Part 93 – OCTOBER 3, 1988
'Having considered the evidence concerning these matters and the submission of counsel we accept that there is a great deal of suspicion as to the acting of Abu Talb and his circle, but there is no evidence to indicate that they had either the means or the intention to destroy a civil aircraft in December 1988.' The Lockerbie Verdict, § 81
On October 3 1988, Abu Talb [1] left Sweden to go to Cyprus. Talb will stay on the Medditarean Island until October 18. He then left for Malta where he stayed until the 26th. Talb then returned to Sweden.
Obviously, Abu Talb had many contacts in Malta and Cyprus, as we shall learn in the next few weeks. But a key question regarding Talb activities during the fall of 1988 is whether or not he met with Hafez Dalkamoni [2] who had arrived in Cyprus on the 1st and stayed on the island until the 5th of October. Neither man ever admitted having met, but I will argue that they more than likely did see each other between the 3rd and the 5th of October in Cyprus.
Richard Marquise, the former FBI agent who led the investigation of the bombing of Pan Am 103, told me that he doubted that Dalkamoni and Talb had met in Cyprus in early October.
'There is no evidence that Talb met Dalkamoni. In fact, I would say not true because Dalkamoni had been under surveillance by the Germans most of October and I do not believe there was any evidence developed that he visited Malta during that time frame,' Marquise told me.
In fact, there is no doubt that Dalkamoni was in Cyprus on the following dates: 9 to 11 of May, 12 to 14 of September and 1 to 5 in October. And it is also established that Talb was on the Island from the 3rd to the 18th of October. What is more, the German surveillance operation did not start before the 10th of October and none of their sixteen targets was residing in Cyprus.
They did however monitor phone calls from the the island to Germany. In fact, as we will see, one of these phone calls between a restaurant owner named Dajani and Dalkamoni will prompt the BKA to arrest all their targets on October 26.
In my opinion, Talb and Dalkamoni had a business meeting in Cyprus. Here are some the reasons that led this writer to come to that conclusion.
Firsly, the presence of Dalkamoni on the Island just a few days after his last visit does not fit his usual travel pattern. Acccording to Dajani, the owner of a restaurant used as a post box by the PFLP-GC, Dalkamoni visits Cyprus twice a year, mostly to withdraw cash from their bank account.
If indeed Talb went to Cyprus for a vacation, it is difficult to understand why the jobless penniless Palestinian from Uppsalla would have insisted on buying an expensive ticket on a scheduled flight rather tha a cheap one for a charter flight. (The difference is quite significant: about 7,000 Swedish Kroner instead of 2,000.)
No less intriguing is the fact that after spending his first days in a very cheap hotel, The Nicosia Palace, Talb, who according to his wife's testimony had arrived to Cyprus without money, switched to one of the most expensive hotel on the Island, the Kennedy. Where he got the cash to pay for his stay, more than US$ 200 per night, was never explained.
Annika Wallin, the solicitor for Mahmoud Mograbi who is Talb's brother in law and his accomplice in several acts of terror commited in Western Europe during the mid 80s, reported that her client had been warned not to report the trip of Talb in Cyprus. Clearly, if Talb had been there for a vacation, there would be no harm reporting his presence on the Island.
What is more, according to Mahmoud Mograbi, Talb returned form the trip totally metamorphosed, mentally as well as physically. Upon learning of the arrest of the sixteen members of the PFLP-GC in Germany on Oct. 26, Talb was living in fear that one of them would denounce him. As Mograbi told the Police, Talb clearly knew something about Lockerbie. What exactly he knows, the world has never been told to this day.
Power struggle in Iran
Today, the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini has warned top Iranian leaders to beware of intrigues seeking to divide them by accusing each other of depending on the West or the East. 'Iran's slogan is and must remain neither East nor West,' Khomeini said.
The Supreme Leader of Iran has unexpectingly removed his son from Government committees. The role of Ahmad Khomeini will, from now on, be limited to an observer reporting back to his father. According to observers, this is perhaps an indication of tension between Ahmed Khomeini and Rafsanjani.
Hostages Held in Lebanon
According to former Iran President Bani-Sadr, a US citizen named Richard Lawless has negotiated the release of Mithileshwar Singh, an Indian professor and a legal resident of the United States. Singh was freed today, Monday, October 3, in Beirut, Lebanon.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1.
Mohamed Abu Talb [Diary of a Vengeance Foretold] Part 70 -- Sept. 10, 1988
2.
Haffez Kassem Dalkamoni and the Cyprus Connection [Diary of a Vengeance Foretold] Part 72 - Sept. 12, 1988
3.
The Moghrabis: Terror as a Palestinian Family Business [Diary of a Vengeance Foretold] Part 69 - Sept. 9, 1988
Hopes Rise for the Release of Hostages in Lebanon, October3, 1988
