren’t encouraging; if indeed there were five airliner bombs built, the tally is thus – one captured in October, three found later in Neuss, leaving a fifth one unaccounted for. Writing in early 1990, Emerson and Duffy filled in the gap with “the fifth bomb, investigators believe, blew up […] over Lockerbie.” [25] So how did, or would, this slip through the double-agent’s careful control? Marshman’s report, again from Khreesat’s own self-exculpation, said for 24 October:

“Around 2.00 p.m. Khreesat took a shower. When Khreesat was in the shower, Dalkamoni knocked on the door and said that he was leaving to go to Frankfurt. After getting out of the shower, Khreesat went back to work on the IEDs. At this time he noticed that the fifth device was no longer in the workroom. He did not pay a lot of attention to this, as he was thinking about the upcoming meeting with Abu Elias. Khreesat speculated that Dalkamoni took the fifth device with him, as only Khreesat and Dalkamoni ever went into the room. After working on the IEDs until late that evening, Khreesat went to bed." [26]
[…]
"[The following day] Khreesat told his case officer that he had prepared a device and given it to Abu Elias. Khreesat advised that he had assumed that the fifth device went to Abu Elias, as related above." [27]

So believing Elias was already given one bomb on the 24th, and telling his handlers on the 25th, Agent Marwan went along to bring a second one on the 26th until he was intercepted by the BKA. “Khreesat told the Germans that they should have waited one more day to make the arrests,” Marshman’s report noted, “as Dalkamoni was on the way to meet Abu Elias when they were arrested.” [28] The arrest being too soon might be a good complaint if he was talking minutes and miles - they could've ambushed them right and got all three. But he said "one more day," by which time Elias might well be gone with his two bombs. Khreesat had met Elias before, in Syria he says, and was able to help the GID make a composite sketch. [29] He’s never been found.

If this is undercover work, it’s sloppy, and sloppy with bombs is no good. For whatever reason, Khreesat clearly broke the rule against making live bombs, left them lying around amongst known terrorists who wanted to use them, and waited a day before alerting anyone that one of his pieces had disappeared. Khreesat may have been working to help the West, but certainly not with any coordination to ensure a tight net collected all the bombs and runners. The German BKA had no idea of his supposed operation, and didn’t even know there were plural devices. Neither Khreesat nor the GID apparently let them know this basic fact, as a note on the way out or at any time until after the Lockerbie bombing. Such negligence could easily lead to a tragedy like that, and to charges of being a triple agent – only playing at playing the PFLP-GC.

But however murky all of this is, the FBI and the Scots agreed with Khreesat that his bombs were not responsible, and there is one overriding reason for this.

Just Not His Style
The main things that helped the case shift away from a Khreesat bomb was the physical evidence that had been involved in the explosion. Or at least said to have been. Again, the official device was probably 450-650 grams Semtex-H, triggered by a Libyan-linked MST-13 timer, set in a Libya-linked Toshiba RT-SF16 model radio. We can be sure since the whole front page of its manual survived.

The manual is what convinced the judges of the radio make, and its supposed Libya clues helped them, in small part, hand down the guilty verdict for al Megrahi. As to why they could easily brush the PFLP-GC and its bomb-maker aside, they explained:

“Moreover, while he himself did not give evidence, there was evidence of a statement given by him to FBI agents (production 1851) in which he said that he never used radio cassette players with twin speakers (such as the Toshiba RT-SF 16 had) to convert into explosive devices.” [30]

Please! He's used radios, record players, computer monitors, vacuum cleaners for all we know. But he couldn't possibly use a radio cassette player with two speakers? Near the trial’s end, the Crown’s Mr. Campbell re-explained how

“[A]n examination of the evidence makes it clear that the components available to the PFLP-GC were of a quite different variety. The radios were of a single-speaker version, and indeed the fifth device described by Khreesat was of a single-speaker type.

The timer used by the PFLP-GC was known as an ice-cube timer and was used in conjunction with a barometric device. It was a very unsophisticated and unstable device. Mr. Orkin of the CIA explained the difference between such a timer and the highly sophisticated MST-13 timer on day 71, 8804." [31]

After discounting the possible Stasi link that some have wondered as a route to get the timers to the PFLP-GC, Campbell summarized “there is, therefore, in my submission, no evidence that would raise a reasonable doubt in Your Lordships' mind with respect to” the PFLP-GC and their friend Mr. Khreesat as suspects. [32]

Marshman’s report concluded “Khreesat advised that he does not know what type of device was used to bring down Pan Am Flight 103 “ and that “he does not think he built the device responsible for Pan Am 103, as he only built the four devices in Germany which are described herein.” [33] As Paul Foot aptly noted “‘Described herein’, however, were not four devices but five, and the missing one was disguised as a Toshiba cassette recorder.” [34] It wasn’t a RT-SF16, so that point is a bit moot, but still he admitted there was a bomb missing. DI John Crawford described a later trip to Jordan, in mid-2000. This “walking-on-eggshells job” was described thus:

“It was obvious that what was required was for him to testify that he had no part in building the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103, it was a totally different bomb than the ones he had built in the 1970s and 1980s, the timer was also much different from the ones he favoured in his bombs.” [35]

Indeed, what was found by RARDE folks like Hayes and Feraday was not Agent Marwan’s style. He did not use Libyan-linked RT-SF16s with two speakers, small spaces, and indestructiable paper manuals. He didn’t use Libyan-linked MST-13 timers to send the bomb from Malta through Frankfurt to London, by way of Libyan agents using the brown suitcase Giaka saw. His bombs had no special powers to blank out Frankfurt's luggage records, nor to replace the Bedford suitcases in their corner of AVE4041. This, in fact, makes them more real, and dangerous, and worth consideration.

There is no real disconnect between the PFLP-GC’s bomb and the one on 103 if we accept the following: one Khreesat bomb slipped away, was packed into a copper-brown hardshell Samsonite and transported by surface to London. There it was slipped into he most dangerous corner of AVE4041 two hours before the plane took off. All we need then for all the evidence to match up is to disappear the remains of that RT-F423-like radio (around 550 grams of Semtex might do that) and introduce the implausibly large timer and radio chunks that indicate Libya with such cartoonish clarity (certain RARDE operatives might do that).
---
[1] 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
[2] Foot, Paul. Lockerbie: The Flight From Justice. Private Eye, 2001. 30 pages.
[3] IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICIARY AT CAMP ZEIST - Case No: 1475/99: HER MAJESTY’S ADVOCATE v ABDELBASET ALI MOHMED AL MEGRAHI and AL AMIN KHALIFA FHIMAH. Camp Zeist (Kamp van Zeist), The Netherlands, 3 May 2000 to 31 January 2000. Computerised transcription of the proceedings using LiveNote. 10,241 pages in 86 volumes. Copyright 2000, Scottish Court Service. Anonymous donation to The Lockerbie Divide. Day 76, December 5 2000. Edward Marshman, witness no. 540. p 9259
[4] ibid. p 9272
[5] Crawford, John. The Lockerbie Incident: A Detective's Tale Trafford Publishing 2002. 351 pages. Gogle Books pp 160, 163
[6] See [3], p 9273
[7] Opinion of the Court. Delivered 31 January 2001. PDF link: http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf
[8]Emerson, Steven and Brian Duffy “The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation” New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1990. p 208.
[9] ibid. pp 128-29
[10] ibid. pp 114-115
[11] Transcripts, Day 76, pp 9275-76
[12] Emerson and Duffy, p 129
[13] Transcripts, Day 76, pp 9254-55
[14] Transcripts, Day 76, p 9268
[15] Transcripts, Day 76, p 9244
[16] Transcripts, Day 76, 9250
[17] Transcripts, Day 72 (November 20 2000), pp 8829-31, also Leppard p. 11
[18] Emerson and Duffy p 132
[19] Emerson and Duffy p 133
[20] Emerson and Duffy pp 176-77
[21] Emerson and Duffy p 206
[22], [23] Emerson and Duffy p 208
[24] Emerson and Duffy p 209-10
[25] Emerson and Duffy p 255
[26] Transcripts, Day 72 p 9258
[27] Transcripts, Day 72 p 9260
[28] Transcripts, Day 72 p 9244
[29] Transcripts, Day 72 p 9264
[30] See [7]
[31], [32] Transcripts, Day 79 (January 10, 2001), p 9525-26
[32] 9525-26
[33] Transcripts, Day 76, p 9268
[34] Foot, Paul. Lockerbie: The Flight From Justice. Private Eye, 2001. 30 pages. p 23.
[35] Crawford, p 160