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The Truth about Lockerbie - MartinFrost.ws

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A tale of three atrocities<br />

was the only time I knew of anyone from the NSC or the White House taking an active interest and an<br />

operational role in the case.” <strong>The</strong> US Government must have been very alarmed by the CBS story and<br />

the effect it could have on the <strong>Lockerbie</strong> trial for the President to take a personal interest.<br />

After interviewing a man who called himself Behbehani, Marquise concluded that the man was “a<br />

fabricator” who claimed he was born in 1968 and was therefore “far too young to have been the person<br />

responsible for ordering the Pan Am bombing. If he had any information, he was unable to provide it.<br />

He said there was a CD which documented his claims, but said he had no way of getting it, further<br />

hurting his credibility.”<br />

Yet I found something very odd <strong>about</strong> Marquise's interview. He was thwarted at every turn by the<br />

Turkish authorities, which made it hard to fulfil his brief to “not leave out any detail.” He was allowed<br />

just one interview with Behbehani. <strong>The</strong> morning after the CBS report was aired, he learned that the<br />

“Turkish authorities would allow the FBI access... but no later than Thursday of that week”.<br />

Unfortunately for Marquise, he had "taken the day off but was thousands of miles away, with only a<br />

couple of days to get there and no visa.” Upon arriving in Turkey, he was told by the Legat 28 (the FBI<br />

legal official) there that “the Turks had told him that, if this story appeared in the ne<strong>ws</strong> media once<br />

more, the interview would never take place.” <strong>The</strong> Turkish authorities also denied the Scots permission<br />

to participate in the interview.<br />

Marquise and the CIA didn't have the best relationship. According to Marquise, during the <strong>Lockerbie</strong><br />

investigation, they were concerned <strong>about</strong> "CIA attempts to slow down the investigation” and "the CIA's<br />

incursion into avenues better explored by law enforcement”.<br />

So it's my view that Marquise and Hakakian didn't see the same Behbehani – Marquise was set up by<br />

the CIA and swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker. I have managed to find a picture of the<br />

Behbehani that Hakakian interviewed, and he was a fairly well-built man who looked almost a decade<br />

older than Marquise's man claimed to be. So the younger man seems like a put up job by the CIA,<br />

possibly with the assistance of the Iranians.<br />

As I looked into it further, I found there was a Behbehani with family connections to Rafsanjani who<br />

seemed the right age to be the man in Hakakian's pictures. So it's unsurprising that the Turks 29 were so<br />

reticent <strong>about</strong> letting the FBI see their man more than once.<br />

<strong>The</strong> real Behbehani's links to <strong>Lockerbie</strong> are perhaps greater than the claims he made while in Turkey.<br />

Shortly after <strong>Lockerbie</strong>, he was promoted to Head of the Intelligence Section of the Revolutionary<br />

Guard in the President's Office. This timing seems more than a coincidence – perhaps it was a reward<br />

for "services rendered". Certainly, the man was a favourite of the Rafsanjani regime - he rose to the<br />

senior rank of brigadier-general before he fled into exile. Marquise said a man called Behbehani could<br />

have been involved in Iranian terror. In his book, he says that, although he believed the man he met<br />

was a fake: “It was possible a man by the same name was formerly in charge of terrorist operations.”<br />

I therefore think, although this is no more than a hypothesis at the moment, that Behbehani was the<br />

Iranian at Heathrow. As a man with family links to the Iranian regime, he was perfectly placed to<br />

avenge a Qesas crime. No one kno<strong>ws</strong> what happened to Hakakian's Behbehani after those fateful<br />

intervie<strong>ws</strong>.<br />

28 http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0418/exec.htm This contains a useful description of the work of<br />

the Legat and their worldwide distribution<br />

29 http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/inside/turkey/2009/090605B.html<br />

17

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