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THE MALTESE DOUBLE CROSS -- ILLUSTRATED SCREENPLAY & SCREENCAP GALLERY |
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[Charles Price, U.S. Ambassador, U.K.] It was an unidentified caller that apparently made the phone call to our embassy in Helsinki.
[Jim Renwick, Pam Am Security London] I got the impression from the person I was discussing it with that it had been fairly checked out and was considered to be a hoax.
[U.S. State Department Spokesperson] We receive dozens of threats each day. We always take them seriously. In this case, we took action immediately.
[Pentagon Spokesperson] We were notified of it. It was circulated to all the appropriate commands. To anticipate your next question, no, as far as I can determine at this point, it was not posted on bulletin boards.
[David Yallop] Almost at the same time as I was talking to these two secret agents here in London, a warning had come from Helsinki that talked of the bombing of a Frankfurt-bound plane, and that other warnings were even more specific and talked of Pan Am 103. And what amused me was that all of us had in our own way given pieces of a very crucial puzzle to the Intelligence which they had chosen to ignore. Or so it seemed. It subsequently became apparent to me from further inquiries that they hadn't ignored them and that a number of VIPs were pulled off that plane, a number of Intelligence operatives were pulled off that plane.
[Oswald Le Winter, CIA 1968-85] The South Africans, particularly Pik Botha, were booked on Flight 103, and changed pretty much at the last hour or so. These South Africans had been warned by the Bureau of State Security to change reservations. [Narrator] The South Africans booked on Flight 103 canceled just before departure along with Pik Botha, General Mallon, a defense minister, and General Van Tonda, head of the Secret Service, Botz? and other senior government officials. Botha, Mallon and Van Tonda confirmed this change in travel arrangement to British businessman Tiny Rowlands. They tell him the source of the information was of the kind that could not be dismissed.
Botha rebooks on the earlier Pan Am 101. General Van Tonda and two other members of of Botz? cancel their trip altogether.
[Oswald Le Winter, CIA 1968-85] Botz? had close ties to two very important services: to the Israeli service and also to the American, to the Central Intelligence Agency.
[President George Bush] Sometimes by going public you give undue attention to what the terrorists wants to call attention to. But if you won't be offended, if we have specific information that a specific site was going to be specifically targeted and that information had any credibility to it, then I think widespread notices should be given and people should well know that they are putting their lives at risk.
[David Ben-Arycah, Journalist] If you count them out, there have been at least eight warnings to the Western Intelligence authorities, whether they were British, American or German. What did they need? A signed confession on a postcard?
[Dr. Jim Swire] I remember that Flora had been told she would be unlikely to get a seat on that flight because it was so near Christmas the plane would be full. But the plane was nothing like full. Flora bought a ticket just a couple of days before she flew. Now, if that came about because the others who would have filled the plane had been warned, what does that say about the system? It says that the warning was widely known, that a lot of people had heard it, a lot of people acted on it, it was only the [inaudible] who weren't on the inside of this system that's supposed to protect innocent people who actually climbed aboard that plane.
[Jane Swire] She got on that plane really as a lamb to the slaughter. She walked up into that aircraft believing as anyone should, might, that she was going to be safely transported to America.
[Narrator] Neuss muB leben, others might die but Neuss must live. There were more than warnings. In Neuss, near Frankfurt, before the destruction of Pan Am 103, a bomb-making terrorist cell associated with a Syrian-backed terrorist, Ahmed Jibril, had been discovered. The good burghers cross over the canal.
The motor barge putters through oil splotches, past the Gantry cranes. Here, only the water is bad.
The phone booth, still there at the end of the street. Is there somebody in it? Has someone been warned? Has someone been told to run away? One terrorist cell, two terrorist cells, three terrorist cells. How long before? How long after?
[David Ben-Arycah, Journalist] On the 8th of December, 1988, the anniversary of the intifada, units of the Society of Golani, the Golani Brigade, the SAS of the Israeli Defense Forces raided a PFLP-GC base in Southern Lebanon, a base called [inaudible]. It was an extensive base: miles of underground tunnels, underground bunkers, one of which was Ahmed Jibril's headquarters in Southern Lebanon.
[Vincent Cannistraro, CIA head of Lockerbie Investigation] The group you referred to was a clandestine cell of the PFLP-GC, the Ahmed Jibril group, that had been sent to Germany to set up an operation, several operations as a matter of fact, directed against both the Americans and other Western targets. That group had been set up in the aftermath of the American shootdown of the Iranian Airbus in July 1988.
[Narrator] Bodies float in the Persian Gulf. Iranians on a flight to Mecca shot out of their Airbus by an American warship.
[Abolhassan Bani Sadr, President of Iran, 1979-81] It was a crime. To the Iranians it was a crime. The people of Iran saw it as a crime. Shooting down an airplane, killing almost 300 people is a crime.
The people of Iran [illegible].
[Illegible] there would have been legal proceedings. A lot of fuss would have been made all around the world. But here they destroyed the aircraft and then congratulated themselves. They even gave a medal to the officer who fired the missile at the plane.
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