Lockerbie Bomb Probe Raises Links to Syria, Iran

A British Broadcasting Corp. investigation has indicated that Britain and the United States may have fingered Libya in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in a bid to divert suspicion from the other possible culprits--Syria and Iran.

In the program “Silence Over Lockerbie,” the head of a Swiss electronics firm that made the circuit board used as the timer said he had wrongly told investigators that the devices were supplied only to Libya.

The program, to be aired Wednesday, was made to mark the fifth anniversary of the disaster on Dec. 21, 1988, when Flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people.

Syria was initially suspected of involvement in the bombing, but blame was swiftly transferred to Libya based in large measure on the sophisticated timers, produced by a small electronics firm in Zurich. A Syrian link has often been reported in the British media.

Edwin Bollier, managing director of the Zurich company, MEBO, said he told investigators that while five of the timers were supplied to Libya in 1985, two others were sold to East Germany the same year.

But an engineer with the same company, Ulrich Lumpert, said he had told British, American and Swiss investigators about the East German sale when he was interviewed in late 1990.

The Stasi secret police in East Germany had extensive contacts with the Syrian-based Palestinian terrorist group of Ahmed Jibril, CIA officer Vincent M. Cannistraro said on the program, made for the BBC Radio 4 network.

“While this doesn’t get Libya out of the frame, the clarity of evidence against Libya is damaged in terms of supplying the timer,” Gerry Northam, the reporter on the program, said Sunday.

The United States and Britain have accused Libya of being responsible and are trying to extradite two Libyan suspects for trial in Britain or America.

The Sunday Times suggested that U.S. and British authorities overlooked the possible Syrian and Iranian connection to the bombing in return for the 1991 release of Briton Terry Waite and American Thomas Sutherland, who had been held by pro-Iranian forces in Lebanon.

The newspaper noted that Waite was released soon after Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd had reiterated to questioners in the House of Commons that Syria wasn’t involved in the Lockerbie bombing.