London: The CIA has allegedly said that it has always known that Iran and not Libya was behind the deadly 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which came down over Lockerbie, Scotland causing the deaths of 270 people.
Ignored for almost 25-years as an unverified conspiracy theory, a respected New York Times journalist and Middle-East expert, Robert Worth, has claimed in a recent piece that a former CIA operative confirmed to him that there was an Iranian role in the December bombing.
According to the Daily Mail, the secret was revealed during a New York Times interview Worth conducted with French spy novelist Girard de Villiers, the evidence that Iran was responsible is allegedly classified and therefore cannot be used in court.
Buried deep in a profile on the wildly successful novelist is an exchange where de Villiers is asked about his next novel in his SAS series of spy stories.
The book is based on the premise that it was Iran - not Libya - that carried out the notorious 1988 airliner bombing.
According to the report, he said that the Iranians went to great lengths to persuade Muammar Gaddafi to take the fall for the attack, which was carried out in revenge for the downing of an Iranian passenger plane by American missiles six months earlier.
The motive for the attack by Iran was as revenge for Iran Air Flight 655, which was shot down over the Persian Gulf in July 1988 by the USS Vincennes, killing all 290 passengers and crew members on board.
However, Worth reignited these claims by returning to the United States and speaking with a former CIA agent, the report said.
Robert Worth, is an accepted expert on the Middle East, served as the Beirut bureau chief gor the New York Times and has contacts deep within the intelligence community.
His interview with de Villiers was based mainly around the fact that the 83-year-old who has sold over 100 million books, has a similar if not more impressive chain of sources, the report added.
(ANI)
First Published: Monday, February 04, 2013, 15:41