Palestinians Blamed at Flight 103 Bomb Trial

Two alleged Libyan intelligence agents charged with bombing Pan Am Flight 103 more than 11 years ago pleaded not guilty on the opening day of their trial Wednesday and sought to blame Palestinian extremists for the attack that killed 270 people.

Defense attorneys for Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah told Scottish judges hearing the case here that evidence will incriminate two Palestinian splinter groups, the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front.

The move appears designed to cast doubt on the prosecution’s assertion that the December 1988 bombing was a Libyan intelligence operation. U.S. and British investigators originally suspected that the attack was carried out by Palestinians on behalf of Iran, but discarded that theory as they said evidence led them toward Libya.

The prosecution began its case by calling two air traffic controllers and a British Airways pilot--the first of more than 1,000 witnesses--to establish that Pan Am 103 did in fact explode over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Controller Alan John Topp fought his emotions as he described the moment he realized that the plane had gone down half an hour out of London’s Heathrow Airport, and relatives of the victims gasped in horror as they watched a video replay of “PAA103” disappearing off the radar screen.

Pilot Robin Chamberlain, whose Glasgow-bound shuttle took off just after the Pan Am flight, described seeing “the flashing orange light” out his cockpit window and then, about 30 seconds later, “a very large explosion” on the ground.

The high drama was not in the courtroom, however, but in the adjacent public gallery shared by families from both sides--the teenage children of Megrahi and Fhimah sitting across the aisle from parents who lost children on Pan Am 103.

When the defendants first entered the courtroom wearing traditional Libyan dress of white robes, brocade vests and shashiya hats, the Libyan section stood in a gesture of support.

“We stood up for our brothers, we stood up for justice, we stood up for God,” said Mohammed Ali Megrahi, older brother of Abdel Basset.

The victims’ families, by contrast, held their collective breath and choked back tears. Jack and Kathleen Flynn, whose son John died in the attack, gaped at the defendants for a full minute, immobile, the color rising in their faces.

Betty Thomas of Carmarthen, Wales, who lost her daughter and granddaughter on the plane, clenched her fists.

Nearby, Flo Camanag of Long Beach was overwhelmed by years-long anger toward the men accused of killing her younger sister, flight attendant Lilibeth Macalolooy. “The feeling of hatred is there,” Camanag said. “I was so mad when I saw them sitting there, smiling.”

The defendants and about a dozen family members listened intently with earphones to an Arabic translation of the proceedings. Tension grew on the Libyan side of the gallery as the 5 1/2-page indictment was read aloud accusing Megrahi and Khalifa of conspiring over four years to commit murder and violate the British Aviation Security Act on behalf of the Libyan Intelligence Services.

“I was hurt, but I am certain he is innocent,” said Ghada Megrahi, the 16-year-old daughter of one of the defendants.

The 1991 indictment by U.S. and British prosecutors portrays the defendants as trained intelligence agents working “together and with others” on behalf of the Libyan government. It alleges that they obtained electronic timers, high-performance plastic explosives and airline luggage tags for the purpose of planting a bomb aboard a civilian passenger jet.

Megrahi allegedly bought clothing and an umbrella at a Malta boutique that were packed into a suitcase with the bomb. The two then are said to have checked the unaccompanied suitcase onto a Frankfurt, Germany-bound Air Malta flight, with tags clearing it through to the New York-bound Pan Am flight.

The prosecution’s case is the result of years of painstaking examination of tens of thousands of fragments of the plane, suitcase and electronics equipment--some pieces smaller than a fingernail.

Investigators combed 40 countries to piece together the puzzle that included a Toshiba radio, a piece of a Swiss-made timer matching devices seized in Togo and Senegal, and the clothing from Malta. They also obtained a diary allegedly belonging to Fhimah and providing key names and dates.

The prosecution is said to have a star witness who has been living under a false identity in a U.S. witness protection program. He reportedly will link the two to Libyan intelligence.

But people who have followed the investigation closely suggest that there are serious holes in the prosecution’s case, including a lack of proof that the bomb-laden bag traveled on Air Malta to Frankfurt.

Another problem may be with the testimony of Edwin Bollier of the Swiss firm Meister et Bollier in Zurich, which manufactures timers. Bollier originally told Scottish investigators that fragments of a circuit board discovered in a T-shirt from the flight came from a timer he had sold to the Libyan government. Now he reportedly is changing his story.

The defense, meanwhile, is arguing that Megrahi and Fhimah were Libyan Arab Airlines employees, not intelligence agents, and that the attack was not carried out by Libyans.

Defense attorneys said they would blame nine alleged members of the Palestinian splinter groups, including Mohammed abu Talb, who was a member of both the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front and of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril.

Talb is serving a life sentence in Sweden for bombings in Denmark and the Netherlands. He was an early suspect for U.S. and British investigators who thought Iran might have hired him for the operation to retaliate for the U.S. downing of an Iranian airliner six months earlier.

The PFLP-GC is an extremist group opposed to the Middle East peace process, but the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front is now part of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The defense also said it would implicate Parviz Taheri, who is believed to be an Iranian and is listed as a witness for the prosecution.

Incriminating others is a legal tactic permitted under Scottish law that can be used to cast enough doubt to secure an acquittal or, another option in Scotland, a verdict of not proved. Either finding would free the defendants.

According to the agreement by which Megrahi and Fhimah were extradited from Libya, the case is being heard by a panel of three Scottish judges in a neutral country. A former U.S. military base about 30 miles east of The Hague has been handed over to Scotland and converted to a court and prison for the trial, which is expected to last a year.

In an interview with Sky Television on Wednesday, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi insisted that his government had “no connection” to the bombing.

“I have confidence that the problems of Lockerbie will come to an end and will be finished,” he said, “so that we will be turning over a chapter which has been with us ever since the Cold War.”

That is the fear of many American families of the Pan Am 103 victims, who feel certain Kadafi is responsible for the attack.

They leaned on each other for support during the difficult first hours of the trial, in which cultural barriers seemed as high as the wall of bulletproof glass separating the gallery from the courtroom. Some of the Americans were angry that the defendants wore Libyan national dress, which they mistook for religious garb; one had to ask what language the defendants spoke; others were incredulous that Scottish law does not have a death penalty and holds out the possibility of parole for a life sentence.

The Libyans, on the other hand, said they were withholding judgment as to whether the defendants could expect a fair trial. “We are Muslims. We believe in fate,” said Fhimah’s cousin, Ali.

Across the aisle from him, Maddy Shapiro and Elizabeth Philipps sat together, each wearing a badge with a photograph of her dead daughter. Both young women were Syracuse University students on their way home on Pan Am 103.

“There aren’t any graduations, no birthdays, no weddings, no grandchildren,” Philipps said. “All I have is this trial.”