By Franz Schurmann

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Prediction #69 for Tuesday, July 18, 2000

The outcome of the Lockerbie trial held at Kamp van Zeist, Netherlands, will at the least prove embarrassing to the American and British governments. There also is a possibility that the curtains that have long hidden Middle Eastern special ops from public view could finally be lifted.

"If the outcome of the trial is as embarrassing for my government as I suspect it will be,I have some sympathy for their position. But not much."

Basis for the Prediction:

On December 21, 1988 a PanAm Boeing 747 exploded above the small town of Lockerbie in Scotland. On the aircraft were 243 passengers and 16 crew members. None survived. Within a week it was determined that it was not an accident but a bomb. There followed one of the most intensive investigations ever of a terrorist act. On the scene, other than law enforcement, were operatives of British, American and German intelligence services.

In mid-1990, just before Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Washington Post and the London times cited CIA sources to the effect that a radical Palestinian group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), based in Syria, was the perpetrator of the terrorist act. The theory was that the group was paid by the Ayatollah Khomeini in revenge for the shooting down in the Persian Gulf of an Iranian Airbus on July 3, 1988 by the American warship Vincennes that was carrying 290 Iranian pilgrims to Mecca.

But it came as something of a "surprise" in the words of Lockerbie born lawyer Robert Black who since then played a key role in the Lockerbie story that on 14 November, 1991, Scottish and American authorities indicted two members of Lybian intelligence services as the perpetrators. It was only on April 5, 1999 that Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima and Abdul Basset al-Megrahi were indicted. A good part of the reason for the delay was that the Libyans refused to be tried in Scotland, the site of the alleged terror act. A compromise was eventually realized to hold the trial in the Netherlands but with Scottish law and judges prevailing.

The reason the As-Sharq al-Ausat called this week's trial events decisive is that the beginning of the story of the bombing began in the Maltese Republic, an island in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia. The Maltese, though entirely Roman Catholic, speak an Arabic dialect readily understood by North Africans. Though Libya was long shunned by the West Malta had good relations with Libya. And Col. Qadhafi reciprocated through his country's large oil revenues,

The investigators found convincing evidence in the plane's debris that the bomb was in a suitcase stuffed with clothing. That clothing was traced to a shop in Valetta, Malta's capital. The name of the shop was Mary's House (English is widely spoken because Malta was a British colony until it gained its independence after WW II). The owner Anthony Gauci earlier testified that he recognized al-Megrahi. However his identification became shaky when he was shown a photograph of Mohammad Abu Talb, a Lebanese member of the PFLP, and said it was Megrahi.

The shakiness of Gauci's testimony fits the strategy of the defense that argues that their clients are innocent and that such evidence as there is points to the PFLP. Western coverage of the trial is mostly straight reporting. The Arabic press also is objective. Thus the Al-Sharq al-Ausat generally notes that both prosecution and defense have scored points so far. However the Arabic press raises questions that, to my knowledge, have not been in the Western media.

I'll come to the key question shortly. First I have to fill in some details of why Malta has become the site and situation where the trial will be decided. The prosecution alleges that al-Megrahi and Fahima entered Malta on December 20, 1988, the day before the destruction of the Pan Am plane. The prosecution charges Fahima came in through a false name. Their aim was to get the bomb ready and then get in on board an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt. There the suitcase would be transferred to the Pan Am plane which was scheduled to land in London for a short stop and then proceed to New York.

Parts of the bomb's timing device were found in the debris. The device was traced to two Germans and some Czechs. A German witness testified earlier about the device. Investigators have reasoned that if the plane had not been delayed in London the bomb would have exploded over the mid-Atlantic and recovering debris would have been very difficult. But it did explode over Lockerbie and fragments of both clothes and timer were recovered.

Here is where the key question mentioned in the Arabic papers comes in. They mention a third Libyan by a certain Abdul-Majeed Ja'aaka (uncertain English spelling). Ja'aaka was a member of Libyan intelligence. But he also has been protected for the last ten years under the FBI's witness protection program. The As-Sharq al-Ausat writes:

"It seems that the prosecution is going to delay the testimony of the Libyan witness Abdul-Majeed Ja'aaka who is up to a point under American security protection. According to informed sources Ja'aaka who says he worked with Megrahi and Fahima in Malta will testify that they got the bomb ready and put it inside the plane. Ja'aaka hopes that this will force the prosecution to free him from prosecution."

Then the paper asks the key question. "From what the sources say Ja'aaka was in contact with the Americans before the Pan Am tragedy occurred. So the question arises: why didn't the Americans, knowing that Ja'aaka was close to Megrahi and Fahima do something to prevent the tragedy?"

In the final words of a long account of his work as mediator between Britain and Libya, Robert Black says:

"I feel a distinct measure of pride in the part that I, a Lockerbie boy born and bred, a simple professor of law, played in bringing [the trial] about. I have reason to suspect, however, that my government feels no sense of gratitude towards me. If the outcome of the trial is as embarrassing for them as I suspect it will be, I have some sympathy for their position. But not much."