Lockerbie bombing was ordered by Ayatollah Khomeini

The Lockerbie bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by Syrian-based extremists, a former Iranian intelligence officer has admitted, shining new light on Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity.

Abolghassem Mesbahi, who has defected to Germany, said Pan Am flight 103 was downed in 1988 in retaliation for an American navy strike on an Iranian commercial jet six months earlier, in which 290 people died.

He claimed that Ayatollah Khomeini, who was Iran’s supreme leader at the time, ordered the bombing “to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian Airbus.”

His testimony throws into doubt the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer jailed for the bombing. It also suggests that Libya was not the driving force behind the attack.

Sources also said that the bomb was placed on board Pan Am flight 103 at Heathrow, not in Malta, as the prosecution in Megrahi’s trial claimed.

Previously unseen evidence gathered for Megrahi’s aborted appeal supports Mr. Mesbahi’s claim and suggests that the bombers belonged to the extremist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command (PFLP-GC).

Documents obtained by Al Jazeera television for a documentary name individuals said to be involved in the bombing, including the alleged bomb-maker, the alleged mastermind and the man who may have put the bomb on the Boeing 747.

The evidence adds weight to claims that the truth was covered up by Britain and the US because they did not want to antagonise Syria, a key power on the doorstep of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Megrahi, the only man convicted of the bombing, dropped his appeal when he was granted compassionate release from prison in 2009 because he was suffering from cancer, but protested his innocence until he died in May 2012.

Ever since his conviction in 2001, there have been claims that he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice, and many of the families of the 270 people who died believe the true story has never been told.

Dr. Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora was a victim, said last night that he was “convinced” that the Iranians recruited the PFLP-GC to carry out the bombing and had no doubt that Megrahi was innocent. He said the families of the dead “have a right to know who killed their loved ones and why they were not protected” and would carry on their fight to uncover the truth.

Two British film-makers, Bill Cran and Christopher Jeans, who have spent the past three years investigating the Lockerbie bombing, were given access to the defence material by Megrahi, who hired a former Manhattan district attorney to review his case and gather new evidence.

Continue: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03/11/lockerbie-bombing-was-ordered-by-ayatollah-khomeini-ex-iranian-spy-says