Pan Am Subpoenas U.S. for Israel Data on Flight 103 Threat

Pan Am has filed papers in U.S. federal court seeking to prove that Israeli agents warned U.S. authorities of a planned terrorist attack on Flight 103 just one day before a bomb blew up the jet, it was reported today.

The Independent newspaper said Pan Am and its security firm also were taking action to prove West German police had warned U.S. officials of suspicious activities in the baggage area at Frankfurt 90 minutes before the flight left there.

It said Pan Am believes a videotape exists of the suitcase containing the bomb being loaded in Frankfurt onto the Boeing 727 that flew to London on the first leg of the New York-bound flight.

The newspaper quoted lawyers for families of Flight 103 victims as saying Pan Am was on a “fishing exercise” to try to shift blame for the disaster. The airline has been sued for more than $300 million, the report said.

The Boeing 747 that passengers boarded in London exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, last Dec. 21, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground.

The Independent, a respected London daily, said “subpoenas deposited at the U.S. District Court in Washington” call on the CIA and five other U.S. agencies “to disclose any documents relevant to surveillance by the BKA (West Germany’s FBI) of the Pan Am baggage-handling area at Frankfurt, including video recordings made on the evening of 21 December 1988.”

It said the papers demand all documents relating to “warnings” from the Israeli secret service Mossad “within the 24-36 hours before Dec. 21, 1988, that Pan Am Flight 103 . . . was the target of a terrorist attack.”

The paper gave no other details about the alleged Mossad warning.

The Independent report was the first of a warning to U.S. officials that Flight 103 specifically had been targeted.

The British government has admitted it received telephone warnings of a bomb on a U.S. carrier in the weeks before Dec. 21, and U.S. diplomats in Europe had been warned to avoid Pan Am during the Christmas season.

Paul Hudson, an Albany, N.Y., lawyer who lost his 16-year-old daughter on the plane, said his reaction to the Independent’s report was “one of shock . . . one of dismay, followed by a furious reaction by most of the relatives.”

Hudson, chairman of a group called Families of Pan Am Flight 103, also predicted a “tremendous outcry for accountability” if authorities “knew that this flight or one very close to it was to be bombed.”

In its report, the Independent said: “The lawyers for Pan Am and the security firm, Alert Management Systems Inc., evidently believe that a videotape exists of the bag containing the bomb being loaded onto Flight 103 in Frankfurt.”

A CIA spokesman would not comment today on the allegations that the Mossad warned the agency of the bombing 24 hours before it happened.