DATE=5/5/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=LOCKERBIE TRIAL (L)
NUMBER=2-262034
BYLINE=RON PEMSTEIN
DATELINE=CAMP ZEIST, HOLLAND
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: At the trial of two Libyans accused of bombing
Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, the prosecution has
presented the police officers who conducted the
original investigation of the crash site in Lockerbie,
Scotland. V-O-A's Ron Pemstein reports on the trial
at Camp Zeist, Holland.
TEXT: The defense lawyers for the two Libyans on
trial -- Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa
Fahima -- are trying to show that others may have
committed the 1988 bombing of the airliner.
In a cross examination of retired Scottish police
inspector Gordon Ferrie, lawyer Bill Taylor had Mr.
Ferrie acknowledge that he investigated the
possibility that the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine-General Command was behind the explosion.
Mr. Ferrie told the court the investigation turned
into a criminal matter within two days after the
airplane crashed on December 21, 1988. The former
police inspector says he looked into Germany's arrest
of radical Palestinians a few months before the crash.
The defense points out the Palestinians were arrested
with bomb-making materials, including radio cassette
recorders similar to ones the Libyans are accused of
putting in a suitcase on the doomed Pan Am plane.
The defense also says a Palestinian suspect was
released from German custody before the Pan Am
explosion.
Mr. Ferrie said his team pursued the investigation of
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
until June 1990, when the focus of the inquiry
changed. Questions about the reasons for the change
were cut off in court, but that is the time when the
criminal investigation turned toward Libya.
The two accused Libyan intelligence agents were
indicted in 1991 for the Pan Am bombing that killed
270 people.
Libya refused to make the suspects available for trial
until last year, when it agreed to a Scottish court
trial at this neutral site here in central Holland.
The Scottish defense team is doing its best to
introduce elements of reasonable doubt about the
prosecution's case.
Mr. Fahima's lawyer, Richard Keen, asked police
witnesses to acknowledge the participation of
America's Central Intelligence Agency in the Lockerbie
investigation.
The prosecution clarified on re-examination that the
overall crash investigation remained under the control
of Scottish officers. The prosecution's purpose in
presenting the police witnesses was to show how
careful the search was of the Lockerbie area.
This could become more important later in the trial
when the prosecution presents evidence designed to
link the two Libyans to tiny bits of debris that were
recovered from the crash of Pan Am flight 103.
When the police testimony was completed, the first
week of the trial closed with the reading of the names
of the victims. The prosecution and the defense
agreed to the readings for the benefit of relatives in
the court or watching on closed-circuit television.
The reading of the list of the 270 killed -- from John
Ahern of Rockville Center, New York to Rasaline
Summerville of Lockerbie, Scotland -- lasted more than
one hour. (Signed)
NEB/RP/LTD-T/JP
05-May-2000 12:21 PM EDT (05-May-2000 1621 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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