Khomeini’s Role in Pan Am Blast Probed
German officials are looking into information from a former top Iranian spy that the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered the December 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, a magazine reported.
The weekly Der Spiegel said the investigation was being led by the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office. Neither would comment Saturday.
Spiegel said the tip came from Abolghassem Mesbahi, a co-founder of the Iranian intelligence service who later went into exile.
Mesbahi’s testimony last year helped German prosecutors link the 1992 killings of four Iranian dissidents in Berlin to Iran’s rulers in a verdict announced in April.
Spiegel said Mesbahi told investigators that Khomeini ordered the attack as retaliation for the downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a U.S. warship in July 1988.
The report said Tehran asked the Libyan government and top terrorist Abu Nidal for help. The Pan Am blast killed 270 people.
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