Spycraft - Melton [198]
Called the MST-13, the timer unit was made specifically for the Libyan government’s Ministry of Defense. The precision device could be set to delay an explosion up to 10,000 hours or 10,000 minutes. “This was an elaborate timer with crystal timing controls that were very accurate,” explained Orkin. “This timer had been in a suitcase placed on a plane going from Malta to Frankfurt. In Germany, the luggage was changed to another flight going to London, and then put on Pan Am 103. It was set to wait many hours before triggering the explosion.”
Based on the recovered evidence, the timer apparently had been set with the intention of sending the plane down into the Atlantic. However, an unexpected weather delay at Heathrow Airport and high winds diverted the flight path over Scotland. Had the plane taken off as scheduled, the bomb would have detonated over the ocean and all evidence likely destroyed or lost forever.
With these discoveries, suspicion shifted from the Syrians and Palestinians to the Libyan government. A defector named two Libyan intelligence officers whom he claimed were behind the Pan Am 103 bombing. The first, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, was identified as the Mary’s House customer who purchased the T-shirt and other clothing used to fill the suitcase containing the Semtex. The second Libyan, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, had a cover job with Libyan Arab Airlines at Malta’s airport. This put them in a perfect position to smuggle the brown Samsonite suitcase into the plane’s cargo hold. The problem for investigators and prosecution was that both suspects were now back in their home country, where Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi was steadfastly rejecting requests to hand them over for trial.
More pieces of the puzzle fell into place in March of 1990, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Semtex, the plastic explosive used, was manufactured in Czechoslovakia. The name was derived from the first four letters of the company that first manufactured it in the 1960s, the Semtin Glassworks, plus the suffix “ex” denoting the English word for “explosive.” During a well-publicized press conference in London, Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel revealed that his country, while under Communist rule, sold an estimated 1,000 tons—2 million pounds—of Semtex to Libya. The Libyans, Havel added, had refused to return the explosives.
By 1992, with evidence pointing decidedly at Libya, the case came before the United Nations Security Council. Sanctions were imposed and negotiations with the Libyan government dragged on for six long years. Then, in 1998, as sanctions became an economic burden, the Libyans finally agreed to turn over the two accused men for trial. The trial was scheduled to take place at Camp Zeist, a former U.S. military base in the Netherlands that had been declared within Scottish jurisdiction for purposes of the trial.
As the prosecution began assembling the case, it became clear the timers would play the key role in linking the two Libyan intelligence officers to the flight. According to Scottish law, the prosecution was obliged to show the defense how the investigators were led to the timing device. This put Orkin, whose entire professional life had been conducted under a cover unassociated with the CIA, in an unusual position. He would appear in open court as an expert witness in an internationally watched trial.
The Agency offered unprecedented assistance in the trial. Not only would Orkin testify, but two former chiefs of station would also be made available, if necessary, to appear in open court. Contents of classified operational cables were provided as evidence.
Orkin’s role was to deliver the critical testimony that linked the devices