Conspicuous by their absence from the indictments were the Syrians and the Iranians, the prime suspects early on. Because of Kaddafi’s relative weakness, America has historically found it easier to take on–and take out–Libya than other Mideast sponsors of terrorism. Now skeptics are suggesting that the government backed away from any theory fingering Damascus because it needs Syrian support for the Mideast peace process. “I’m sure that those who have been indicted are probably guilty as charged,” says Daniel Cohen, whose daughter was aboard Flight 103. But “in matters like this, what’s important is not who fired the gun, but who paid for the bullet.”
For now, at least, the United States and Britain say Libya acted alone. They base the charges on what U.S. officials were calling the most extensive criminal probe ever undertaken. Over the last three years, while technicians painstakingly reassembled the plane, investigators interviewed 14,000 people in 50 countries. The officials pin their conclusions to the discovery of the two electronic fragments. One chip, found in the frame of the cargo container, helped prove the explosives were hidden inside a Toshiba cassette/radio player that came aboard a connecting flight from Frankfurt. The other chip, embedded in a shirt traced to a Malta shop called Mary’s House, belonged to a Swiss timer manufactured by Mebo, Inc. Last week Mebo director Ed Bollier told NEWSWEEK that the company manufactured the circuit boards for use in household appliances and sold them throughout the Mideast; the indictment says Mebo made only 20 timers capable of detonating bombs, and sold the lot of them to the Libyan government in the mid-’80s.
On the basis of these findings, investigators reconstructed the events leading to the bombing–in the process telling a tale of international intrigue and dogged sleuthing worthy of John le Carre. According to the charges, in 1986 Libya distributed plastique, blasting caps and digital timers to operatives engaged in covert activities abroad. In the summer of 1988, Fhimah, who worked for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta, stored some explosives in his airport office. Months later, he and al-Megrahi placed the Toshiba, containing 10 to 14 ounces of plastic explosives and a Mebo timer, inside a hard-sided Samsonite suitcase filled with clothes purchased at Mary’s House. Because of his airline job, Fhimah managed to filch Air Malta luggage tags and then, on Dec. 21, place the deadly suitcase into the stream of international luggage leaving Malta. The stolen luggage tags directed the unaccompanied bag to Frankfurt, where it was placed aboard Pan Am Flight 103A to London and then finally aboard Flight 103 to New York. At 7:03 p.m., the timer reached zero.
A French connection appears to confirm Libya’s guilt. In 1989, a UTA flight from Brazzaville to Paris exploded over Niger’s Tenere Desert. French investigators sifting through the sands came upon circuitry they, too, have traced to Libya, and which reportedly is identical to the chip found among the Lockerbie wreckage. Last month Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the magistrate in charge of French terrorist probes, issued warrants against six Libyan officials, including Kaddafi’s brother-in-law.
Until investigators linked the microchips to Mebo, speculation focused on Syria and Libya. Officials suspected the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLPGC) of carrying out the operation to avenge the deaths of 290 people on an Iranian Airbus shot down by the USS Vincennes in July 1988. The PFLP-GC was known to use the same kind of bomb that downed Pan Am Flight 103; just two months before Lockerbie, West German counterterrorists seized a Toshiba cassette/radio stuffed with explosives during a raid on a PFLPGC cell. Some people who have followed the investigation closely still find the Syrian connection compelling. Blaming Libya is “all too convenient,” says Robert Kupperman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University. “We’re trying to sweet-talk [Syrian President Hafez] Assad.” But administration officials point out that Scottish authorities, who would have had little reason to support a whitewash, reached the same conclusions. “The peace conference was only a possibility starting two months ago. The Lockerbie investigation has been going on for three years,” says one senior American diplomat.
Washington and Scotland have an impressive case, but they may never get their day in court. Fhimah and al-Megrahi are back in Libya, which doesn’t have extradition treaties with either country. “It is considered unlikely that they will be arrested in the ordinary, normal way,” says Lord Peter Fraser, Scotland’s top prosecutor. U.S. Justice Department officials say they have no intention of attempting to snatch the two suspects from their homeland. But the Bush administration is already considering calling for a United Nations-enforced trade embargo. It also refused to rule out a military strike of the sort the United States launched against Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986, partly in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin disco frequented by American servicemen. Paul Wilkinson, an international terrorism expert at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, called on the European Community to suspend economic relations with Libya. “If we collectively stand against them on air links, technology and oil, that will hurt them very much indeed,” he said.
Those who have suffered most–the loved ones of Lockerbie’s victims–last week offered up a range of reactions, from relief that the indictments had come down to disappointment that they didn’t go far enough. Since the disaster, relatives have demanded greater air security; they have also brought moral pressure to bear on the international community to fight state-sponsored terrorism. By the same token, there seemed to be some feeling that the West should not contribute to a new round of violence. In England, Dr. Jim Swire, a physician whose daughter perished in the explosion the day before her 24th birthday and the leader of a family support group, spoke out against any major military option. “Under no circumstances do we want mass violence, what you might call sending in the Marines,” said Swire. “Every member of my group to whom I’ve talked recently feels the same way. If you think you’re doing it for us, you’re not.”
