INVESTIGATORS believe that employees of Libyan Arab Airways in
Frankfurt planted the bomb which destroyed a PanAm Jumbo jet four days
before Christmas, killing 270 people in and around Lockerbie, according
to the American television network CBS News.
In a follow-up to its report on Wednesday night that the Palestinian
terrorist Ahmad Jibril, sponsored by Syria and Libya, was believed to
have built the bomb, CBS said this morning that the sophisticated device
was in a suitcase which did not belong to any passenger aboard PanAm
flight 103.
The CBS version contradicts a Radio Forth report, which said that an
American agent of the Central Intelligence Agency unwittingly had the
bomb in his luggage. Mr David Johnston, of Radio Forth, said last night
police had given him until today to name his sources for his report
which blamed a Palestinian group for the bombing.
He said he was ''completely confident'' he had been told the truth,
and was prepared to face court moves if necessary.
Mr Johnston said he was told by official agencies ''in Britain and
elsewhere'' that the bomb was planted at Helsinki in the luggage of an
American CIA agent returning from an unsuccessful attempt to release US
hostages in Beirut.
Police gave him until today to approach his sources to ask if he could
divulge them, he added.
The officers said that if he did not want to disclose his sources to
them, they would make available ''anyone in Britain, including the Prime
Minister, for him to disclose them to.''
Mr Johnston said the police ''have said that if I don't tell them
tomorrow where the story came from, it would be open to them to put me
before a sheriff under precognition.''
CBS said that at least 100 Libyan airline employees are intelligence
operatives under the command of Abdullah Senoussi, who is related to the
country's leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Senoussie reportedly has a printing plant which produces forged
luggage tags, among other documents. The bomb, said by CBS to contain
20lbs of plastic explosives, was in a suitcase falsely labelled to fly
to New York, via London, on flight 103. It was not searched, x-rayed, or
even weighed-in at Frankfurt airport, where it was smuggled in through a
''back door,'' the TV report said, citing an American source.
CBS said the device was believed to be identical to a suitcase bomb
found by West German police, in the days before the Lockerbie disaster,
when they arrested 14 members of Jibril's Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine -- General Command. The report said the PFLP-GC
wished to upset the peace initiative of the Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat.
Meanwhile, lawyers representing families bereaved in the Lockerbie
disaster are to pursue their claims for compensation through the
American courts. They will also press for a full accident inquiry to be
held as soon as possible.
The first meeting of the lawyers' steering committee will be held in
Glasgow today but its spokesman, solicitor Mr Michael Hughes, said last
night it was virtually certain any compensation claims would be made to
the American courts.
Lawyers would have less than five months to formulate any right of
remedy claims against the American Government. Any other claims would
have to be made within two years of the date of the disaster, he added.
Seven British lawyers experienced in dealing with the aftermath of
disasters will be at the meeting. Among them will be solicitors who
represented clients bereaved in the Piper Alpha oil rig and Zeebrugge
ferry tragedies.
The lawyers mainly represent relatives of those who died on the ground
at Lockerbie and the small number of non-Americans killed on the plane.
Most of the US victims' families have sought the help of American
attorneys.
Mr Hughes said: ''There is no intention of pursuing any claims in this
country. I can't see anyone objecting to taking such actions to the
American courts.''
* Transport Secretary Paul Channon faced demands last night to check
whether spent uranium posed a radioactive danger aboard the jet. Labour
MP Mildred Gordon tabled a Commons motion claiming spent uranium was
increasingly used as ballast to balance aircraft. Her motion expressed
concern that if a plane loaded with spent uranium caught fire,
radioactive poison could be spread over a wide area.
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