U.K. police in row over Pan Am bomb

Press, 18 February 1989, Page 11

U.K. police in row over Pan Am bomb

NZPA-Reuter Lockerbie, Scotland British police have rekindled a row with West German security authorities over where a bomb, contained in a radio-cassette recorder, was put on board a United States jumbo jet which was blown apart over Scotland in December.

Police in the Scottish town of Lockerbie said on Thursday they believed the device, which killed 270 people, might have been transferred to the Pan Am Boeing 747 at Heathrow airport, London, from a connecting flight from Frankfurt. “The reconstruction of the baggage container suggests that the explosive device may have been among the baggage from the Frankfurt flight,” Detective Chief Superintendant John Orr told a news conference. He said he believed a radio-cassette recorder containing the bomb was

the intention of diverting attention from their own negligence,” a senior security source said. The plane crashed on to Lockerbie on December 21, an hour after taking off from London for New York. All 259 on board the aircraft and 11 residents of Lockerbie were killed. The police said they were not yet in a position to say who carried out the bombing. “While there is insufficient ■ evidence at this stage to establish the identity of the person or group responsible for this dreadful crime, progress

lieved the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) carried out the bombing. The group has denied any connection with the attack. About 80 per cent of the airliner has been found and some sections have been removed for inspection by technical investigators from the Defence and Transport Ministries. Police in Scotland are left with the task of sifting the wreckage in search of more personal belongings. “It will be a long job,” said Detective Chief Inspector Jack Baird.

placed in a bag in a forward luggage hold. In Bonn, West German security sources said there was no evidence it was planted in Frankfurt. “If the British officials are speculating about clues in the direction of Frankfurt, then they’re

made add evidence obtained has been substantial,” Mr Orr told journalists. Speculation has centred on Iranian or Palestinian groups but there are no clues. An Israeli official said on Tuesday that Western

The police chief, John Boyd, told reporters that some wreckage and belongings would never be found.

Nor would police ever find the bodies of 10 of the plane’s passengers and seven Lockerbie residents, he said.

doing it apparently with

intelligence agencies be-