DEA Seeks Link to Bombing of Pan Am Flight
The Drug Enforcement Administration says it is investigating whether one of its undercover couriers may have unknowingly carried the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103.
The December, 1988, bombing, which killed 270 people aboard the plane and in the village of Lockerbie, Scotland, has been attributed by law enforcement authorities to a pro-Iranian terrorist group.
Investigators said the terrorist group put plastic explosive in a tape recorder in baggage that was shipped from Frankfurt, Germany.
NBC News, which first reported the new DEA investigation Tuesday night, said it had learned that Pan Am’s flights from Frankfurt had been used in a Cyprus-based undercover operation to fly informants and suitcases of heroin from the Middle East to Detroit.
Nazir Khalid Jafaar, 20, of Detroit was killed in the bombing. The network said part of the drug agency review was to determine whether he had been enlisted in the drug operation and whether he had been tricked into carrying the bomb.
The drug agency and German authorities had arranged for Pan Am’s baggage operation in Frankfurt to be used to put suitcases of heroin on planes, apparently without the usual security checks, NBC News said. It cited an unidentified “airline source.”
In a statement late Tuesday, the DEA said it was aware of “allegations made to the media” that an agency operation was involved in the bombing.
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