Lockerbie – At Last The Facts

The established narrative on the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, which resulted in the deaths of all 259 aboard Boeing 747 Clipper Maid Of The Seas, along with eleven people on the ground, is that the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi was responsible. To this end, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the attack, though later released.

A PanAm 747 similar to the plane bombed over Lockerbie

There was only one problem with this line: it was crap. The attack had already been traced to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) and one Abu Jibril, who had no qualms about killing so many innocent people. His client was the regime in Tehran, who ordered the bombing as payback for the earlier shooting down of an Iranian Airbus by a rogue US warship.

Why the blame should switch to Libya, and the placing of the bomb go from London’s Heathrow Airport to the feeder flight originating in Frankfurt, is probably down to wanting the Iranians on side when dealing with the increasingly troublesome Saddam Hussein, not wanting to endanger the Middle East peace process, and accomplish these objectives by punishing Saddam’s only declared ally.

How this was achieved is now being revealed, along with the name of the man responsible for placing the bomb, Mohammed Abu Talb. As a report by the excellent Exaro News has shown, the CIA appears to have interfered directly in the investigation in order to take the focus away from Talb – who, it is alleged, was paid a whopping $500,000 for his handiwork – and on to the Libyans.

Talb has been placed in Britain on the day of the bombing. He gave evidence at the trial of al-Megrahi in exchange for immunity from further prosecution. But he has also served around 20 years in prison for bombings across Europe. Jim Swire, who has always doubted the Libyan narrative, has been to the Swedish town of Uppsala, where Talb now lives, to confront him over his involvement.

It seems that Talb circumvented security at Heathrow not through any weakness in its procedures, but by bribing an official to let the suitcase with the explosive device inside through and into the baggage container that would be loaded into the front section of the 747’s hold. It was that straightforward. The idea that al-Megrahi travelled via Malta to Frankfurt was just a smokescreen.

Much of this was established long ago by the late Paul Foot in a Private Eye special entitled “Lockerbie – The Flight From Justice”. Foot named Talb, the PFLP-GC, the Iranian connection and the link to the downed Airbus over the Strait of Hormuz. Now, other investigators are coming to more or less the same conclusion. Perhaps the UK and US Governments could open their files and own up.

The Libyans sponsored terrorism. But they were not responsible for Lockerbie.