ACCESSION NUMBER:384496

FILE ID:NEA404

DATE:03/23/95

TITLE:FBI PUTS LIBYANS, WANTED IN PAN AM CASE, ON MOST WANTED LIST (03/23/95)

TEXT:*95032306.GNE  libyans pan am case fbi most wanted list#rm gc kf+

*NEA404   03/23/95

FBI PUTS LIBYANS, WANTED IN PAN AM CASE, ON MOST WANTED LIST

(FBI offering four million dollars reward)  (440)

By Rick Marshall

USIA Staff Writer

Washington -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced March 23

that two Libyans, charged with the destruction of a 1988 Pan American

flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270, have been placed on its

Ten Most Wanted List.



The purpose of the announcement, according to Robert Bryant, assistant

director for the FBI's national security division, was to attract worldwide

attention to the men -- Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali

al-Megrahi -- as well as the $4 million reward which can be obtained for

providing the FBI with information leading to their arrest.



Bryant announced the FBI move at a press conference at Washington's Foreign

Press Center.



Asked about reports that other individuals may have been involved in the

Lockerbie case, Bryant replied, "We're absolutely convinced that these two

Libyans were involved in this crime."  He declined to speculate about

1ther, possible co-conspirators.



Bryant also said that the FBI did not believe reports that Fhimah and

al-Megrahi may have been executed in Libya.  "We don't find that to be

credible," he said.



The mid-air explosion of Pan American flight 103 December 21, 1988, killed

all 259 on board, as well as 11 people in Lockerbie.  In November 1991, a

Federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted Al-Megrahi and Fhimah on

charges of planting and detonating the bomb that destroyed the aircraft.



The two Libyans were identified in the indictment as officers of the

Jamahirya Security Organization, which the U.S. Attorney General described

at that time as the "intelligence service through which Libya conducted

acts of terrorism against other nations."



According to Justice Department documents, Fhimah was the station manager

for Libyan airlines at Malta's Luqa Airport.  It was there that the two

Libyans constructed a bomb, using plastic explosives and a Swiss-made

timing device, and concealed it inside "a large, brown, hard-sided

Samsonite suitcase."  Fhimah "had access to Air Malta luggage tags and the

Air Malta facilities," the Justice Department documents say.



From Malta the suitcase was flown to Frankfurt and London, then transferred

to Pan Am 103 bound for JFK in New York.  It exploded at 31,000 feet,

killing 189 Americans as well as individuals from 20 other nations.



The FBI has placed information about al-Megrahi and Fhimah on the Internet

and will be posting it in airports and other locations around the world --

particularly in North Africa, FBI officials say.



Anyone with information about the two men should contact the nearest FBI

office, or U.S. embassy or consulate, if outside the United States.



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