Part 120 – OCTOBER 30 1988
"No court is likely get to the truth [regarding the bombing of Pan Am 103], now that various intelligence agencies have had the opportunity to corrupt the evidence." - Oliver Miles, Former British Ambassador to Libya
Thomas Thurman [1] worked for the FBI forensics laboratory in the late 80s and most of the 90s. Thurman has been publicly credited for identifying a tiny fragment as part of a MST_13 timer produced by the Swiss company Mebo.
"When that identification was made, of the timer, I knew that we had it," Thurman told ABC in 1991. "Absolute, positively euphoria! I was on cloud nine."
Again, his record is far from pristine. The U.S. attorney general has accused him of having altered lab reports in a way that rendered subsequent prosecutions all but impossible. He has been transferred out the FBI forensic laboratory. Thurman has since left the FBI and joined the faculty at the School of Criminal Justice, Eastern Kentucky University.
The story shed some light on his formation. The report says "Williams and Thurman merit special censure for their work. It recommends that Thurman, who has a degree in political science, be reassigned outside the lab and that only scientists work in its explosives section."
Evidence Fabricated?
"For what it's worth the best information on Lockerbie came long after Zeist, when the investigation was closed. I've always been curious about this case and never stopped looking into it, until the day I left the CIA in December 1997," Robert Baer told me.
"The appeals commission posed the question to me about someone planting or manipulating evidence only to cover all the bases. I told them I did not think there was an organized attempt to misdirect the investigation, although I was aware that once it was decided to go after Libya, leads on Iran and the PFLP-GC were dismissed. Often in many investigations of this sort, the best intelligence comes out long after the event," Baer added.
"I'm fascinated to know precisely why the Scots referred the case back to the court, although they did tell me the FBI and Scotland Yard have manipulated the evidence for the prosecution," Baer told me.
Forensic analysis of the circuit board fragment allowed the investigators to identify its origin. The timer, known as MST-13, is fabricated by a Swiss Company named MeBo, which stands for Meister and Bollier.
The company has indeed sold about 20 MST-13 timers to the Libyan military (machine-made nine-ply green boards), as well as a few units (hand-made eight-ply brown boards) to a Research Institute in Bernau, known to act as a front to the Stasi, the former East German secret police.
The two batches are very different but, as early as 1991, Bollier told the Scottish investigators that he could not identify the timer from a photograph alone.
Yet, the Libyans were indicted in November 1991, without ever allowing Bollier to see the actual fragment, on the ground that the integrity of the evidence had to be protected.
But in 1998, Bollier obtained a copy of a blown-up photograph that Thurman had shown on ABC in 1991. Bollier could tell from certain characteristics that the fragment was part of a board of the timers made for East Germany, and definitely not one of the timers delivered by him to Libya.
In September 1999, Bollier was finally allowed to see the fragment. Unlike the one shown by Thurman on ABC, this one was machine-made, as was the one sold to Libya. But, from the absence of traces of solder, it was obvious that the timer had never been used to trigger a bomb.
"As far as I'm concerned, and I told this to [Scottish Prosecutor Miriam Watson], this is a manufactured fragment," Bollier says. "A fabricated fragment, never from a complete, functional timer."
The next day, Bollier was shown the fragment once more. You may have already guessed that it now had the soldering traces. "It was different. I'm not crazy. It was different!" says Bollier.
Finally, at the trial, Bollier was presented a fragment of a circuit board completely burned down. Thus, it was no longer possible to identify to which country that timer had been delivered. As he requested to explain the significance of the issue, Lord Shuterland told him that his request was denied.
Bollier has provided me with copies of documents that unambiguously reveal evidence of multiple -- transparent and grossly incompetent -- manipulations surrounding the fragment of the MST-13 timer.
Troubled Times at the FBI
The CIA's Vincent Cannistraro is on the record stating that no one has ever questioned the Thurman credentials. Allow me.
"He's very aggressive, but I think he made some mistakes that needed to be brought to the attention of FBI management," says Frederic Whitehurst, a former FBI chemist who filed the complaints that led to the inspector general's report.
"We're not necessarily going to get the truth out of what we're doing here," concluded Whitehurst who now works as an attorney at law and forensic consultant.
Dr. Whitehurst has authored something like 257 memos to the FBI and Justice Department with various complaints of incompetence, "fabrication of evidence" and perjury of various examiners in the FBI Laboratory (primarily Explosives Unit examiners).
"What I had to say about Tom Thurman and the computer chip was reported to the US attorney general's inspector general during the investigation of wrongdoing in the FBI lab in the 1990s. I acquired all that information and the inspector general's report from a law suit under the Freedom of Information Act and therefore the information provided under that FOIA request is in the public sector," Whitehurst told me.
"I reported to my superiors up to and including the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US attorney general, members of the US Congress and US Senate as well as the Office of the President of the United States that FBI Supervisory Special Agent Thomas Thurman altered my reports for five years without my authorization or knowledge. This is public information. Thurman holds an undergraduate degree in political science and I hold a PhD in chemistry."
"Thurman was not recognized by the FBI or anyone else as having expertise in complex chemical analysis and I was. When confronted with this information Thurman did not deny it but argued that my reports could and/or would hurt prosecutors' cases. I was very concerned about the fact that wrong information in the final reports could hurt individuals and deny citizens of this country right to a fair trial. When I raised my concerns with my managers at the FBI laboratory, all except for one of them reminded me that Thurman was the "hero" behind determining the perpetrators of the Pan Am 103 disaster."
"I understood from that that the FBI would not expose these issues for fear that the investigation into the Pan Am 103 bombing would be seen as possibly flawed and this would open the FBI up to criticism and outside review."
No government body has found that Mr. Thurman has done anything illegal. However he was relieved from his post in the FBI's Explosives Unit and placed in charge of the FBI's Bomb Data Center.
"Did Mr. Thurman find the integrated circuit chip about which you have referred? After leaving the FBI, I was interviewed by Scottish defense attorneys for one of the individuals accused of bombing Pan Am 103. At that interview were two of my attorneys, two FBI attorneys and two Scottish attorneys and me. I was asked what I knew about the circuit chip. I can say that I was not interviewed because I agreed with the official version of the discovery of that integrated circuit chip," Whitehurst wrote to me.
The Lumpert Affidavit
On Friday Aug. 31, I received from Edwin Bollier, head of the Zurich-based MeBo AG, a copy of a German original of an affidavit.
The document is dated July 18, 2007, and signed by Ulrich Lumpert, who worked as an electronic engineer at MeBo from 1978 to 1994. I have scrutinized the document carefully and concluded that I have no reason to doubt its authenticity or the truthfulness of its content.
Lumpert was a key witness at the Camp Zeist trial, where a three-judge panel convicted a Libyan citizen of murdering 270 persons who died in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.
In his testimony, Lumpert stated that "of the 3 pieces of hand-made prototypes MST-13 Timer PC-Boards, the third MST-13 PC-Board was broken and [he] had thrown it away."
In his affidavit, certified by Officer Walter Wieland, Lumpert admits having committed perjury.
"I confirm today on July 18th 2007, that I stole the third hand-manufactured MST-13 Timer PC-Board consisting of 8 layers of fibre-glass from MEBO Ltd. and gave it without permission on June 22nd 1989 to a person officially investigating in the Lockerbie case," Lumpert wrote.
"It did not escape me that the MST-13 fragment shown [at the Lockerbie trial] on the police photograph No PT/35(b) came from the non-operational MST-13 prototype PC-board that I had stolen," Lumpert added.
"I am sorry for the consequences of my silence at that time, for the innocent Libyan Mr. Abdelbaset Al Megrahi sentenced to life imprisonment, and for the country of Libya."
Lumpert has agreed to speak with me in order to provide some explanations as to what exactly happened, and why he has decided to speak out regarding his role in the fabrication of the evidence.
The Thurman Affair
In the world of Forensic Sciences, former FBI William Tobin is a legend. To name but a few of his achievements, Tobin demonstrated, along with his NTSB colleagues, that TWA 800 had been destroyed by mechanical failure at the time when virtually the rest of the world strongly believed a terror act. Both the NTSB and the CIA subsequently presented compelling evidence demonstrating the scientific validity of Tobin's conclusion.
After retiring, Tobin demonstrated that the Lead content bullet identification technique, used by the FBI for more than four decades, was flawed. Tobin was not allowed to work on this matter while at the FBI.
Tobin knows a few things about superhero Thomas Thurman. Tobin told me that, in his opinion, Thurman and other Explosives Unit examiners were prone to confirmation bias, an observer bias whereby an examiner is inclined to see what he is expected to see. Tobin's opinion is based on "numerous interactions whereby Thurman and other examiners rendered conclusions supporting the prevailing investigative or prosecutorial theory but which were unsupported by scientific fact.
It was not uncommon to determine that items characterized as 'chrome-plated' were nickel-plated, 'extrusions' turned out to be drawn products, 'castings' turned out to be forgings, white residues characterized as explosive residue turned out to be corrosion products (generally Al2O3 or a non-stoichiometric form), bent nails claimed to be indicative of an explosion, and a truck axle was characterized as having fractured from an explosion (a conclusion rendered solely from an 8-1/2" x 11" photograph where the axle was a small fraction of the field of view and the fracture surface itself was not observable).
"I put no credence into any scientific or technical conclusions rendered by anyone without a suitable scientific background for that matter, until I can make an independent evaluation. Thurman was a history or political science major to my recollection," Tobin added
"His habit, as with most Explosives Unit examiners with whom I interacted and based on numerous court transcript reviews and 'bailout' requests I received on several occasions (to 'bail out' an examiner who not only misrepresented an item of evidence but also was confronted with more accurate representations of the evidence in trial), was to seek someone else's expertise and then present it as his own in a courtroom without attribution."
"He would frequently come into my office, ask for a 'quick' assessment of something (but I would always indicate that my opinion was only a preliminary evaluation and that I would need to conduct proper scientific testing of the item(s)), then weeks later I would see the assessment in a formal FBI Laboratory report to the contributor (of the evidence) as his own 'scientific' conclusion," Tobin remembers.
No Place for a Lone Wolf
"I cannot imagine that he was acting alone. He was a mid-level manager without a great deal of authority and with severely limited credentials of which the FBI was fully aware," Whitehurst answered when I asked him if he thought that Thurman had acted alone.
"The problem with having a scientific laboratory within an intelligence gathering organization is that scientists traditionally are seeking truth and at times their data is in direct contradiction to the wishes of a government that is not seeking truth but victory on battle fields."
"The problem with the scientific data is that when one wishes to really determine what the government scientists or pseudo scientists could have known, one need only look at the data. So few citizens ever ask for or review that data. So few scientists wish to question the government that feeds them and gives security to their families."
"Was Thurman ordered to do what he did? No one acts alone without orders in the FBI. We had clear goals which were clearly given to us in every document we received from anyone. If a police organization wished for us to provide them "proof" of guilt then they told us in many ways of their absolute belief that the perpetrators were those individuals they had already arrested. If the president of the United States tells the country in the national news that Dandeny Munoz Mosquera is one of the most fear assassins in the history of the world then every agent knows that he must provide information to support that statement. If leaders decide without concern for foundation of truth then most people will follow them," Whitehurst said.
"Thurman did not act alone. The culture at the FBI was one of group think, don't go against the flow, stay in line, ignore that data that does not fit the group think," Whitehurst added.
His former colleague agrees. "I've seen so often where an individual who was at one time an independent thinker and had good powers of reasoning acquires the 'us vs. them,' circle-the-wagons, public-relations at all costs mentality at the FBI," Tobin says.
"As much as I loved the institution, I have never seen a worse case of spin-doctoring of any image-tarnishing facts or developments as I had at the FBI. Never! It seemed the guiding principle was 'image before reality' or 'image before all else' (including fact). Whatever you do, 'don't embarrass the Bureau' and 'the Bureau can do no wrong.'"
The UTA Flight 772
On Sept. 19 1989, UTA Flight 772 exploded over the Sahara Desert. Initial speculation centered upon Islamic Jihad and the "Secret Chadian Resistance" rebel group.
And then, a tiny fragment of a printed circuit board was found which turned out to have been from a timing device. This fragment was identified by Thomas Thurman as being manufactured by the Taiwanese firm "TY", thus linking the bombing to Lybia.
But unlike the UK, France is no colony of the US. The French launched two counter investigations.
The 6 Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire (DCPJ) and the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) established that it was not possible to unambiguously link the TY timer to Lybia.
Most importantly, the French Commisaire Calisti, a distinguished explosive expert, determined that there was no residue of explosive on the fragment. Therefore, it could not have been part of the device that triggered the bomb on UTA 772.
A final thought
I wish to offer the reader a simple, yet extraordinary, prediction. Earlier this year, the defense lawyes of Megrahi have gained the right to acces forensic evidence, including the fragment of the infamous MST-13 timer that allegedly was used in the radio bomb that exploded on Pan Am 103.
Next year, when scientists will finally explore this fragment for explosive residue, they will find no trace of PETN or RDX. In other words, this fragment was never part of a timer that activated the 500 grs of Semtex-H that exploded on PA103. Why on earth such test was not conducted 20 years earlier?
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. Thomas Thurman
