Former CIA agent testifies, but leaves many questions unanswered

CAMP ZEIST, Netherlands - A CIA spy testified Tuesday that two Libyans kept bricks of explosives in a desk at Malta airport for at least two years, until a few weeks before Pan Am Flight 103 blew up, killing 270 people.

But the Libyan, who became a CIA mole four months before the bombing on Dec. 21, 1988, unexpectedly ended his testimony after less than a day Tuesday, providing only tenuous links between two Libyan defendants and the explosives.

Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah are charged with murder and conspiracy to murder the 259 passengers on the Boeing 747 and 11 people killed by the flaming debris that plunged 30,000 feet onto the Scottish town of Lockerbie. Most of those on the plane were Americans.

Identified by the pseudonym Abdul Majid Giaka and billed as the prosecution's star witness, Giaka said he worked in Malta since 1986 for Libya's Jamahriya Security Organization, using his job as the assistant station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines as a cover.

He said Fhimah, his immediate boss, kept bricks of explosives locked in a desk at Malta airport for two years - until just a few weeks before the bombing.

Fhimah ''told me he had 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of TNT delivered by Abdel Basset,'' Giaka said, referring to the co-defendant, Megrahi. He said he was told to keep the existence of the explosives quiet.

Giaka also said he saw Megrahi, who had been in charge of airline security, with a ''brownish'' suitcase similar to the one the indictment says contained the bomb that blew up the airliner.

He testified that a senior Libyan intelligence officer asked him if it would be possible to put an unaccompanied suitcase aboard an airplane at Malta. That was in 1986, shortly after U.S. aircraft bombed the Libyan capital of Tripoli to avenge an alleged Libyan-sponsored terrorist attack on U.S. servicemen in Germany.

But in four hours of direct testimony in Arabic, Giaka drew no direct connection between the explosives he saw at the Libyan airlines office and the suitcase Megrahi allegedly carried to Flight 103.

After Fhimah left his post in 1988, Giaka said Megrahi told him to take care of the explosives, but he refused, and summoned the Libyan consul in Malta to take it away.

Giaka was unclear about the timing of several key incidents, including the date he saw Megrahi arrive in Malta and collect a hard-shelled ''shiny brownish'' suitcase from the baggage carousel - the same kind the prosecution says concealed the Lockerbie bomb.

Giaka said it was ''two or three weeks'' after an earlier trip by Megrahi on Dec. 7, 1988, and Fhimah was there to greet him. Dec. 7 was 14 days before a bomb destroyed Pan Am Flight 103.

The witness testified after nine years of hiding in the U.S. witness protection program. Only the people in the courtroom could see or hear him. Video images broadcast to the public gallery were blocked and his voice was distorted to keep his identity secret.

Giaka said he became a CIA agent in August 1988 because he was ''uncomfortable'' with his organization's ''involvement in terrorism and the way it handled dissidents'' against the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

But Giaka admitted he was afraid of losing his Libyan intelligence job - and the exemption from military service - because of an incident at the airport involving an Egyptian teen-age girl's complaint of sexual harassment.

Initially he wanted help to flee to the United States, but agreed to stay and spy for the CIA, which paid him $1,000 per month and helped him avoid military service.