Lockerbie Suspect Had TNT, Witness Says

A key prosecution witness in the Lockerbie bombing trial told a Scottish court Tuesday that one of the two Libyans accused of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 had kept TNT explosives in his desk drawer at an office in Malta’s Luqa Airport, where the bomb allegedly originated.

The witness, identified by the pseudonym Abdul Majid Abdul Razkaz Abdul-Salam Giaka, is a former Libyan spy who became a CIA mole four months before the December 1988 bombing that killed 270 people, most of them Americans. He testified behind bulletproof glass in view of the accused at the high-security courtroom in Camp Zeist, the Netherlands, but his voice and face were scrambled on television monitors visible to the public.

Giaka’s testimony had been delayed for several weeks while the defense secured classified CIA cables on the double agent. It was the first time the CIA has released classified, albeit heavily censored, material to a foreign court.

The witness was flown in from the United States, where he lives under the federal witness protection program. He was escorted to the court by 30 U.S. marshals, and security was stepped up at the compound for his appearance, which continues today.

The defendants, Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, are alleged Libyan intelligence agents who worked for Libyan Arab Airlines at Luqa. They are accused of sending an unaccompanied suitcase containing a Semtex plastic explosive from Malta, via Frankfurt, Germany, to London, where it supposedly was loaded onto the New York-bound flight.

The defendants deny any involvement with the bombing.

The witness said he started working for Libya’s intelligence service in 1984 and moved to Malta two years later to become assistant station manager.

He said the defendants headed the intelligence operation, based at Luqa Airport, and described how Fhimah unlocked a desk drawer one day in 1986 to show him two boxes containing plastic-wrapped bricks of explosives.

“He told me he had 10 kilograms [22 pounds] of TNT delivered by Abdel Basset. He opened the drawer, and there were two boxes which contained a yellowish material,” the witness said in Arabic.

The court referred to a CIA document dated Oct. 5, 1988, that relayed the witness’ account of the episode.

Giaka also told the court that one evening in December 1988, shortly before the bombing, he saw the defendants collect a shiny, brown Samsonite suitcase from the baggage carousel at Luqa Airport and take it through customs without opening it for inspection.

In his cross-examination, defense lawyer William Taylor sought to portray Giaka as uneducated and untruthful, highlighting inconsistencies in his story. Taylor complained that much of what the witness had said was “tittle-tattle” and hearsay.

CIA cables released for the trial originally were heavily edited, but the defense cried foul, arguing that the prosecution was trying to make Giaka out to be a more credible witness than he was. The CIA relented and released more material.

The cables showed that the agency paid Giaka $1,000 a month and funded a surgical procedure on his arm so that he could avoid military service in Libya. In return, Giaka supplied information about Libyan intelligence operations before and after the Pan Am bombing.

The agency considered the information it received from him to be of little intelligence value and considered dropping him in September 1989. He was brought to the United States in 1991.

Independent observers gave mixed reviews as to the value of Giaka’s testimony. Robert Black, a professor of law at the University of Edinburgh, said the prosecution had failed to produce a smoking gun.

“Everyone was expecting this star witness would really be pointing the finger. . . . There was none of this,” Black said. “It looks to me like a bit of a damp squib.”

But Clare Connelly, director of the Lockerbie trial briefing unit at the University of Glasgow, said this is not a case with a smoking gun.

“Clearly this testimony is significant because it shows the relationship between the two accused and suggests some involvement with explosives,” Connelly said. “But on its own, it wouldn’t lead to a conviction.”