8.7.99 Lockerbie Whistleblower Cleared of Perjury We received the item below from a respondent. The article they sent was printed in the Sunday Times (U.K.). Of COURSE all MENTION of this entire case has been utterly BLOCKED from the news in the United States. So--HERE IT IS! The article says how right after the Pan Am/Lockerbie airliner bombing, one Lester Coleman of the Defense Intelligence Agency had made known to investigators of the plane crash his view that the infiltration by terrorist agents of a U.S. intelligence drug-running operation resulted in a BOMB BEING SUBSTITUTED FOR A DRUG SHIPMENT. Apparently Coleman's testimony was a little too close to the mark, because in short order he found himself ostracized from his employing agency, cut loose from all contact and the target of severe harassment. Coleman thought the whole outlook was unfavorable, hit the trail and was granted asylum in Sweden and later Spain (thanks, amigos!) The subject of a massive and EXPENSIVE global manhunt by US authorities, Coleman last year decided to "turn himself in" and duke it out legally. Here's where it gets interesting. Though he plead guilty to and was convicted of perjury, given some months in jail and a $30,000 fine, Coleman's conviction has JUST BEEN OVERTURNED! He is NOW suing the federal government for TEN MILLION bucks for their treatment of him. I guess there WAS something to what Coleman had maintained all along--that U.S. intelligence agencies were and are engaged in drug-running operations in this case AND all over the WORLD; for any of a number of wretched, filthy purposes; and in running these operations, do business with the most disreputable and dangerous elements imaginable--except of course for the intelligence agents themselves. WHAT a pile of ROT our "feral" federal "government" has become! What a bunch of outrageously criminal THUGS! And by the way… right on, Lester! John Quinn/NewsHawk Inc. ========================= Did this newsworthy item get properly aired in the United States? Help out old Lester Colman out. At least he tried to do the right thing. =============================================== THE SUNDAY TIMES(UK) http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/cgi-bin/BackIssue?1124027 June 13 1999 SCOTLAND Court clears Lockerbie claim agent by Marcello Mega A FORMER American intelligence officer convicted of perjury after alleging United States complicity in the Lockerbie bombing has been cleared by a court of appeal. Lester Coleman, who was convicted of perjury last year, had the verdict overturned last month. He is living with his wife and three children in Kentucky and in the past few days has launched an action for $10m against the American government. Three judges issued a sealed ruling, an unusual step which means that not even Coleman and his lawyers can read why they quashed his conviction. Reporting restrictions also ensured the case received little attention in the United States. Coleman was dismissed as a conman by American investigators and the Scottish Crown Office when he expressed a theory that an American intelligence-controlled drug-running operation had facilitated the loading of a bomb on Pan Am flight 103. The bomb exploded over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people. Two Libyans are to be tried for the mass murder by a Scottish court in Holland next year. Coleman was ostracised by his bosses and found himself facing charges of applying for a passport in a false name and committing perjury in an action heard some years before. The passport application, he said, had been made under orders from his bosses at the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). When he found he could not reach his superiors, he decided to flee the country. He and his family were granted political asylum in Sweden in 1990. In 1994 they moved to Spain. Coleman's story - that American agents were allowing deliveries of drugs on transatlantic flights in a sting operation which allowed terrorists to switch a case containing drugs for one holding a bomb - was widely discredited. Coleman's credibility took a severe knock in 1993 when the publishers of The Trail of the Octopus, a book he cowrote about the bombing, had to pay substantial libel damages. The American authorities went to great lengths and huge expense to discover his whereabouts and to seek his extradition. Eventually Coleman decided in 1996 to return of his own volition and face charges. After months of imprisonment he was released last year after a guilty plea and a fine of $30,000. Copyright 1999 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard terms and conditions. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from The Sunday Times, visit the Syndication website.
