DATE=5/5/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=LOCKERBIE TRIAL (L)
NUMBER=2-262034
BYLINE=RON PEMSTEIN
DATELINE=CAMP ZEIST, HOLLAND
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:


INTRO:  At the trial of two Libyans accused of bombing 
Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, the prosecution has 
presented the police officers who conducted the 
original investigation of the crash site in Lockerbie, 
Scotland.  V-O-A's Ron Pemstein reports on the trial 
at Camp Zeist, Holland.


TEXT:  The defense lawyers for the two Libyans on 
trial -- Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa 
Fahima -- are trying to show that others may have 
committed the 1988 bombing of the airliner.

In a cross examination of retired Scottish police 
inspector Gordon Ferrie, lawyer Bill Taylor had Mr. 
Ferrie acknowledge that he investigated the 
possibility that the Popular Front for the Liberation 
of Palestine-General Command was behind the explosion.

Mr. Ferrie told the court the investigation turned 
into a criminal matter within two days after the 
airplane crashed on December 21, 1988.  The former 
police inspector says he looked into Germany's arrest 
of radical Palestinians a few months before the crash.

The defense points out the Palestinians were arrested 
with bomb-making materials, including radio cassette 
recorders similar to ones the Libyans are accused of 
putting in a suitcase on the doomed Pan Am plane.

The defense also says a Palestinian suspect was 
released from German custody before the Pan Am 
explosion.

Mr. Ferrie said his team pursued the investigation of 
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine 
until June 1990, when the focus of the inquiry 
changed.  Questions about the reasons for the change 
were cut off in court, but that is the time when the 
criminal investigation turned toward Libya.

The two accused Libyan intelligence agents were 
indicted in 1991 for the Pan Am bombing that killed 
270 people.

Libya refused to make the suspects available for trial 
until last year, when it agreed to a Scottish court 
trial at this neutral site here in central Holland.

The Scottish defense team is doing its best to 
introduce elements of reasonable doubt about the 
prosecution's case.

Mr. Fahima's lawyer, Richard Keen, asked police 
witnesses to acknowledge the participation of 
America's Central Intelligence Agency in the Lockerbie 
investigation.

The prosecution clarified on re-examination that the 
overall crash investigation remained under the control 
of Scottish officers.  The prosecution's purpose in 
presenting the police witnesses was to show how 
careful the search was of the Lockerbie area.

This could become more important later in the trial 
when the prosecution presents evidence designed to 
link the two Libyans to tiny bits of debris that were 
recovered from the crash of Pan Am flight 103.

When the police testimony was completed, the first 
week of the trial closed with the reading of the names 
of the victims.  The prosecution and the defense 
agreed to the readings for the benefit of relatives in 
the court or watching on closed-circuit television.

The reading of the list of the 270 killed -- from John 
Ahern of Rockville Center, New York to Rasaline 
Summerville of Lockerbie, Scotland -- lasted more than 
one hour.   (Signed)
   
NEB/RP/LTD-T/JP




05-May-2000 12:21 PM EDT (05-May-2000 1621 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.