Free Republic

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) today urged President Obama to withdraw his Administration's request to provide $400,000 to Libya's Qaddafi Foundation, just weeks after they celebrated the release of a terrorist responsible for the murders of 189 Americans. Last month, when Scotland freed Abel Baset Megrahi, the only man convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi greeted him with a hero's welcome. Qaddafi's son, Saif, was involved in the negotiation for Megrahi's release and accompanied the terrorist back to Libya. Despite the U.S. Administration's strong condemnation of Megrahi's release, the State Department...

Billions for Britain’s Conversion Effort Meets with UK’s Approval ByPaul L. Williams, Ph.D. thelastcrusade.org Libyan President Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi has mounted a multi-billion campaign to transform England and Wales into Islamic nations. Eleven Islamic missionaries will launch the campaign this week in Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham, Leicester, Glasgow, Cardiff and Swansea.The effort is being sponsored by the World Islamic Call Society (WICS), an organization that was established by the Libyan leader.The Islamic crusade comes just a month after the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset Ali Al Megrahi caused a storm between Britain and the US when he returned...

US spies blamed Iran for Lockerbie bomb Jason Allardyce, Mark Macaskill American intelligence documents blaming Iran for the Lockerbie bombing would have been produced in court if the Libyan convicted of Britain’s worst terrorist attack had not dropped his appeal. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer expected to be freed this week, had instructed his lawyers to produce internal US intelligence communications unavailable to his defence team at his trial in 2000. The cables, from the American Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), suggest that Iran was behind the attack on Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Thursday he was deeply disappointed that the Scottish government released a former Libyan agent convicted for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. McCain joined two other senators -- Independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican Susan Collins of Maine -- in issuing a statement after the convicted bomber was released Thursday morning and flew home to Libya. McCain, Lieberman and Collins recently visited Libya and met with its leaders, including Col. Muanhar Qadhafi, telling him they were adamantly opposed to the release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi. The senators' statement said, "We...

The government of Scotland has decided to release convicted Lockerbie terrorist bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi on "compassionate grounds." The government of the United Kingdom has washed its hands of the entire affair, allowing the Scottish government total freedom in taking this perfidious action against the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103. The actions of the Scottish government are inexcusable. A man who is responsible for the mass murder of 270 innocent civilians must be held accountable for such a cold blooded and ruthless act. Freeing a terrorist in order to further ties with the tyrannical Libyan regime...

Former US president John F. Kennedy had an affair with a Swedish flight attendant, according to a new book based on interviews with current and former Secret Service agents. According to ex-agent Robert Lutz, President Kennedy took a liking to a Swedish Pan Am Flight attendant who was riding on the press pool airplane which typically follows US presidents while they travel. While Lutz, who was assigned to the press plane, had initially planned to ask the good looking Swede out for dinner, members of the Secret Service detail assigned to President Kennedy told Lutz to back off. “She’s part...

Libyan authorities made the application on behalf of Abdel Basset al Megrahi, who was sentenced to life for blowing up a Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

NEW YORK — An FBI official says a notorious terrorist suspected of aiding the insurgency in Iraq will be added to the agency's list of its most wanted terrorists. The official said Monday that an FBI committee recommended this month that 73-year-old Palestinian Abu Ibrahim be placed on the list. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision wasn't official. An investigation by The Associated Press had revealed the terrorist was still alive and had fled to Syria. Ibrahim has been indicted in the 1982 bombing of Pam Am Flight 830. The explosion killed a 16-year-old boy and...

'The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing will remain in jail while his appeal continues, a court has ruled. Lawyers for Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who has advanced prostate cancer, had asked the Appeal Court in Edinburgh to grant him interim liberation. The Libyan is appealing against his conviction for the murder of 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie in 1988. A full hearing is likely to take place in the middle of next year. The judgement on the bail application was delivered on Friday by the Lord Justice General Lord Hamilton, along with Lord Kingarth and...

Lockerbie knows that it will never be allowed to forget the night of December 21, 1988. Like Aberfan, Omagh, Dunblane - the little places struck by disasters – its name is for ever linked to one terrible moment. In Lockerbie’s case it was 7.03pm, when Pan Am Flight 103 dropped from the sky. You cannot walk the streets today without the reminders: Sherwood Crescent, where the wing and fuel tank ploughed into the houses and evaporated them, leaving a massive crater, reeking of aviation fuel; Rosebank Crescent, where the fuselage came down and scattered bodies across gardens, on the rooftops...

(CBS4) MIAMI In 1927, on this very weekend, the very first Pan Am flight took off from Key West headed for Havana. 80 years later some of the faces of the airline--through the years--gathered in South Florida to remember the Pan Am legacy. Captain John Marshall remembers the night he flew Pan Am's last official flight from Sao Paolo to New York. "I asked the tower if we could take a low pass, they said no," said Marshall. "I thought about it anyway, but then I realized I had 6 hours of Brazilian airspace to fly through." That was in...

Lockerbie convict 'will soon be home in Libya'   (Boryana Katsarova/AFP/Getty) The Bulgarian nurses flew home earlier this month       Libya believes it has reached a deal with Britain that could see a Libyan convicted for the Lockerbie bombings extradited home in return for last week’s release of six foreign medics, Muammar Gaddafi's son was quoted as saying today. Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, a former Libyan secret service agent, is in prison in Scotland after being convicted over the 1998 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie. In June al-Megrahi won the right to a new...

Brazil is the hot spot this summer for international track and field. The 2007 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships just finished in Sao Paulo, and the third IBSA (International Blind Sports Federation) World Championships and Games will be there later this month. The 2007 Pan American Games just began in Rio de Janeiro, and will be followed by the 2007 Parapan American Games for Paralympians. There are some beautiful places in Brazil, but just one look at the U.S. Department of State Web site tells me I would not risk my life for a meet in Sao Paulo or Rio...

From a crime scene that spans 845 square miles, to the high-tech forensic laboratories, "Trail of Terror" takes the viewer step-by-step through one of the largest and most complex and controversial criminal investigations in modern history.

Pan Am, the airline that went bust after the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, will disappear next month as liquidators distribute a long-awaited settlement obtained from the Libyan government in compensation for the disaster. Some 15,000 creditors will share in a $30m (£15.71m) payout provided by Muammar Gadafy's regime to the Pan Am Liquidation Trust. When the money is sent out, lawyers will wind up the trust and the once global air transport company will cease to exist. The distribution ends a 15-year financial saga which began when the airline stopped flying in 1991. It went bust after losing its reputation...

CHANDIGARH: Pan Am flight attendant Neerja Bhanot, who died fighting hijackers at Pakistan's Karachi airport in September 1986, will be honoured with the second highest award in the US for crime victims. Bhanot, who hailed from this city, will be posthumously conferred the 2006 Special Courage Award by the US Department of Justice. Other attendants of the flight will also get the same award, said a statement from her family. Bhanot died while trying to save five children when the hijackers opened fire inside the Pan Am flight 20 years ago. The award will be received by Bhanot's brothers, Aneesh...

Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up as it flew over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, when 12–16 oz of plastic explosive was detonated in its forward cargo hold, triggering a sequence of events that led to the rapid destruction of the aircraft. Winds of 100 knots scattered passengers and debris along an 88-mile corridor over an area of 845 square miles. Two hundred and seventy people from 21 countries died, including 11 people on the ground. Known as the Lockerbie bombing and the Lockerbie air disaster in Britain, it became the subject of that country's largest criminal inquiry,...

Time to jog the memory banks. Back in 60s/70s, civilian guard (Brinks?) accompanying high value artwork on flight (Pan Am 747?) when perp (Vietnameese civilian?) tried to take the A/C. Captain Ok'd guard to shoot, kill perp. When A/C landed (San Francisco/L.A.?) Captain stopped A/C on taxiway and dumped body out door because "he didn't want the (dead) scum" on his A/C. This bring memories back for anyone?

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8, 2005 – Through partnerships with most major U.S. carriers, the Fisher House Foundation is making it possible for Americans to donate unused airline miles to troops wounded in the war on terror and their families. The program, "Operation Hero Miles," was created in 2004, when nearly 500 soldiers per day were returning to the U.S. from Iraq for rest and recuperation. "At that time, the military would only fly service personnel to a gateway city," said Pamela Lea-Maida, administrator of Operation Hero Miles at the Fisher House Foundation. "From there, personnel had to pay the rest of...

Once upon a time, before the airplane replaced the streetcar as the way to haul cattle from here to there, the American airliner was the ultimate in extravagant luxury and romance above the clouds. Travelers dressed like grown-ups for the adventure they expected to get for the price of their ticket. Men took baths on the day of the trip, shaved, and put on clean shirts, long pants and leather shoes. Women felt no compulsion to look (or smell) like men, and dressed accordingly. The scenery aboard was often exquisite.