I agree with you about Leppard and his propensity for getting some finer details incorrect, but I’m just not sure who is more careless, him or Feraday.
Leppard also appears to have been furnished with far more information regarding evidence of a ‘computerized printout’ from Frankfurt, and the leads being followed-up in Malta, than was provided to Sheriff Mowatt at the FAI which was conducted nearly a year after Leppard’s article.
It is utterly astounding really. We have initial statements taken from dozens of workers who were involved, directly or in-directly with Pan American departures and specifically PA103, from Heathrow that day. DC Adrian Dixon, Knox and McGrath took all the early statements from Kamboj and Bedford.
(*In statements below Kamboj/Camjob are the same loader)
Sulakash Kamboj said:
[…] Earlier in the afternoon John Bedford had brought into Interline a metal tin into which PA103 baggage was to be placed. I did not place any baggage in the PA103 tin on that day. I don’t know if the Cyprus Airways suitcase was one of the ones that went in this tin.
However, three days later, DC Dixon takes another witness statement which gives a conflicting account of not just the loading of bags but a serious discrepancy over two particular bags that appeared between 1600 and 1640 in AVE4041. Pieces of this baggage container were, at this stage, being reassembled in a hanger in Longtown, near Lockerbie. The damage sustained indicated that AVE4041 had housed an explosive device of some kind.
John Bedford said:
[…] I went to see Peter Walker in baggage build up leaving Camjob in Interline. I returned at about 1640. Camjob told me two further suitcases had arrived for PA103 which he had put in the tin.
I looked inside the tin and saw the suitcases that I had put in the tin still in the same position. Lying on their sides in front of the other suitcases. They were hard suitcases the type ‘Samsonite’ make.
One was brown in colour and the other one if it wasn’t the same colour it was similar. In size there took up the remaining base area of the tin. These two suitcases were the last to be into AVE4041 from the Interline area.
The following day.
Amarjit Sidhu said:
[…]Tommy wanted me to take this container and fill it up with New York luggage coming off the 727. Normally John Bedford would do this himself but I understand the incoming 103 was late arriving had John went home leaving with container with some Interline bags on it. I believe Tommy told me this.
When I got to the container the plastic curtain was rolled up and I could see 5 or 6 bags in there. I seem to recall that there were 2 large black suitcases lying on the front section of the container. I don’t recall which way the handles were facing. Behind them were 3 or 4 suitcases, not bags, standing upright edge on with the handles presumably uppermost. I don’t recall the colour of those.
[…] I recall that the JFK baggage had to be unloaded from the 727 very quickly as we only had about 15minutes to get this baggage transferred to the 747.
Sandy and I filled up the container on top of the baggage which was already in there.
Then…
Amarjit Sidhu said:
[…] I was asked to clarify the point about the description of the two suitcases lying flat at the front. I may have previously referred to them as black but really I should have said dark coloured because I didn’t pay any particular attention to them.
I took the container out to the 727 and positioned it at the bottom of the rocket so that bags could be put straight in. I undid the curtain and saw the same bags inside in the same position because they didn’t have room to move about. I did not reposition any of these bags and didn’t need to because of the position they were in already. Dave Sandhu didn’t touch the bags either.
Now, one thing Bedford and Kamboj (and the other security worker Parmar) are not entirely sure of was exactly how many bags were loaded into 4041 before, and then after, John Bedford went for his break at around 1600. About ‘four, five or six’ items are alluded to, even 7 at one point, but neither has to, as part of their job, log or note any such procedure, and neither can recall exactly the bags that came through. 7 Bags is also referred to by the Mets John Orr in March 1989.
Kamboj does also make a reference at one point to ’10 bags’ in total. However, this includes 5 bags that arrived at the Interline shed after Bedford had finished, which normally would have went into the interline baggage tin, but none of these bags did end up in 4041 as Bedford had already taken the container over to the build-up baggage shed when he’d finished at 1700hrs.
The flight 103A from Frankfurt was nearly 40mins late getting into Heathrow and arrived on block at 1738. Had it arrived on time then Bedford would have loaded those 5 late bags into the container. As it was, these late bags were loose loaded at the rear of the plane. The five late bags that arrived after Bedford had finished belonged to Rubin, O’Connor, Curry and Peirce, and witness statements suggest there was a bit of confusion in the rush to try and get everything onto 103. Rubin and Curry’s bags were recovered without damage that would be consistent with being in AVE4041. O’Connor’s and Pierce’s bags were somehow left behind in the melee and found at Heathrow the next day
However, as Rolfe has already illustrated, the bags that we know were loaded into container AVE4041 – matching incoming flights, times and passengers, with evidence presented at Zeist – then 6 items of legitimate luggage were loaded. Portions of all these known passenger’s luggage, with varying degrees of damage, were presented at Zeist. Carlsson, McKee, Gannon and Bernstien were Interline Heathrow and their bags were recovered.
Bedford had described, and illustrated to investigators in early January by way of reconstruction, how he would have loaded AVE4041. Matching passenger’s baggage with their arrival times at Heathrow allows you to determine how these bags would have been placed in the container by Bedford, and subsequent damage sustained supports the baggage loader reconstruction and thus the conclusions of approximate bag positioning in the container.
From left to right along the rear of the container, handles up. That would facilitate about 6 suitcases. That is what Bedford describes before taking his break. He returns 20mins later to discover the container now has two suitcases at the front of the container, flat on their bellies, handles facing towards the cases at the rear. And of these two ‘new’ cases, the left one, was as he states above, “…
suitcases the type ‘Samsonite’ make…..One was brown in colour.”
So, by early January, AVE4041 is already clearly of a prime concern to investigators, and DC Dixon of the Met police has gathered enough information to conclude that anything of note or unusual about this container is worth looking more closely into: such as the discrepancy by Bedford and Kamboj over possible bags loaded between 1600 and 1700 into AVE4041, and the appearance of possibly two bags, one of which is noted as a ‘brown Samsonite’, in this container which is currently under intense scrutiny.
So, what happened? Not much it seems. A few more statements, and investigators were seemingly content to rest on the fact that while there was some Heathrow origin luggage in AVE4041, and indeed that two cases were lying on their sides covering the floor area, they were satisfied to conclude that because the explosion might have been slightly higher than the depth of a suitcase, it wasn't for Heathrow to concern itself. Furthermore, given the bulk of the bags in that container were Frankfurt origin, it could then be announced on the ‘balance of probabilities’ the primary suitcase had travelled from that airport.
What were DC Dixon and his colleagues doing exactly? From the statements, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing it looks as though a team of about 14 were assigned to gather statements from the relevant Heathrow staff involved with that day’s activities around PA103. Of that main team, it appears that Dixon, Knox, Robson, McGrath and Downey took the bulk of the statements. And of that, Dixon, McGrath and Knox dealt with Bedford, Kamboj and Sidhu. Clearly, these three were Heathrow staff of particular importance and interest given their direct involvement in loading AVE4041, and this is reflected in the fact that multiple statements are taken from these individuals.
Remember, little more than a week since PA103 fell from the skies, AVE4041 has been earmarked as critical to the investigation. By New Year, if not publicly, it is well known within the investigation that they are looking at an IED in container AVE4041 as the cause.
So, what were this relatively small team investigating doing exactly? Obviously with hindsight it may be somewhat simplistic to say, well, as an investigator, you’ve been offered a red flag, and inexplicably, you’ve missed it. With the reams of statements coming from fourteen different Police investigators, all to be sifted through, carefully, perhaps points of interest can be missed or some piece of information not realised for the importance it carries, until a more complete picture is formed.
However, an even bigger red flag for investigators was about to present itself.
Statements from all Heathrow staff are concluded by early February. The key points are already in the possession of the team, and especially Dixon, Knox, McGrath who all dealt with the three men who had direct and some of the last contact with the bags and loading of AVE4041. Discrepancy over the bags that were loaded, who actually put them in AVE4041, and two in particular have drawn attention from one loader who remembers one suitcase arriving mysteriously being a ‘brown Samsonite’. Did the Heathrow team know about the breach of Heathrow security? We don’t know as this aspect seems to have been buried by someone from the time it happened until 2001.
Meanwhile, word from forensics and the reconstruction of AVE4041 is that the explosion may have been about 10 inches, perhaps slightly more, maybe not, above the container floor. Undoubtedly though, it is evident that the explosion occurred in the bottom left corner, near the overhang, of AVE4041.
Then, by mid-February 1989, forensics are examining various pieces of a suitcase that exhibited damage consistent with having experienced explosive force from within. By mid-to-late February 1989 word from inside the investigation was that a ‘brown Samsonite’ was responsible for carrying the explosive device. By this time Feraday and Orr are determinedly asserting the bomb was either too high from the base to be Heathrow origin, or that as the majority of bags originated at Frankfurt, and therefore the bomb likely arrived from there.
Dixon, Knox and McGrath had accumulated enough between them that they should have been banging desks about what they had gleaned. It hardly needs Colombo does it? Which passenger did Bedford’s brown Samsonite belong to? Why the discrepancy over how that bag got into 4041? Get it confirmed there and then whether this bag could have been, or definitely wasn’t, moved? Knowing all these answers, of course, despite all the claims as to the point of explosion being an few inches outside this obvious initial candidate, would have simply presented a huge problem to Heathrow, for the UK security services and Government, while perhaps also bringing into question the Met’s head John Orr’s position.
What happened then? Not at lot it seems. Indeed, nothing at all happens at Heathrow, and certainly Bedford, Kamboj, Parmar and Sidhu do not supply any further statements until late 1989 when the police show up at Heathrow again. A reduced follow-up team of about 5 officers, seemingly led by DS Russell of Strathclyde Police, are sent to Heathrow in late 1989 and early 1990 to clarify details of some of the earlier statements provided. The officers go back to Bedford, Kamboj and Sidhu, because obviously, it is perfectly apparent to the investigation that these witnesses, and their testimony, if called for, will be critical to determining how and where this bomb was introduced into baggage container AVE4041.
