Whilimena

Here again the Enterprise found itself in a situation and sought to 'take out' this Pam Am Flight.

Bogeyman Muammar Ghadaffi was blamed so that a few millions could be milked out of him.

We give you an overview of the Lockerbie Scam:

From 'turn that s... up'

Lockerbie: CIA witness gagged by US government

FORMER CIA agent who claims Libya is not responsible for the Lockerbie
bombing is being gagged by the US government under state secrecy laws
and faces 10 years in prison if herevealsanyinformation about the
terrorist attack.
United Nations diplomats are outraged that the US government is
apparently suppressing a potential key trial witness. Diplomats are now
demanding that the CIA agent, Dr Richard Fuisz, be released from the
gagging order. Fuisz, a multi-millionaire businessman and
pharmaceutical researcher, was, according to US intelligence sources,
the CIA's key operative in the Syrian capital Damascus during the 1980s
where he also had business interests.
One month before a court order was served on him by the US government
gagging him from speaking on the grounds of national security, he spoke
to US congressional aide Susan Lindauer,
telling her he knew the identities of the Lockerbie bombers and
claiming they were not Libyan.
Lindauer, shocked by Fuisz's claims, immediately compiled notes on the
meeting which formed the basis of a later sworn affidavit detailing
Fuisz's claims. One month after their conversation, in October 1994, a
court in Washington DC issued an order barring him from revealing any
information on the grounds of "military and state secrets privilege".
Congressional aide Lindauer, who was involved in early negotiations
over the Lockerbie trial, claims Fuisz made "unequivocal statements to
me that he has first-hand knowledge about the Lockerbie case". In her
affidavit, she goes on: "Dr Fuisz has told me that he can identify who
orchestrated and executed the bombing. Dr Fuisz has said that he can
confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or
executing the bombing of PanAm 103, either in any technical or advisory
capacity whatsoever."
Fuisz's statements to Lindauer support the claims of the two Libyans
accused who are to incriminate a number of terrorist organisations,
including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command, which had strong links to Syria and Iran.

_______________________
The Lockerbie Bombing Trial: Is Libya Being Framed?
by Gary C. Gambill

Lockerbie wreckage
The wreckage from Pan Am Flight 103 (Greg Bos/Reuters)
Scotland's Sunday Herald reported last week that the U.S. government placed a gag order on a former CIA agent to prevent him from testifying in the trial of two Libyans accused of carrying out the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people.

Dr. Richard Fuisz, a wealthy businessman and pharmaceutical researcher who was a major CIA operative in Damascus during the 1980s, told a congressional staffer in 1994 that the perpetrators of the bombing were based in Syria. "If the government would let me, I could identify the men behind this attack . . . I can tell you their home addresses . . . you won't find [them] anywhere in Libya. You will only find [them] in Damascus," Fuisz told congressional aide Susan Lindauer, who has submitted a sworn affidavit describing this conversation to the Scottish court that is trying the two suspects.

One month after their meeting, a Washington DC court issued a ruling that prohibits Fuisz from discussing the Lockerbie bombing on national security grounds. When a reporter called Fuisz last month with questions about Lindauer's affidavit, he replied: "That is not an issue I can confirm or deny. I am not allowed to speak about these issues. In fact, I can't even explain to you why I can't speak about these issues." The report quoted a senior UN official who has seen the affidavit as saying that "in the interests of natural justice, Dr. Fuisz should be released from any order which prevents him telling what he knows of the PanAm bombing."1

The investigation into the bombing by Scottish police and the FBI initially focused exclusively on evidence linking the blast to the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), a radical Palestinian group closely allied with Syrian President Hafez Assad and other senior officials. However, the investigation suddenly changed courses after Syria joined the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq in 1991 and Iran stayed neutral. In November of that year, U.S. investigators issued indictments against two alleged Libyan intelligence agents and President George Bush declared that Syria had taken a "bum rap" on Lockerbie.

Fuisz is not the first to run afoul of the U.S. government for speaking about Syrian and Iranian complicity in the Lockerbie bombing. Juval Aviv, the president of Interfor, a New York corporate investigative company hired by Pan Am to conduct an inquiry into the bombing, was indicted for mail fraud after Interfor announced its conclusion that the PFLP-GC had been responsible.2 A former agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lester Coleman, was charged by the FBI with "falsely procuring a passport" while he was researching a book entitled Trail of the Octopus which fingered the PFLP-GC (Coleman left the country and published the book in Britain).3 William Casey, a lobbyist who made similar claims about PFLP-GC involvement, said in 1995 that the U.S. Justice Department had frozen his bank accounts and federal agents scoured through his garbage cans.4

The Case Against Libya

Al-Megrahi and Fahima
A courtroom sketch of Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi (center), and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima (right) during the trial proceedings on May 5. (Fred Ernst/Reuters)
The prosecution's claim is that two Libyan intelligence agents, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, planted Semtex plastic explosives inside a Toshiba radio-cassette recorder in an unaccompanied suitcase on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was transferred onto Pan Am flight 103, bound for New York via London's Heathrow airport.

The first important chain of evidence links the bomb-laden suitcase on Flight 103 to Air Malta Flight KT180. Fragments of the Toshiba radio-cassette recorder were found inside a brown Samsonite suitcase, the only piece of luggage on the Flight 103 that was not checked by a passenger. The suitcase had entered the baggage system at Frankfurt at the same time and location as the Air Malta flight was unloading. According to prosecutors, a tattered shirt with a Maltese label containing fragments of the timing device was found by a Scottish man walking his dog 18 months after the explosion (fabric samples from the shirt were said to indicate that it was inside the brown suitcase).

However, Air Malta's computer records show no indication that a brown Samsonite suitcase was on board Flight KT180, and the notion that an old man walking his dog would stumble across a key piece of evidence a year and a half after the explosion is a bit far-fetched. Moreover, according to a forensic report which the defense will present during the trial, a bomb in a suitcase stored in the aluminum luggage containers could not have created the dinner plate-sized hole in the fuselage that brought down the plane--the bomb would have had to be directly next to the plane's fuselage. If this true, then the prosecution's entire explanation of how the bomb arrived on the aircraft in Malta falls apart.

A second chain of evidence links the two Libyan suspects to Malta. Detectives traced the charred remains of clothing tattered shirt to a clothing shop in Sliema, Malta, whose owner, Tony Gauci, said that he recalled selling the clothes to a tall Arab male, about 50 years old, in the fall of 1988. Investigators say he later identified the man who bought the clothes as Megrahi. However, Megrahi was only 36 at the time, and Gauci greatly overestimated his height. Moreover, a member of the PFLP-GC, Muhammed Abu Talb, was originally identified as the man who bought the clothes during the early stages of the investigation.5

A third primary piece of evidence said to implicate Libya are two fragments of an electronic circuit board from the the timing device that detonated the explosives on board the airliner. Investigators traced the fragments to a Swiss company which manufactures electronic timers, Mebo Telecommunications. The head of Mebo Communications, Edwin Bollier, told investigators that the fragments came from an MST-13 timer he had sold to the Libyan government. However, Bollier recently said he had made the identification solely from looking at photographs of the fragments. When he was shown one of the actual fragments in September 1999, he concluded that "the fragment does not come from one of the timers we sold to Libya." Bollier says that it appears to come from one of the three prototypes built by his company--two of which were sold to the Institute of Technical Research in East Germany (a front for the Stasi intelligence service), while the third was stolen. He intends to testify to this at the trial, as will Owen Lewis, a British forensic expert.6

A fourth important piece of evidence is the testimony of a former Libyan intelligence officer who will identify the two suspects as members of Libya's intelligence service. While details of what he told investigators are scarce, sources close to the defense have said that it is highly questionable.

A number of irregularities in the investigation also detract from the plausibility of the prosecution's claims. The American FBI agent who was instrumental in pushing the Libya hypothesis, J. Thomas Thurman, was later suspended for manipulating evidence to favor the prosecution in subsequent cases.7

The Case Against Syria/Iran

The primary hypothesis guiding the investigation for the first year was that the bombing was perpetrated by the Syria-based PFLP-GC, presumably acting on behalf of Iran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had vowed to retaliate for the U.S. Navy's July 1988 downing of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf, saying that the skies would "rain blood" and offering a $10 million reward to anyone who "obtained justice" for Iran. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, Teheran's envoy in Damascus in 1988, was believed to have recruited the financially-strapped group for the task.

Two months before the disaster, German police arrested 15 terrorist suspects, all connected to the PFLP-GC, and confiscated three explosive devices consisting of Semtex hidden inside Toshiba cassette recorders--nearly identical to the one used in the Lockerbie bombing ( the only major difference being that they had barometric triggers, rather than electronic timers of the type that investigators claim detonated the explosives on board Pan Am flight 103). Moreover, U.S. officials reportedly had received advance warnings that a flight to New York would be targeted around the time of the Lockerbie bombing. In fact, Stephen Green, a senior Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) administrator, John McCarthy, the U.S. Ambassador to Beirut, and several other U.S. officials were originally scheduled to fly on the ill-fated airliner on December 21, but rescheduled at the last minute.

It's possible that the PFLP smuggled the bomb on board Pan Am flight 103 from Malta. Abu Talb was sighted in Malta just weeks before the bombing. When he was later arrested in Sweden, police found the date of the Lockerbie explosion (December 21) circled on his calender.8

This and most other evidence linking the Lockerbie bombing to the PFLP-GC is largely circumstantial and difficult to substantiate, if only because the results of the FBI's early investigation into its involvement were not made public. The question is: Given the weaknesses in the case against Libya, why was the investigation into PFLP-GC involvement suspended and should it be reactivated if the two Libyan defendants are acquitted?..."

____________________
LockerbieScam
Related topic

* Lockerbie
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=184

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1855852005


Scotland on Sunday Sun 28 Aug 2005
Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
MARCELLO MEGA

A FORMER Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.

The retired officer - of assistant chief constable rank or higher - has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.

The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, gave the statement to lawyers representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, currently serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison.

The evidence will form a crucial part of Megrahi's attempt to have a retrial ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The claims pose a potentially devastating threat to the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system.

The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses "wrote the script" to incriminate Libya.

Last night, George Esson, who was Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway when Megrahi was indicted for mass murder, confirmed he was aware of the development.

But Esson, who retired in 1994, questioned the officer's motives. He said: "Any police officer who believed they had knowledge of any element of fabrication in any criminal case would have a duty to act on that. Failure to do so would call into question their integrity, and I can't help but question their motive for raising the matter now."

Other important questions remain unanswered, such as how the officer learned of the alleged conspiracy and whether he was directly involved in the inquiry. But sources close to Megrahi's legal team believe they may have finally discovered the evidence that could demolish the case against him.

An insider told Scotland on Sunday that the retired officer approached them after Megrahi's appeal - before a bench of five Scottish judges - was dismissed in 2002.

The insider said: "He said he believed he had crucial information. A meeting was set up and he gave a statement that supported the long-standing rumours that the key piece of evidence, a fragment of circuit board from a timing device that implicated Libya, had been planted by US agents.

"Asked why he had not come forward before, he admitted he'd been wary of breaking ranks, afraid of being vilified.

"He also said that at the time he became aware of the matter, no one really believed there would ever be a trial. When it did come about, he believed both accused would be acquitted. When Megrahi was convicted, he told himself he'd be cleared at appeal."

The source added: "When that also failed, he explained he felt he had to come forward.

"He has confirmed that parts of the case were fabricated and that evidence was planted. At first he requested anonymity, but has backed down and will be identified if and when the case returns to the appeal court."

The vital evidence that linked the bombing of Pan Am 103 to Megrahi was a tiny fragment of circuit board which investigators found in a wooded area many miles from Lockerbie months after the atrocity.

The fragment was later identified by the FBI's Thomas Thurman as being part of a sophisticated timer device used to detonate explosives, and manufactured by the Swiss firm Mebo, which supplied it only to Libya and the East German Stasi.

At one time, Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, was such a regular visitor to Mebo that he had his own office in the firm's headquarters.

The fragment of circuit board therefore enabled Libya - and Megrahi - to be placed at the heart of the investigation. However, Thurman was later unmasked as a fraud who had given false evidence in American murder trials, and it emerged that he had little in the way of scientific qualifications.

Then, in 2003, a retired CIA officer gave a statement to Megrahi's lawyers in which he alleged evidence had been planted.

The decision of a former Scottish police chief to back this claim could add enormous weight to what has previously been dismissed as a wild conspiracy theory. It has long been rumoured the fragment was planted to implicate Libya for political reasons.

The first suspects in the case were the Syrian-led Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a terror group backed by Iranian cash. But the first Gulf War altered diplomatic relations with Middle East nations, and Libya became the pariah state.

Following the trial, legal observers from around the world, including senior United Nations officials, expressed disquiet about the verdict and the conduct of the proceedings at Camp Zeist, Holland. Those doubts were first fuelled when internal documents emerged from the offices of the US Defence Intelligence Agency. Dated 1994, more than two years after the Libyans were identified to the world as the bombers, they still described the PFLP-GC as the Lockerbie bombers.

A source close to Megrahi's defence said: "Britain and the US were telling the world it was Libya, but in their private communications they acknowledged that they knew it was the PFLP-GC.

"The case is starting to unravel largely because when they wrote the script, they never expected to have to act it out. Nobody expected agreement for a trial to be reached, but it was, and in preparing a manufactured case, mistakes were made."

Dr Jim Swire, who has publicly expressed his belief in Megrahi's innocence, said it was quite right that all relevant information now be put to the SCCRC.

Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, said last night: "I am aware that there have been doubts about how some of the evidence in the case came to be presented in court.

"It is in all our interests that areas of doubt are thoroughly examined."

A spokeswoman for the Crown Office said: "As this case is currently being examined by the SCCRC, it would be inappropriate to comment."

No one from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland was available to comment.

____________________ WHY ROBERT BOOTH NICHOLS AND MICHAEL RICONOSCIUTO SHOULD BE CALLED AS WITNESSES TO THE LOCKERBIE TRIAL, ALONG WITH LESTER COLEMAN AND MICHAEL T. HURLEY. I think it is very important to present a "full" and complete picture of Lester K. Coleman in order to understand why he is so important to understanding "the big picture". To that end, the following is an article about Coleman from the London Times dated Monday, July 22,1991. The article carries no byline and reads as follows: US DRUGS STING 'GAVE PAN AM BOMBER COVER' A former American intelligence officer who worked for a secret unit, four of whose members have been killed, is hiding abroad because of allegations he has made about the Lockerbie bomb disaster. Lester Knox Coleman, formerly with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is a key witness behind allegations that negligence on the part of the US government led to the placing of a bomb on board Pan Am flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people. Mr. Coleman, age 47, worked until May 1990 with the secret unit Middle East Collection 10 (MC10). For most of his six years with the DIA he was in Cyprus, running a network of agents in Beirut, whose mission was to find American hostages held by extremists. Two senior MC10 members were Matthew Kevin Gannon and Major Charles Dennis McKee. Both were on flight 103 and had just returned from a mission in Beirut. Also on board was Khaled Nazir Jaafar, a Lebanese agent for the American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Mr. Coleman has a unique insight into DIA and DEA operations in the Middle East because he worked for both organizations in Cyprus. While still a DIA agent -- usually paid in travelers cheques sent from the Luxembourg branch of the now collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) -- he was seconded twice to the DEA, from February to September 1987 and April to May 1988. According to an affidavit by Mr. Coleman given to Pan Am lawyers in Brussels on April 17 this year [1991], the DEA, with the narcotics squad of the Cypriot national police, the German BKA police and British customs, ran a "drugs sting operation" through Cyprus and airports in Europe including Frankfurt. It involved delivering heroin from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon to the United States, particularly to Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles, where there are large Lebanese communities. The explanation for this operation, which was officially codenamed Khourah, was provided by Ronald Caffrey, acting assistant administrator of the operational division of the DEA, in a US government submission dated March 20 this year [1991]. He said the drugs operation was "a controlled delivery". His statement said: "In a controlled delivery, a law enforcement agency permits and monitors shipment of contraband, including drugs, to move from a source or transit location to its intended destination. Use of this technique is sometimes essential to enable law enforcement agencies to identify and arrest high-ranking members of trafficking organizations, rather than simply arrest low level couriers." Mr. Coleman, with his knowledge of this type of operation, believes that flight 103 was being used by the DEA as a "controlled" flight in which Khaled Jaafar, a DEA courier, was allowed to carry his luggage through Frankfurt without being subject to normal security checks. He knew Jaafar was one of many agents involved in drug operations. In a telephone conversation last October with a BKA officer in charge of investigations at Frankfurt Rhein-Main airport, Mr. Coleman said he was told that BKA had "serious concerns" that a US drugs sting operation out of Cyprus had been used by terrorists to place the bomb on flight 103, by switching bags. According to reports last year, the security of flight 103 had already been compromised by a mysterious man with an American accent using the pseudonym David Lovejoy, who had reportedly telephoned the Iranian embassy in Beirut on December 20, 1988, the day before the Lockerbie flight, to tip them off that US agents Gannon and McKee would return from a mission in Beirut to the US on flight 103. Mr. Coleman said: "Individuals involved in drug sting operations would arrive at Larnaca (in Cyprus) on the ferry from Jounich (in Lebanon) and be escorted by officers of the Cypriot national police to the offices of Eurame Trading Company in Nicosia, a DEA proprietary company." Mr. Coleman saw Khaled Jaafar on at least three occasions in the Eurame offices and knew him to be a DEA courier. The DEA has denied it was involved in a drugs sting operation at any time around the Lockerbie incident. But James Shaughnessy, lead counsel for Pan Am, said in his latest affidavit dated May 3 [1991]: "The DEA's denial is incredulous....simply false." Pan Am's affidavit refers to a telephone conversation between a senior officer of British customs' investigations branch and Michael Jones of Pan Am Corporate Security in London in which he asked: "Have you considered a bag switch in Frankfurt due to the large amounts of Turkish workers?" The Beirut end of MC10 had been "blown". There were five key members of the MC10 cell in Cyprus and Beirut, according to Mr. Coleman. Apart from Mr. Coleman there were Werner Tony Asmar, a German Lebanese, Charlie Frezeli, a Lebanese army officer, and two more Lebanese who worked with Asmar. Asmar was killed in a bomb explosion at his office in east Beirut on May 26, 1988. Frezeli was shot dead at his home in east Beirut in November 1989. When Asmar was killed, the DIA ordered Mr. Coleman home. Those, like Mr. Coleman and the Pan Am lawyers who are convinced there is a link between the Lockerbie bomb and "Operation Khourah", were not helped by the so-called Aviv report, which claimed that a rogue CIA unit permitted the bags switch, knowing it contained a bomb. The report, produced by Israeli investigator Juval Aviv was discredited. Now, however, a judge in a US court has ruled that the US government must produce all relevant documents relating to the practice of drugs sting operations through Frankfurt and elsewhere in Europe. End of article. It is VERY important to read the preceding article closely and then re-read it again. Next, one must compare the information in the article to an affidavit Coleman introduced in Adversary Proceeding No. 86-0069 in the case entitled INSLAW, INC, plaintiff v. USA and the USA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The affidavit reads as follows: I, LESTER K. COLEMAN, being duly sworn do hereby state as follows: 1. I am currently self-employed as a freelance writer, editor, and security consultant. I am a United States citizen and am temporarily residing outside of the United States. 2. In November 1984, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) offered me a position in human intelligence operations in the Middle East. I was raised in the Middle East, where I lived in Iran, Libya and Saudi Arabia. I speak three dialects of Arabic and some Farsi. I accepted the position and received training from the DIA. I was assigned to a Middle East intelligence unit. 3. Between February and September 1987, I was seconded by DIA to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Nicosia, Cyprus, reporting to the DEA Country Attaché, Michael T. Hurley. 4. After a cover assignment in the United States, I was again seconded to the DEA in Nicosia, Cyprus, in early 1988. 5. During April and May 1988, I worked in the offices of EURAME Trading Company, Ltd., in Nicosia, Cyprus, a DEA proprietary company. On or about May 29, 1988, because of my concern about poor security in the DEA operation in Cyprus, I returned to the United States, having previously obtained the concurrence of the DIA. 6. During my two stints as a DIA covert intelligence officer seconded to the DEA in Nicosia, Cyprus, I became aware of the fact that DEA was using its proprietary company, EURAME Trading Company, Ltd, to sell computer software called PROMISE or PROMIS to the drug abuse control agencies of various countries in the Middle East, including Cyprus, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Turkey. 7. I personally witnessed the unpacking at the Nicosia, Cyprus, Police Force Narcotics Squad of boxes containing reels of computer tapes and computer hardware. The boxes bore the name and red logo of a Canadian corporation with the words "PROMISE" or "PROMIS" and "Ltd" in the company name. 8. The DEA objective in inducing the implementation of this computerized PROMIS[E] system in the drug abuse control resources available to the United States government by making it possible for the United States Government to access sensitive drug control law enforcement and intelligence files of these Middle East governments. 9. It is also my understanding that third-party funds were generally made available for the purchase of these computer software and hardware systems. One third-party funding source was the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control in Vienna, Austria. 10. As DEA Country Attaché for Cyprus, Michael T. Hurley had overall responsibility for both the EURAME Trading Company, Ltd, and its initiative to sell PROMIS[E] computer systems to Middle East countries for drug abuse control. 11. In 1990, DEA reassigned Hurley to a DEA intelligence position in Washington State. 12. I became aware in 1991 that Michael Riconosciuto, known to me as a long-time CIA asset, was arrested in Washington State by DEA for the manufacturing of illegal chemical drugs. I had also become aware of the fact that Riconosciuto made a sworn statement, prior to his arrest, about his participation in a covert U.S. intelligence initiative to sell INSLAW's PROMIS to foreign governments. 13. In light of Hurley's personal involvement in the U.S. Government's covert intelligence initiative to sell PROMIS[E] software to foreign governments and his reassignment to a DEA intelligence position in Washington State in advance of the DEA's arrest of Riconosciuto, the arrest of Riconosciuto should be regarded as suspect. I do not believe that Hurley's posting to a drug intelligence position in Washington State in advance of Riconosciuto's arrest on drug charges in merely coincidental. Rather, the probability is that Hurley was reassigned to Washington State to manufacture a case against Riconosciuto in order to prevent Riconosciuto from becoming a credible witness about the U.S. Government's covert sale of the PROMIS software to foreign governments. 14. The investigative journalist Danny Casolaro contacted me in Europe on August 3, 1991. Mr. Casolaro had leads and hard information about things that I know about, including Department of Justice groups operating overseas, the sale of PROMIS[E] software by the U.S. Government to foreign governments, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the Iran/Contra scandal. I subsequently learned of Mr. Casolaro's death in Martinsburg, West Virginia, one week later, on August 10, 1991. I contacted INSLAW in October 1991, after learning about Mr. Casolaro's death under suspicious circumstances. FURTHER AFFIANT SAYETH NOT. Signed by Lester K. Coleman This, then, was Danny Casolaro's Octopus. Casolaro had been interviewing Michael Riconosciuto since approximately May of 1990; Casolaro had also met with and interviewed Michael's wife, Bobbie. Both Riconosciutos had told Casolaro the same thing they have repeatedly told me about the downing of Pan Am 103. Michael Roconosciuto claimed to be an intelligence officer monitoring the hostage situation in Iran, staying at the apartment of Robert Booth Nichols and Ellen Hopko Nichols located near the Nicosia, Cyprus airport. This group of people, according to Michael, were also involved in the "controlled drug operation" run by the DIA. Riconosciuto stated that they were paid with unsigned BCCI travelers checks. Shortly before the Lockerbie crash Riconosciuto returned to his home in Oregon. He knew that the McKee team would be returning to the United States to "blow the whistle" on the drug operation run by George W. Bush. Riconosciuto told me that when the warning came to the unit in Nicosia that there might be a bombing of Pan Am #103, Robert Booth Nichols told Rinconosciuto that he would change the reservation for the McKee team to another flight, just as FBI agent Revell's son had done. The night of the Lockerbie crash, Bobbi Riconosciuto was watching the television with their children when she learned of the crash and heard that the McKee team went down with others on board. She woke Michael up and told him. Michael broke from Robert Booth Nichols from that point forward because he held Nichols responsible for betraying the McKee team. Robert Booth Nichols became the key source for Danny Casolaro who had contacted Lester K. Coleman seven days before his murder in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Nichols stated, in a lawsuit against the FBI and FBI agent Thomas Gates, that he has had no source of income for the past twenty-plus years and yet his concealed weapons permit shows that he maintains many residences around the world. Sam Giacana was Nichols' business partner and it is rumored that Nichols' mentor is the head of Yakuza in Hawaii. Nichols' lawsuit was sustained by a declaration submitted by the former head of the LA FBI, Ted Gunderson. Gunderson has stated to me and others that he owes his life to Nichols because he called off a mob hit on Gunderson. Gunderson also states that he is nothing but a private investigator, but documents out of his own files show his intelligence connections. 270 people were killed on Pan Am 103 and the United States government is continually silencing witnesses who could tell the truth about what happened. Lawyers who hold the Coleman documents out for ransom, judges who use the law to torture and imprison individuals who would expose the intelligence prostitutes who whore for drugs, arms, power and money, and an apathetic public are the ones who are responsible for the murder of those who died at Lockerbie. Let Lester K. Coleman testify. Let Michael Riconosciuto testify. MAKE Robert Booth and Ellen Hopko Nichols testify. FORCE Michael T. Hurley to testify. MAKE THEM TELL THE TRUTH!! If the families of the victims want to really know what happened they should demand the head of Danny Casolaro's Octopus. Virginia McCullough © 2000 (More)

The United States is a very large ship - powerful and rich.

It is the world's largest facilitator of the needs of mendicants. These Third World beggars with their complaisance, contribute to the suffering of many US citizens and others around the world.

From time to time elements who call themselves ' The Enterprise' try to keep the ship afloat by pulling off a Survival Scam. However, in most of the scams, the beneficiaries are of the same 'families'; and the outcome of the said scam does not necessarily benefit the entire ship.

The United States government is made up of a lot of honorable men and women. But the two tribes 'Republicans and Democrats' have elements within who are bent to making 'fast moves' to succeed.

Most definitely people will 'take exception' to being called 'tribesmen'. But let's face it, don't we'all act that way?

If the Republicans are in power, most Republicans condone anything the Republican party does. If the Democratic party is in power, most Democrats condone anything the democratic party does.

This sort of blindness is uncanny. In fact in most countries today, the populace place their tribal leaders on pedestals like great Gods.

The Middle East is the 'feeding tree' for elements who want bogeymen.

The 1993 bombing of the WTC demonstrate that the FBI had something to do with it.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Thursday October 28, 1993 Page A1

"Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart

Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast"

By Ralph Blumenthal

Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building

a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center,

and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting

harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after

the blast.

The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb

and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by

an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer,

Emad Salem

The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of

hours of tape recordings that Mr. Salem secretly made of his

talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as

being in a far better position than previously known to foil

the February 26th bombing of New York City's tallest towers.

The explosion left six people dead, more than a thousand people

injured, and damages in excess of half-a-billion dollars.

Four men are now on trial in Manhattan Federal Court

[on charges of involvement] in that attack.

Mr. Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian Army officer, was used

by the Government [of the United States] to penetrate a circle

of Muslim extremists who are now charged in two bombing cases:

the World Trade Center attack, and a foiled plot to destroy

the United Nations, the Hudson River tunnels, and other

New York City landmarks. He is the crucial witness in the

second bombing case, but his work for the Government was

erratic, and for months before the World Trade Center blast,

he was feuding with th F.B.I.

Supervisor `Messed It Up'

After the bombing, he resumed his undercover work. In an

undated transcript of a conversation from that period,

Mr. Salem recounts a talk he had had earlier with an agent

about an unnamed F.B.I. supervisor who, he said,

"came and messed it up."

"He requested to meet me in the hotel,"

Mr. Salem says of the supervisor.

"He requested to make me to testify, and if he didn't

push for that, we'll be going building the bomb with

a phony powder, and grabbing the people who was

involved in it. But since you, we didn't do that."

The transcript quotes Mr. Salem as saying that he wanted to

complain to F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington about the

Bureau's failure to stop the bombing, but was dissuaded by

an agent identified as John Anticev.

Mr. Salem said Mr. Anticev had told him,

"He said, I don't think that the New York people would

like the things out of the New York Office to go to

Washington, D.C."

Another agent, identified as Nancy Floyd, does not dispute

Mr. Salem's account, but rather, appears to agree with it,

saying of the `New York people':

"Well, of course not, because they don't want to

get their butts chewed."

The 1993 World Trade Center Bombing

On February 26, 1993, a car bomb at the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, exploded, killing six people, injurning thousands and causing extensive damage.

The FBI quickly arrested four radical Muslims, who were convicted in 1994. More members of the radical group were tried beginning January 16, 1995, for a wide-ranging plot of terrorist attacks.

One reason the FBI was able to act so quickly is that an FBI informant was the one who built the bomb. The U.S. government paid the informant, Emad Salem, $1 million for his testimony. Salem tape-recorded conversations with the bombing suspects. Unbeknown to the FBI, Salem also recorded his conversations with them.

The FBI benefited greatly from the World Trade Center bombing. In particular, the bombing resulted in the proposal of the 1995 Counterterrorism Bill greatly expanding federal authorities' budgets and powers.

From a December 1993 post by Terry Atwood:

"Tucked away on page A5 of the Washington Times for Wednesday, December 15 is a tiny article about tape transcripts of a conversation between the FBI informant, Emad Salem, and his controller, FBI agent John Anticev. As you may already know, Salem is a former Egyptian army officer hired by the FBI to infiltrate (or organize?) a terrorist group here in the U.S. In April, two months after the bombing, when the taped conversation took place, Anticev asked Selem to justify his expenses. Salem defended his expense report by saying that his usual expenditures were pushed up by the costs of building the trade center bomb. He acknowleged procuring the materials (at government expense) and personally building the bomb."

March 8, 1995, San Francisco Chronicle article, "New York Terror Trial Witness Tells What a Liar He Was," and post by Terry Atwood.

The 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act

The Effective Death Penalty and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 gave extensive new authority to federal law enforcement agencies, one of many steps on the long march to a police state. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was the initial impetus behind the bill. The Alfred Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City created bipartisan support for the bill at a time when it was being stalled by civil liberties advocates. Activists managed to hold the bill off for another year, but it was finally passed in April 1996.

S. 390 was introduced February 10, 1995 by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania. H.R. 896 was introduced the same day in the House by Rep. Charles Schumer, D-New York, and Rep. Dicks.

The bill passed the Senate in June 1995, but was held up in the House by intense lobbying by what was called "an unusual coalition" of gun rights groups and civil liberties organizations. Such coalitions are unusual in the traditional right-left frame of mind, but not in the libertarian movement.

The bill finally passed the House in March 1996, and was signed into law in April 1996.

The Law

The Center for National Security Studies issued an excellent [WWW]analysis of the bill, along with information on the [WWW]FBI and [WWW]trends.

The National Coalition Against Repressive Legislation summarized the bill in 1995 and the law as finally passed in 1996. NCARL and others raised important criticisms:

Presumed guilty, secret evidence can be used

Permanent resident aliens arrested under this law have to prove they should not be held in jail before trial. Secret evidence can used in the detention hearings and at trial that only the judge could see, not the defendant.

First Amendment protections weakened.

The law lifts a 1994 Crime law restriction prohibiting the FBI from investigations based on speech or beliefs, when restricting humanitarian aid. Foreigners can be barred from speaking in the U.S. using McCarthy era McCarran-Walter Act provisions. An overbroad definition of terrorism virtually requires the Justice Department to select crimes to prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.

Presidential powers expanded.

The President can label organizations -- without any appeal or review -- as "terrorist", and criminalize fundraising for humanitarian aid even remotely related to such groups.

Punishment for lawful actions.

Permanent resident aliens can be deported or indefinitely jailed for their affiliations or political activity, with no judicial review.

Constitutional protections eroded.

The law further restricts the Bill of Rights' habeas corpus protections for state prisoners. Although this is a terrorism law, and death-row inmates were used to justify this provision, this affects all state prisoners, and no one convicted of federal terrorism laws. Prisoners are required to prove the state acted "unreasonably," a tough legal standard that isn't met simply by having credible evidence of innocence or wrongful imprisonment. Prisoners will be limited to one federal appeal within a short time of exhausting state appeals. Federal courts are required to render decisions within six months, and can't overrule state courts' interpretations of constitutional law.

More spending (meaning higher taxes and debt), and more police abuses.

The law authorizes $1 billion in new federal spending over five years. The amount includes an additional $100 million for one of the most terroristic organizations in the United States, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Further restrictions on financial privacy.

The law requires banks to identify any domestic "agents" (undefined) of groups labeled as terrorist, and freeze their funds with no right of appeal.

The original bill contained a provision, supported by the Clinton administration, lifting the historical "Posse Comitatus" restriction on the U.S. military working with domestic police. The provision did not make it into the final version. (That would come years later.)

The law creates an oversight commission for federal police agencies. Even though the commission has no subpoena power and can only make recommendations, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh lobbied against the bill based on this one provision.

The Critics

On April 24, 1995, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a press release quoting their Executive Director Ira Glasser,

In past times of tragedy and fear, the government has harassed, investigated and arrested innocent people solely because of their race, religion, national origin, speech or political beliefs. In the 1920 Palmer raids, thousands were improperly arrested and jailed in 33 cities as a response to a frightening wave of bombings. People were summarily deported based on their national origin and their political association. During World War II, the federal government committed what is now universally seen as an act of racism and war hysteria when it incarcerated Japanese-American citizens. In the 1950s, legitimate fears of Soviet threats were used to convert dissent into disloyalty. People were spied upon and punished on the basis of political beliefs and associations instead of criminal evidence. In the turbulent 1960s, the government again engaged in widespread infiltration and surveillance of organizations opposed to the Vietnam war and those trying to win equality for African-Americans. Again, normal standards of criminal evidence were abandoned; instead, race and political beliefs became a cause for suspicion.

We must now try to avoid that same mistake. The government should certainly investigate vigorously based on criminal evidence. But no one should be targeted because they believe in the Second Amendment, or belong to far right organizations. No matter how much we may disagree with some of those organizations, we must not target people associated with them in the absence of credible evidence of criminal conduct.

Vince Miller, Director of the International Society for Individual Liberty, said the following in an April 26, 1995, message to LiberNet:

The "Counter-Terrorism Bill" however, concentrates enormous police powers in a domestic equivalent of the National Security Council, and gives the President tremendous arbitrary power to declare who is a domestic or overseas "terrorist" -- a decision which this legislation says shall not be subject to appeal! The bill authorizes secret trials for citizens and immigrants who are merely accused of lending support (including humanitarian aid) to domestic or international "terrorist" organizations, and these accusations may be made by anonymous informants.

The bill says that individuals arrested under this act may be declared ineligible for bail, may be detained indefinitely until trial, and will be considered guilty until proven innocent -- the direct opposite of American principles of justice that have protected the freedom of innocent people for over two hundred years.

If the individual cannot somehow prove his or her innocence, than he will be summarily deported if a "green-card" resident, or put in jail for up to 10 years if a citizen -- while still not necessarily having been proven guilty of any real crime.

It is worth noting that if the President has arbitrary standards for declaring individuals or groups "terrorist", standards and targets can change according to short-term political goals. Syria was a "terrorist state" until George Bush needed them to help fight Iraq. Iran has been an alternate ally and enemy, as has Iraq, some Afghan groups, the ANC and numerous others. How is one to know what aid is legal and what may be suddenly not?

The Libertarian Party issued a press release April 27, 1995, on the relationship between the Oklahoma City bombing and the Counterterrorism Bill, saying:

"Law-enforcement agencies should act swiftly to bring the criminals who committed this heinous act to justice, and to punish them to the fullest extent of the law," said Steve Dasbach, Chair of America's third largest political party. "However, we must not dishonor the men, women, and children who died in that brutal and senseless act by linking their tragedy to any effort to undermine fundamental American liberties.

"The freedoms recognized under the Bill of Rights are our strongest bulwark against terrorism," asserted Dasbach. "Security measures that infringe on those freedoms will inevitably lead to abuse, ultimately making us less secure in our lives and property."

...

Under Clinton's proposal, the FBI would have the power to examine financial, travel, and telephone records, conduct wiretapping, and infiltrate "suspect" groups. Clinton said such powers were needed to protect "our way of life."

"An abiding respect for liberty is our way of life," countered Dasbach.

The Libertarian Party issued another news release on April 18, 1996, unsuccesfully urging the President to veto the bill:

"You don't honor the memory of the dead by depriving the living of their basic freedoms," said the party's National Chair Steve Dasbach. "And you don't protect Americans from hypothetical foreign terrorists by giving more power to government agencies with a history of running roughshod over our civil liberties."

...

"The fact that Clinton and Congress are trying to link this bill to the Oklahoma City tragedy is political ghoulishness as its worst," said Dasbach. "It shows that there is no tragedy that politicians won't try to capitalize on to further increase the power of government."

Richard Hartman of Spokane, Washington, reported hearing the following exchange on the radio between a reporter and Attorney General Janet Reno:

REPORTER: If the FBI had already possessed the powers described in President Clinton's anti-terrorism legislation, would you have been able to prevent the Oklahoma disaster?

RENO: No.

The Supporters

U.S. voters should take note that once again, Republicans and Democrats united to take away your rights. The Libertarian Party was the only political party to publicly oppose the passage of the law.

Sources: April 24, 1995, news releases from ACLU; April 26, 1995, news release from NCARL; April 26, 1995, posting to LiberNet by Vince Miller; April 26, 1995, news release from CNSS; April 27, 1995, and April 18, 1996, news releases from the Libertarian Party; April 15, 1996, New York Times News Service article, "Congressional leaders predict passage of counterterrorism bill by Friday."

Combined report by Paul DeRienzo, Frank Morales and Chris Flash

From newspaper The Shadow Oct. 1994/Jan. 1995 Issue

Two cassette tape recordings, obtained by SHADOW reporter Paul DiRienzo

of telephone conversations between FBI informant Emad Salem and his

Bureau contacts reveal secret U.S. Government complicity in the February

26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in which six

people were killed and more than a thousand were injured.

After careful deliberation, the SHADOW believes the question regarding

the bombing boils down to the following: Did the FBI do the bombing,

utilizing informant Salem as an "agent provocateur" or did it fail to

prevent an independent Salem and his associates from doing it? The

taped conversations obtained by the SHADOW seem to indicate the former:

FBI Informant Edam Salem: "...we was start already building the bomb

which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by

supervising supervision from the Bureau and the DA and we was all

informed about it and we know that the bomb start to be built. By who?

By your confidential informant. What a wonderful great case!"

Who is Emad Salem? FBI bomber, Arab double-agent or just greedy?

Possibly a combination of all three. Salem is a former Egyptian Army

officer who is currently the U.S. government's star witness against

Egyptian cleric Dr. Omar Abdel Rahman, whom the FBI says was the

ringleader in several bombing plots, including the World Trade Center.

Shortly after the bombing at the Twin Towers (World Trade Center) the

U.S. government moved to take Salem into the Witness Protection program.

According to the FBI, Salem was aware of the plot ostensibly because he

had infiltrated Sheik Rahman and his associates. He was recruited as a

government informant shortly after the 1991 assassination of of right-

wing militant Rabbi Meir Kahane. As an associate of Rahman, Salem

traveled in the cleric's inner circle, surreptitiously recording

conversations, and selling his information to the Bureau. But unknown

to his FBI handlers, Salem was also secretly recording his conversations

with them, most likely to protect himself.

According to attorney Ron Kuby, after Salem was taken into the Witness

Protection program on June 24, 1993, he told the feds about the more

than 1,000 conversations he had recorded sometime between December, 1991

and June, 1993. Kuby says that while some of these tapes are not

significant, others contain substantive dealings with Salem and his FBI

handlers. Salem was actually bugging the FBI.

The World Trade Center bombing, along with subsequent alleged plots to

bomb prominent targets in New York City, spawned a number of federal

indictments and trials resulting in the conviction of more than a dozen

men, all of Arabic descent. Salem's exposure as a government informant

who had a year earlier infiltrated the group of men later charged in the

bombing conspiracy caused many to wonder why he and the FBI failed to

provide any warning of the pending World Trade Center bombing.

The answer now appears self-evident. According to William Kuntsler,

attorney for Ibrahim El-Gabrowny, one of those accused in the larger

bombing case, the entire conspiracy was the product of Salem, the

government informant. Kuntsler's law partner Ronald Kuby told the

SHADOW that within hours of the World Trade Center blast, Salem checked

into a midtown hospital, complaining of a loud ringing in his ears.

There is a growing belief that some of the four men charged and since

convicted and jailed for the World Trade Center bombing, Mohammed , may be innocent

Aboulihma, Mohammed Salameh, Nidal Ayyad and Ahmad Ajaj

[victims] of a government frame-up.

Attorneys for those convicted have maintained that the government's case

is circumstantial at best, with no evidence or motive linking the

accused with the bombing. The FBI and federal prosecutors have not as

yet responded to questions over the lack of warning of the attack on the

Twin Towers, despite the strategic placement of their informant.

Two possible scenarios emerge. One: Salem is a rogue FBI informant who

created the conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center for the money his

information about the plot (minus his role) would bring. An attorney

for one of the convicted men told the SHADOW that Salem was an FBI

informant from November of 1991 to the summer of 1992. The attorney

says that the FBI became aware of the World Trade Center bombing plot

through informant Salem during this period, but they refused to believe

his information or pay Salem's exhorbitant fees. In fact, the feds

claimed that they dropped Salem as an informant during the summer of

1992 after he refused or failed a lie detector test. This left Salem

with a bombing plot but no one to sell it to.

According to the attorney, Salem let the plot that he hatched go forward

and the World Trade Center was bombed so that he could get money and

publicity. The attorney says that within 48 hours of the bombing, the

FBI requested Salem to help them solve the case. Salem quickly pointed

the fingers at the defendants, all followers of Sheik Rahman.

So, who did it? From the above point of view, Salem constructed the

bomb plot with those whom he subsequently set up. The U.S. government

and its FBI were innocent bystanders who failed to prevent the carnage

due to their unwillingness to take Salem's claims seriously, despite his

close collaboration with Bureau agents for the better part of a year.

The other scenario looks like this: Informant Salem organized the bomb

plot with the "supervision" of the FBI and the District Attorney as part

of a classic entrapment setup. He befriended certain individuals,

possibly some of the defendants, convinced them that his intentions to

bomb the World Trade Center were sincere, and convinced them to get

involved. The bomb goes off. Greedy Salem, with his ears still , sells out his acc