CIA Linked to ’86 Bombing
BERLIN TV TIES CIA, MOSSAD TO BERLIN TERROR ATTACK
German public television has made a compelling case that the CIA and Mossad were involved in the bombing of a disco in Berlin in 1986 to provide a rationale for attacking Libya.
Exclusive to American Free Press
By Fred Lingel
Fifteen years after the terrorist bombing of a disco in Berlin, a German court has found four individuals guilty of the attack which killed two American servicemen and a Turkish woman.
But a documentary on German public television aired in 1998 disputes the case brought by German authorities against the group, presenting chilling evidence that the main suspects in the 1986 La Belle disco bombing worked for American and Israeli intelligence.
The bombing gave President Ronald Reagan the pretext to order the bombing of Libya. The bombs hit Libyan leader Mu am mar Qaddafi’s home, killing at least 30, including one of his infant children. Qaddafi was uninjured.
The TV documentary said its findings are significant today because the bombing of Libya is being cited as a precedent for America’s war on terror in Afghanistan and other countries around the world.
A Berlin court reached a verdict on four suspects on Nov. 14. A fifth individual was found not guilty.
Verena Chanaa, a 42-year-old German, accused of detonating the bomb, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Yassir Chraidi, a 42-year-old Palestinian, was convicted of multiple counts of attempted murder and accessory to murder. Musbah Eter, a 44-year-old Libyan, and Ali Chanaa, a 42-year-old Lebanese-born German who is Verena Chanaa’s ex-husband were also found guilty of the same charges.
Chraidi was sentenced to 14 years. Eter and Ali Chanaa to 12 years each.
The fifth defendant, 36-year-old Andrea Haeusler, was found not guilty for lack of evidence.
However, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF television) conducted its own investigation. According to the World Socialist Web Site (
www.wsws.org), the documentary concluded:
• The lead defendant, Chraidi, is possibly innocent and is being used as a scapegoat by German and Ameri can intelligence services.
• At least one defendant, Eter, has been working for the CIA for many years, according to recently released East German and Soviet intelligence documents.
• Key suspects, who may have been involved in the bombing or had knowledge of it, have not appeared in court because they are being protected by Western intelligence services.
• At least one of the people who never appeared, Mohammed Amairi, is an agent of the Mossad, Israel’s secret service.
CIA ASSET
Chraidi, one of the men accused of masterminding the bombing, was a driver at the Libyan embassy in East Berlin in 1986. He later moved to Lebanon and was extradited to Germany in May 1996.
ZDF-TV interviewed the two Lebanese responsible for Chraidi’s extradition: the former public prosecutor Mounif Queidat and his deputy, Mrad Azoury. Both said German authorities used deceit to obtain Chraidi’s extradition.
Azoury said he found no evidence that Chraidi was involved in the attack but only “hints.”
“The Americans were behind this demand,” Queidat said. “This was obvious. They spurred the Germans to speed up the extradition.”
A Berlin judge found the evidence so weak he threatened to release Chraidi. At this point, another man was brought into the case who “was obviously supposed to be spared by the prosecution until then,” ZDF-TV said.
On Sept. 9, 1996, the day the judge had threatened to release Chraidi, Berlin public prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, Berlin police inspector Uwe Wilhelms and a “Mr. Win ter stein” of the German Federal Intelligence Service met Musbah Eter in the Mediterranean island state of Malta.
The meeting had been arranged by German intelligence, which maintains close connections to the CIA. Eter was running an international business in Malta, which, ZDF-TV said, served as a cover for CIA operations.
Eter was wanted by German law enforcement on mur der charges. Eter was offered immunity in exchange for testifying against Chraidi. The next day, Eter testified at the German embassy, the warrant against him was scrapped and he was allowed to return to Germany.
According to the German program, Eter was a key figure in the disco bombing.
At the time of the attack, Eter worked for the Libyan embassy in East Berlin but visited the U.S. embassy frequently. This highly unusual fact was uncovered when communist intelligence notes were discovered af ter the fall of East Germany extensively documenting Eter’s visitations.
The German reporters tracked down another key figure in the terrorist act, Mohammed Amairi.
Amairi lived in Germany but had left for Norway when a warrant was issued for his arrest in 1990. ZDF-TV interviewed Amairi in Bergen. His lawyer, Odd Drev land, said Amairi “was a Mossad man.” The Mos sad, he said, had the charges dropped.
“These secret service intrigues present a task for the Berlin court that is almost insoluble,” the TV documentary concluded. “But one thing is certain: the American legend of Libyan state terrorism can no longer be maintained.
“It may come as a shock to many Americans, all the more so given the utterly venal and lying role of the U.S. media, but U.S. intelligence services are well versed in the most unscrupulous and bloody methods,” the German report says. No analysis of terror attacks carried out by Islamic groups can “rule out the possibility of a provocation, organized either directly or indirectly” by U.S. or Israeli intelligence.
