Lockerbie: Attention, un attentat peut en cacher bien d’autres! (Behind Lockerbie,… an Iranian 9/11-type suicide attack on a US cruiser?)

Une chose est claire, c’est que le USS Vincennes était en état de légitime défense. Cet accident tragique s’est produit dans un contexte d’attaques illégales iraniennes répétées, injustifiées et non-provoquées contre la marine marchande et les forces armées des Etats-Unis. Et il s’est produit au cours d’une attaque navale lancée par des navires iraniens contre un navire neutre et plus tard contre le Vincennes quand il est venu secourir le bateau innocent en perdition. Vice-président George H.W. Bush (Siège des Nations-Unies, le 14 juillet 1988)

For decades, the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been reading effortlessly ultra sensitive messages intercepted from all parts of the world. This extraordinary feat was not the consequence of the work of some genius cyber mathematician. Nor was it the result of the agency dominance in the field of super computers, which allegedly have outpaced their most direct rivals by orders of magnitude. The truth is far simpler and quite troubling. The game was rigged. For half a century, Crypto AG, a Swiss company located in Zug, has sold to more than 100 countries the encryption machines their officials rely upon to exchange their most sensitive economic, diplomatic and military messages. Crypto AG was founded in 1952 by the legendary (Russian born) Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin. During World War II, Hagelin sold 140,000 of his machine to the US Army. « In the meantime, the Crypto AG has built up long standing cooperative relations with customers in 130 countries, » states a prospectus of the company. The home page of the company Web site says, « Crypto AG is the preferred top-security partner for civilian and military authorities worldwide. (…) And for all those years, US eavesdroppers could read these messages without the least difficulty. A decade after the end of WWII, the NSA, also known as No Such Agency, had rigged the Crypto AG machines in various ways according to the targeted countries. It is probably no exaggeration to state that this 20th century version of the « Trojan horse » is quite likely the greatest sting in modern history. (…) In the aftermath of the Islamic revolution, Iran, quite understandably, would no longer trust encryption equipment provided by companies of NATO countries. The Swiss reputation for secrecy and neutrality lured Iranians to Crypto AG, an old and venerable company. They never imagined for a moment that, attached to the encrypted message, their Crypto machines were transmitting the key allowing the description of messages they were sending. The scheme was perfect, undetectable to all but those who knew where to look. Crypto AG, of course, denied the allegations as « pure invention. » In 1994, the company issued a message in the Swiss press, stating that « manipulation of Crypto AG equipment is absolutely excluded. » (…) A book published in 1977 by Ronald Clark (The Man Who Broke Purple: The Life of Colonel William F. Friedman) revealed that William F. Friedman, another Russian-born genius in the field of cryptography (he deciphered the Japanese code in World War II) and onetime special assistant to the NSA director, had visited Boris Hagelin in 1957. Friedman and Hagelin met at least on two other occasions. Clark was urged by the NSA not to reveal the existence of these meetings for national security reasons. In 1982, James Bamford confirmed the story in his book on the NSA: The Puzzle Palace. The operation was codenamed the « Boris project. » In effect, Friedman and Hagelin had reached an agreement that was going to pave the way to cooperation of Crypto AG with the NSA. Despite these very obvious hints, countries such as Iran, Iraq and Libya continued using the Crypto AG machines for encrypting their messages. And so did the Vatican, among many other entities. In 1987, ABC News Beirut correspondent Charles Glass was taken hostage for 62 days in Lebanon by Hezbollah, the Shi’ite Muslim group widely believed to have been founded by Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, when he was Iranian ambassador to Syria in the early 1980s. Washington claimed that NSA had intercepted coded Iranian diplomatic cables between Iran’s embassies in Beirut and the Hezbollah group. Iranians began to wonder how the US intelligence could have broken their code. After the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, « Iran vowed that the skies would rain with American blood. » A few months later, on Dec. 21, a terrorist bomb brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Once more, NSA intercepted and decoded a communication of Iranian Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashemi linking Iran to the bombing of Pan Am 103. (…) Moreover, Israeli intelligence intercepted a coded transmission between Mohtashemi in Teheran and the Iranian Embassy in Beirut concerning the transfer of a large sum of money to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril, as payment for the downing of Pan Am 103. The Iranians were now at a loss to explain how Western and Israeli intelligence agencies could so easily defeat the security of their diplomatic traffic. The ease with which the West was reading Iranian coded transactions strongly suggested that some may have possessed the decryption keys. In April 1979, Shahpour Bakhtiar was forced to leave Iran as the last prime minister of the Shah. He returned to France where he lived in the west Paris suburb of Suresnes. In July 1980, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. On Aug. 6, 1991, Bakhtiar and his personal secretary Katibeh Fallouch were murdered by three assassins. Two of them fled to Iran, but the third, Ali Vakili Rad, was apprehended in Switzerland. One of the six alleged accomplices, Zeyal Sarhadi was an employee of the Iranian Embassy in Berne and a great-nephew of former president of Iran Hasemi Rafsanjani. Both men were extradited to France for trial. (…) Switzerland’s Neue Zurcher Zeitung reported that the U.S. had provided the contents of encrypted Iranian messages to France to assist Investigating Magistrate Jean Louis Bruguiere in the conviction of Ali Vakili Rad and one of his alleged accomplices Massoud Hendi. This information was confirmed by L’ Express. The NSA interception and decoding of the message led to the identification of the murderers before the murder was discovered. From the Swiss and French press reports, Iranians now knew that British and American SIGINT operators had intercepted and decoded the crucially embarrassing message. Something was definitely wrong with their encryption machines. Hans Buehler was a top Crypto AG salesman who had worked at the Zug company for 13 years. In March 1992, Buehler, a strongly built cheerful man in his 50s, was on his 25th trip to Iran on behalf of Crypto AG. Then, on March 18, he was arrested. Iranian intelligence agents accused him of spying for the United States as well as Germany. Buehler was held in solitary confinement in the Evin prison located in the north of Tehran. He was interrogated everyday for five hours for more than nine months. (…) Buehler never confessed any wrongdoing on his part or on the part of Crypto AG. It appeared that he had acted in good faith and the Iranians came to believe him. « I didn’t know that the equipment was bugged, otherwise the Iranians would have gotten it out of me by their many methods. » In January 1993, after nine months of detention, Crypto AG [or was it Siemens?] paid US$1 million to secure Buehler’s freedom. [But] Crypto fired him and demanded repayment of the $1 million provided to Tehran for his liberation. Back to Zug, Buehler began to ask some embarrassing questions about the Iranian allegations. And the answers tended to back up Iranian suspicions. Soon, reports began to appear on Swiss television and radio. Major Swiss newspapers and German magazines such as Der Spiegel picked up the story. Most, if not all, came to the conclusion that Crypto AG’s equipment had been rigged by one or several Western intelligence services. (…) Buehler contacted several former Crypto AG employees. All admitted to him, and eventually to various media, that they believed that the company had long cooperated with US and German intelligence agencies. (…) A Crypto AG official document describes an August 1975 meeting set up to demonstrate the capacity of a new prototype. The memorandum lists among the participants Nora L. Mackebee, who, like her husband, was an NSA employee. (…) During the ’70s, Motorola helped Crypto AG in making the transition from mechanical to electronic machines. Bob Newman was among the Motorola engineers working with Crypto AG. Newman remembers very well Mackebee but says that he ignored that she was working for the NSA. (…) Crypto AG called these allegations « old hearsay and pure invention. » When Buehler began to suggest openly that there may be some truth to them, Crypto AG not only dismissed him on the spot, but also filed a legal case against him. Yet Crypto AG settled the case out of court, in November 1996, before other former Crypto AG employees could provide evidence in court that was likely to have brought embarrassing details to light. (…) The ownership of Crypto AG has been to a company in Liechtenstein, and from there back to a trust company in Munich. Crypto AG has been described as the secret daughter of Siemens but many believe that the real owner is the German government. (…) The German secret service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), is believed to have established the Siemens’ connection. (…) American « watchers » demanded the use of certain encryption codes and the « central office for encryption affairs » instructed Crypto AG what algorithms to use to create these codes. (…) On Dec. 6, 1994, a special French terrorism court convicted two Iranians of murdering Bakhtiar. Vakili Rad was sentenced to life in prison. But, to the dismay of all observers, Sarhadi was acquitted. « Justice has not been entirely served for reasons of state, » complained Bakhtiar’s widow. It appears indeed that France, Switzerland, the German BND and the NSA decided to let Sarhadi go free in order to preserve the « secrecy » of the Crypto AG cooperation with the NSA. In 1991, the US and the U.K. indicted two Libyans for the bombing of Pan Am 103. To the surprise of many observers, the indictment did not mention those believed to have contracted the act of terror in spite of the fact that their guilt had been established by the interception of official communications by several intelligence agencies. To many observers, justice was not served at the Lockerbie trial. Could it be that the US and U.K. governments decided to sacrifice the truth in order to preserve the (in)efficiency of their intelligence apparatus? Ludwig De Braeckeleer

La destruction par les Américains d’un Airbus civil iranien au-dessus du Golfe en juillet 1988 selon nos sources, l’aviation militaire de la République Islamique voulait lancer une attaque de type kamikaze sur un porte-avion américain en utilisant l’Airbus de l’aviation civile comme un écran. L’airbus était utilisé pour masquer l’image radar des chasseurs bombardiers de la République Islamique. Le porte-avions américain a fait feu sur l’Airbus et tous les passagers avaient péri. Bien avant le 11 septembre 2001, l’utilisation d’un avion de ligne dans un acte de guerre est une innovation des services secrets des Mollahs. Iran-Resist

Suite au tardif repentir d’un policier suisse (prudent: il a attendu la prescription des faits!) qui reconnaît avoir introduit lui-même la pièce à conviction ayant servi à faire condamner un agent libyen dans l’affaire de l’attentat contre l’avion de la Panam au-dessus de Lockerbie qui avait 270 morts en 1988 …

Petit retour, avec Iran-Resist, sur les vrais commanditaires de l’attentat (comme d’ailleurs apparemment de celui du DC10 d’UTA, qui avait fait 170 morts au-dessus du désert du Ténéré l’année suivante), iraniens bien sûr et comme d’habitude derrière le rideau de fumée d’un de leurs groupes terroristes affidés, en l’occurrence le FPLP d’Ahmed Djibril basé alors à Damas (les Lybiens jouant les « lampistes »?).

Et les vraies raisons des services occidentaux, sans compter peut-être l’impossibilité de révéler la véritable source de leurs informations, pour avoir abandonné ce qui avait été en fait la première piste envisagée: d’abord, du côté américain, la nécessité en 1990 d’intégrer la Syrie à la Coalition de la 1e guerre du Golfe ainsi que, du côté français, la récupération de nos otages du Hezbollah au Liban.

Mais aussi peut-être… le vrai mobile des deux attentats, à savoir la vengeance pour la destruction d’un avion de ligne iranien (Airbus) par un croiseur américain (USS Vincennes) au-dessus du Golfe en juillet 1988 (peu après, à un mois de la fin de la Guerre Iran-Irak, la destruction d’une frégate américaine par une mine iranienne), derrière lequel (13 ans avant le 11/9: 290 morts pour lesquels les EU ont versé $61.8 millions) les services secrets iraniens tentaient de dissimuler une attaque-suicide (avec un chasseur P3)?

Lockerbie : La piste Irano-syrienne revient…
Iran-Resist
28.08.2007

Ulrich Lumpert, l’un des principaux témoins à charge contre la Libye dans l’attentat contre un Boeing 747 de la Pan Am, affirme avoir menti à la police écossaise chargée de l’enquête. Cette déposition remet en cause la responsabilité de la Libye dans cet attentat qui a fait 270 morts. Cette déposition innocente Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, haut responsable des services secrets de Tripoli, qui purge une peine de prison à vie près de Glasgow, et relance la piste dite iranienne…

Le récit du témoin menteur a été publié par Le Figaro. L’homme affirme avoir menti dans un moment de dépression. Lumpert assure avoir « volé » un retardateur, élément électronique destiné à déclencher une explosion à une heure déterminée, dans le laboratoire de Mebo où il travaillait, pour le remettre à un policier écossais lié à l’enquête, dont il cite le nom. La société zurichoise Mebo avait bien vendu des retardateurs à la Libye et la pièce introduite frauduleusement dans le dossier établissait un lien entre la Libye et l’attentat. A l’époque, Mebo avait affirmé que la pièce présente dans le dossier était différente des retardateurs livrés à Tripoli. Mais les dés étaient jetés. Lumpert avait par la suite lors du procès fait semblant d’identifier cette pièce à conviction qu’il avait lui-même introduite frauduleusement dans le dossier.

Cette déposition inattendue et la relance de la piste initiale ont un parfum politique. Tout dépend de l’attitude de Téhéran. S’il se montre plus coopératif dans le dossier nucléaire. Les relanceurs ont les moyens d’accabler la Syrie au lieu de l’Iran car l’attentat a été commandité par le régime des mollahs et exécuté par le FPLP, un mouvement palestinien financé par les mollahs qui a aussi son siège à Damas.

Il y a donc deux pistes exploitables dans cette nouvelle relance. Il y avait eu une autre relance en août 2005, quand Téhéran refusait la fabuleuse offre commerciale de l’Europe en échange d’une suspension de ses activités nucléaires.

Le Figaro avait publié l’information le 30 août 2005… et dans l’article de Jacques Duplouich, il était question d’une implication iranienne ! Dans cet article consacré au témoin menteur, il n’est nulle trace des conclusions de Jacques Duplouich en 2005.

Pour compenser ce manquement, nous vous renvoyons vers l’un des premiers articles complémentaires du site Iran-Resist : Lockerbie : Où l’on reparle d’une implication de l’Iran ?

Voir aussi:

Lockerbie : Où l’on reparle d’une implication de l’Iran?
Iran-Resist

30.08.2005

Jacques Duplouich, correspondant du Figaro à Londres a consacré un article à des révélations sensationnelles sur l’attentat aérien de Lockerbie survenu en 1988.

Jacques Duplouich se contente de rapporter les dernières évolutions de cette affaire :
– La justice écossaise a-t-elle jugé « le » vrai responsable de la tragédie de Lockerbie ?

La justice écossaise a-t-elle jugé « le » vrai responsable de la tragédie de Lockerbie ? Le doute s’installe au Royaume-Uni. De nouveaux éléments du dossier et une révélation sensationnelle viennent tarauder le bien-fondé du verdict qui, en janvier 2001, a condamné le Libyen Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi à 27 ans de détention pour 270 meurtres : les 259 passagers et membres d’équipage du vol PanAm 103 et 11 résidents du village de Lockerbie, en Écosse.

Agent des services de sécurité du colonel Muammar al-Kadhafi, al-Megrahi n’a cessé de clamer son innocence. Il a été reconnu coupable, par une cour écossaise siégeant aux Pays-Bas, d’avoir disposé une radiocassette truffée d’explosif Semtex, activée par un détonateur sophistiqué, dans une valise introduite le 21 décembre 1988 dans la soute à bagages du Boeing 747 de la PanAm. L’avion, qui assurait la liaison Londres-New York, avait explosé au-dessus de la petite ville écossaise de Lockerbie, 38 minutes après le décollage.

L’expertise scientifique a tenu un rôle déterminant dans l’argumentation de l’accusation. Alan Feraday, l’un des quatre experts en explosifs commis par la justice, avait reconstitué la machine infernale dissimulée dans le bagage grâce à un fragment de circuit intégré de la radio cassette. Toutefois, « cette pièce à conviction, décisive, est la seule ayant été visiblement altérée » relève Jim Swire, père d’une victime et porte-parole des plaignants de Lockerbie.

La compétence d’Alan Feraday, ancien employé du Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment, est contestée par la justice elle-même. Sept ans avant le procès du drame de Lockerbie, le Lord Chief Justice (président de la Cour de cassation) avait tonné contre l’expert infondé, selon lui, à se présenter comme « un expert en électronique ». Dans deux autres cas – le dernier en date, en juillet dernier – des condamnations prononcées sur la foi de ses expertises ont, aussi, été cassées.

La déclaration d’un policier écossais « de haut rang » – mais anonyme – ayant participé à l’enquête et, aujourd’hui, à la retraite, renforce la suspicion. Selon lui, et à l’appui du témoignage transmis par un ancien agent de la CIA aux avocats d’al-Megrahi, la centrale de renseignements américaine aurait « écrit le scénario » accablant la Libye dans l’attentat. L’indice identifié par Alan Feraday comme étant un élément du détonateur aurait, dit-il, été « fabriqué » et « planté » par des agents de la CIA qui enquêtaient sur la tragédie.

Pourquoi l’ancien policier a-t-il tardé à se manifester ? Il avance d’une part « la peur d’être vilipendé en n’apparaissant pas solidaire ». Il exprime, d’autre part, « la conviction », au moment où il s’est avisé du magouillage, que la perspective d’un procès était « rien moins qu’une certitude ».

A la question de savoir pourquoi la CIA aurait induit sciemment les enquêteurs en erreur, le policier n’apporte pas de réponse. Mais, il est vrai que l’activité des agents américains soulève bien des questions. Ainsi, ils ont occupé le terrain de Lockerbie – avec préséance sur les inspecteurs écossais – dans la recherche d’indices. Ils ont récupéré la valise d’un des leurs, victime de la tragédie, ils l’ont vidée, avant de la restituer, dûment nettoyée, comme « preuve matérielle ».

Pourquoi la piste libyenne a-t-elle été privilégiée alors qu’une autre, crédible, conduisait au Front populaire de libération de la Palestine-Commandement général d’Ahmed Djibril et à son commanditaire, l’Iran. Autant d’interrogations sans réponses, pour l’heure. La Commission de révision des affaires criminelles, saisie du cas d’al-Megrahi, pourrait, 17 ans après les faits, relancer l’enquête si elle devait conclure à l’iniquité du procès.

«Les révélations » tardives sur l’attentat de Lockerbie sont en rapport avec l’éjection de la Troïka des «négociations» sur le nucléaire iranien.

Bon nombre de procès qui impliquent les services secrets du régime des Mollahs avaient été mis en sommeil ces dernières années pour plaire aux Mollahs et créer la «Confiance» si nécessaire pour aboutir à un accord sur le nucléaire.

Dans différents pays, on assiste à la réouverture de dossiers sur des meurtres, enlèvements ou attentats. L’affaire de Lockerbie en est la plus spectaculaire illustration. Une fois de plus la recherche de la justice n’est pas le but visé, mais bien de mettre une pression sur le régime des Mollahs ou de préparer l’opinion à une avalanche de sanctions vis-à-vis de l’Iran. Soyons-en satisfaits tant pour les familles des victimes que pour les iraniens eux-mêmes qui sont les grands oubliés de l’histoire de l’humanité.

Quelques faits

En juin 2000, un transfuge des services secrets iraniens confirmait l’implication des Mollahs dans cette affaire comme cela avait déjà été dit.

Le 24 février 1992, le « Sunday Times » publiait un rapport secret de l’OLP affirmant que l’Iran, et non la Libye, était à l’origine de l’attentat de Lockerbie qui fit 270 morts en décembre 1988. L’explosion en vol d’un avion de ligne de Pan Am, aurait été ordonnée et financée par Ali Akbar Mohtashami en représailles de la destruction par les Américains d’un Airbus civil iranien au-dessus du Golfe en juillet 1988 (voir plus bas nos révélations sur cette affaire). La bombe de Lockerbie aurait été fabriquée par Khaisar Haddad, connu sous le nom d’Abou Elias, un chrétien libanais. L’OLP estime qu’Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed El Megrahi et El Amin Khalifa Fhimah, deux Libyens soupçonnés par les Américains et les Britanniques d’être les auteurs de l’attentat, ne sont que des « techniciens » de bas niveau, bref des lampistes.

Il faut se rappeler que la première piste d’enquête dans l’attentat de Lockerbie conduisait au FPLP-Commandement Général (groupe terroriste financé par les mollahs) qui a aussi son siège à Damas.

Cette piste avait été abandonnée en 1990-91, quand il fallut intégrer la Syrie à la « Coalition de la 1e guerre du Golfe ». FPLP-CG est également soupçonné dans le cas de l’attentat du DC10 de l’UTA, qui a explosé au-dessus du désert du Ténéré, causant 170 morts, le 19 septembre 1989.

Pierre Péan s’intéressa à cet attentat dans son livre « Manipulations africaines : qui sont les vrais coupables de l’attentat du vol UTA 772 ? ». Selon Pierre Péan, le juge Bruguière a orienté l’enquête de manière intentionnellement erronée sur demande de l’appareil d’Etat pour accuser à tort la Libye et disculper l’Iran et la Syrie, les véritables auteurs de l’attentat via l’Hezbollah.

« Mais la désignation du bouc émissaire libyen n’a pas soulagé seulement les Etats-Unis, elle a constitué une aubaine pour quelques hommes politiques français empêtrés dans de délicates transactions clandestines afin de faire libérer nos otages au Liban contre promesses faites à l’IRAN et au Hezbollah », Péan, (4e de couverture).

« Avec le recul, il est effectivement intéressant de souligner que la piste libyenne s’est imposée au même moment dans les deux dossiers, Lockerbie et le DC10 UTA, alors que dans les deux cas, tous les services de renseignements occidentaux privilégiaient l’implication du FPLP-CG. Dans les deux cas, une preuve scientifique confortait l’implication d’Ahmed Jibril : le Toshiba pour Lockerbie, la valise d’Abou Ibrahim pour le DC10, p.68 ».

Nous espérons que dans l’intérêt des victimes et du peuple iranien, les Européens utiliseront tout ce dont ils disposent comme preuves contre les Mollahs pour imposer des sanctions très significatives contre leur régime afin d’aider indirectement le soulèvement du peuple iranien soumis.

La destruction par les Américains d’un Airbus civil iranien au-dessus du Golfe en juillet 1988| selon nos sources, l’aviation militaire de la République Islamique voulait lancer une attaque de type kamikaze sur un porte-avion américain en utilisant l’Airbus de l’aviation civile comme un écran. L’airbus était utilisé pour masquer l’image radar des chasseurs bombardiers de la République Islamique. Le porte-avions américain a fait feu sur l’Airbus et tous les passagers avaient péri. Bien avant le 11 septembre 2001, l’utilisation d’un avion de ligne dans un acte de guerre est une innovation des services secrets des Mollahs.

COMPLEMENT:

The NSA-Crypto AG Sting
For years US eavesdroppers could read encrypted messages without the least difficulty
Ludwig De Braeckeleer
Ohmynews
2007/12/29

For decades, the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been reading effortlessly ultra sensitive messages intercepted from all parts of the world. This extraordinary feat was not the consequence of the work of some genius cyber mathematician. Nor was it the result of the agency dominance in the field of super computers, which allegedly have outpaced their most direct rivals by orders of magnitude. The truth is far simpler and quite troubling. The game was rigged.

For half a century, Crypto AG, a Swiss company located in Zug, has sold to more than 100 countries the encryption machines their officials rely upon to exchange their most sensitive economic, diplomatic and military messages. Crypto AG was founded in 1952 by the legendary (Russian born) Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin. During World War II, Hagelin sold 140,000 of his machine to the US Army.

« In the meantime, the Crypto AG has built up long standing cooperative relations with customers in 130 countries, » states a prospectus of the company. The home page of the company Web site says, « Crypto AG is the preferred top-security partner for civilian and military authorities worldwide. Security is our business and will always remain our business. »

And for all those years, US eavesdroppers could read these messages without the least difficulty. A decade after the end of WWII, the NSA, also known as No Such Agency, had rigged the Crypto AG machines in various ways according to the targeted countries. It is probably no exaggeration to state that this 20th century version of the « Trojan horse » is quite likely the greatest sting in modern history.

In effect, US intelligence had spies in the government and military command of all these countries working around the clock without ever risking the possibility of being unmasked.

An Old and Venerable Company

In the aftermath of the Islamic revolution, Iran, quite understandably, would no longer trust encryption equipment provided by companies of NATO countries.

The Swiss reputation for secrecy and neutrality lured Iranians to Crypto AG, an old and venerable company. They never imagined for a moment that, attached to the encrypted message, their Crypto machines were transmitting the key allowing the description of messages they were sending. The scheme was perfect, undetectable to all but those who knew where to look.

Crypto AG, of course, denied the allegations as « pure invention. » In 1994, the company issued a message in the Swiss press, stating that « manipulation of Crypto AG equipment is absolutely excluded. »

On the Wikipedia page of Crypto AG, one can read: « Crypto AG rejected these accusations as pure invention, asserting in a press release that in March 1994, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office initiated a wide-ranging preliminary investigation against Crypto AG, which was completed in 1997. The accusations regarding influence by third parties or manipulations, which had been repeatedly raised in the media, proved to be without foundation. »

However, meetings between a NSA cryptographer and Crypto AG personnel to discuss the design of new machines have been factually established. The story was also confirmed by former employees and is supported by company documents. Boris Hagelin is said to have acted out of idealism. What is certain is that the deal for Crypto AG was quite juicy. In return for rigging their machines, Crypto AG is understood to have been granted export licenses to all entities controlled by the NSA.

Early Hints

A book published in 1977 by Ronald Clark (The Man Who Broke Purple: The Life of Colonel William F. Friedman) revealed that William F. Friedman, another Russian-born genius in the field of cryptography (he deciphered the Japanese code in World War II) and onetime special assistant to the NSA director, had visited Boris Hagelin in 1957. Friedman and Hagelin met at least on two other occasions. Clark was urged by the NSA not to reveal the existence of these meetings for national security reasons. In 1982, James Bamford confirmed the story in his book on the NSA: The Puzzle Palace. The operation was codenamed the « Boris project. » In effect, Friedman and Hagelin had reached an agreement that was going to pave the way to cooperation of Crypto AG with the NSA.

Despite these very obvious hints, countries such as Iran, Iraq and Libya continued using the Crypto AG machines for encrypting their messages. And so did the Vatican, among many other entities.

Persian Suspicions

In 1987, ABC News Beirut correspondent Charles Glass was taken hostage for 62 days in Lebanon by Hezbollah, the Shi’ite Muslim group widely believed to have been founded by Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, when he was Iranian ambassador to Syria in the early 1980s.

Washington claimed that NSA had intercepted coded Iranian diplomatic cables between Iran’s embassies in Beirut and the Hezbollah group. Iranians began to wonder how the US intelligence could have broken their code.

After the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, « Iran vowed that the skies would rain with American blood. » A few months later, on Dec. 21, a terrorist bomb brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Once more, NSA intercepted and decoded a communication of Iranian Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashemi linking Iran to the bombing of Pan Am 103.

One intelligence summary, prepared by the US Air Force Intelligence Agency, was requested by lawyers for the bankrupt Pan American Airlines through the Freedom of Information Act.

« Mohtashemi is closely connected with the Al Abas and Abu Nidal terrorist groups. He is actually a long-time friend of Abu Nidal. He has recently paid 10 million dollars in cash and gold to these two organizations to carry out terrorist activities and was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103 in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus. »

Moreover, Israeli intelligence intercepted a coded transmission between Mohtashemi in Teheran and the Iranian Embassy in Beirut concerning the transfer of a large sum of money to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril, as payment for the downing of Pan Am 103.

The Iranians were now at a loss to explain how Western and Israeli intelligence agencies could so easily defeat the security of their diplomatic traffic. The ease with which the West was reading Iranian coded transactions strongly suggested that some may have possessed the decryption keys.

The Bakhtiar Murder

In April 1979, Shahpour Bakhtiar was forced to leave Iran as the last prime minister of the Shah. He returned to France where he lived in the west Paris suburb of Suresnes. In July 1980, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. On Aug. 6, 1991, Bakhtiar and his personal secretary Katibeh Fallouch were murdered by three assassins.

Two of them fled to Iran, but the third, Ali Vakili Rad, was apprehended in Switzerland. One of the six alleged accomplices, Zeyal Sarhadi was an employee of the Iranian Embassy in Berne and a great-nephew of former president of Iran Hasemi Rafsanjani. Both men were extradited to France for trial.

On the day of his assassination and one day before his body was found with his throat slit, the Teheran headquarters of the Iranian Intelligence Service, the VEVAK, transmitted a coded message to Iranian diplomatic missions in London, Paris, Bonn and Geneva. « Is Bakhtiar dead? » the message asked.

Switzerland’s Neue Zurcher Zeitung reported that the U.S. had provided the contents of encrypted Iranian messages to France to assist Investigating Magistrate Jean Louis Bruguiere in the conviction of Ali Vakili Rad and one of his alleged accomplices Massoud Hendi. This information was confirmed by L’ Express.

The NSA interception and decoding of the message led to the identification of the murderers before the murder was discovered. From the Swiss and French press reports, Iranians now knew that British and American SIGINT operators had intercepted and decoded the crucially embarrassing message. Something was definitely wrong with their encryption machines.

The Buehler Arrest

Hans Buehler was a top Crypto AG salesman who had worked at the Zug company for 13 years. In March 1992, Buehler, a strongly built cheerful man in his 50s, was on his 25th trip to Iran on behalf of Crypto AG.

Then, on March 18, he was arrested. Iranian intelligence agents accused him of spying for the United States as well as Germany. Buehler was held in solitary confinement in the Evin prison located in the north of Tehran. He was interrogated everyday for five hours for more than nine months.

« I was never beaten, but I was strapped to wooden benches and told I would be beaten. I was told Crypto was a spy center that worked with foreign intelligence services. »

Buehler never confessed any wrongdoing on his part or on the part of Crypto AG. It appeared that he had acted in good faith and the Iranians came to believe him. « I didn’t know that the equipment was bugged, otherwise the Iranians would have gotten it out of me by their many methods. »

Back to Switzerland

In January 1993, after nine months of detention, Crypto AG [or was it Siemens?] paid US$1 million to secure Buehler’s freedom. During the first weeks after his return to Switzerland, Buehler’s life was once again beautiful. The euphoria did not last long. Once more, his life came to an abrupt change. Crypto fired him and demanded repayment of the $1 million provided to Tehran for his liberation.

Back to Zug, Buehler began to ask some embarrassing questions about the Iranian allegations. And the answers tended to back up Iranian suspicions. Soon, reports began to appear on Swiss television and radio. Major Swiss newspapers and German magazines such as Der Spiegel picked up the story. Most, if not all, came to the conclusion that Crypto AG’s equipment had been rigged by one or several Western intelligence services.

Buehler was bitterly disappointed. He felt nothing short of having been betrayed by his former employer. During all these years, Buehler never thought for a second that he had been unknowingly working for spies. Now, he was sure that he had done so.

Buehler contacted several former Crypto AG employees. All admitted to him, and eventually to various media, that they believed that the company had long cooperated with US and German intelligence agencies.

The Truth Emerges

One of these former engineers told Buehler that he had learned about the cooperation from Boris Hagelin Jr., the son of the company’s founder and sales manager for North and South America. In the 1970s, while stranded in Buenos Aires, Boris Hagelin Jr. confided that he thought his father had been wrong to accept rigging the Crypto AG machines.

Stunned by the revelation, the engineer decided to take this matter directly to the head of Crypto AG. Boris Hagelin confirmed that the encryption methods were unsafe.

« Different countries need different levels of security. The United States and other leading Western countries required completely secure communications. Such security would not be appropriate for the Third World countries that were Crypto’s customers, » Boris Hagelin explained to the baffled engineer. « We have to do it. »

The NSA-Crypto AG Collaboration

A Crypto AG official document describes an August 1975 meeting set up to demonstrate the capacity of a new prototype. The memorandum lists among the participants Nora L. Mackebee, who, like her husband, was an NSA employee. Asked about the meeting, she merely replied: « I cannot say anything about it. »

During the ’70s, Motorola helped Crypto AG in making the transition from mechanical to electronic machines. Bob Newman was among the Motorola engineers working with Crypto AG. Newman remembers very well Mackebee but says that he ignored that she was working for the NSA.

Juerg Spoerndli left Crypto AG in 1994. He helped design the machines in the late ’70s. « I was ordered to change algorithms under mysterious circumstances » to weaker machines, » says Spoerndli who concluded that NSA was ordering the design change through German intermediaries.

« I was idealistic. But I adapted quickly … the new aim was to help Big Brother USA look over these countries’ shoulders. We’d say ‘It’s better to let the USA see what these dictators are doing,' » Spoerndli says.

« It’s still an imperialistic approach to the world. I do not think it’s the way business should be done, » Spoerndli adds.

Ruedi Hug, another former Crypto AG technician, also believes that the machines were rigged.

« I feel betrayed. They always told me that we were the best. Our equipment is not breakable, blah, blah, blah. Switzerland is a neutral country. »

Crypto AG vs. Buehler

Crypto AG called these allegations « old hearsay and pure invention. » When Buehler began to suggest openly that there may be some truth to them, Crypto AG not only dismissed him on the spot, but also filed a legal case against him.

Yet Crypto AG settled the case out of court, in November 1996, before other former Crypto AG employees could provide evidence in court that was likely to have brought embarrassing details to light.

No one has heard from Buehler since the settlement. « He made his fortune financially, » whispers an insider.

A Fuzzy Ownership

The ownership of Crypto AG has been to a company in Liechtenstein, and from there back to a trust company in Munich. Crypto AG has been described as the secret daughter of Siemens but many believe that the real owner is the German government.

Several members of Crypto AG’s management had worked at Siemens. At one point in time, 99.99 percent of the Crypto AG shares belonged to Eugen Freiberger, the head of the Crypto AG managing board in 1982. Josef Bauer was elected to the managing board in 1970. Bauer, as well as other members of Crypto AG management, stated that his mandate had come from the German company Siemens.

The German secret service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), is believed to have established the Siemens’ connection. In October 1970, a secret meeting of the BND had discussed how the Swiss company Graettner could merge with it. « The Swedish company Ericsson could be influenced through Siemens to terminate its own cryptographic business, » reads the memo of the meeting.

A former employee of Crypto AG reported that he had to coordinate his developments with the « central office for encryption affairs » of the BND, also known as the « people from Bad Godesberg. »

American « watchers » demanded the use of certain encryption codes and the « central office for encryption affairs » instructed Crypto AG what algorithms to use to create these codes.

Bakhtiar Murder Trial

« In the industry everybody knows how such affairs will be dealt with, » says a former Crypto engineer. « Of course such devices protect against interception by unauthorized third parties, as stated in the prospectus. But the interesting question is: Who is the authorized fourth? »

On Dec. 6, 1994, a special French terrorism court convicted two Iranians of murdering Bakhtiar. Vakili Rad was sentenced to life in prison. But, to the dismay of all observers, Sarhadi was acquitted.

« Justice has not been entirely served for reasons of state, » complained Bakhtiar’s widow.

It appears indeed that France, Switzerland, the German BND and the NSA decided to let Sarhadi go free in order to preserve the « secrecy » of the Crypto AG cooperation with the NSA.

In 1991, the US and the U.K. indicted two Libyans for the bombing of Pan Am 103. To the surprise of many observers, the indictment did not mention those believed to have contracted the act of terror in spite of the fact that their guilt had been established by the interception of official communications by several intelligence agencies.

To many observers, justice was not served at the Lockerbie trial. Could it be that the US and U.K. governments decided to sacrifice the truth in order to preserve the (in)efficiency of their intelligence apparatus?

Ludwig De Braeckeleer has a Ph.D. in nuclear sciences. He teaches physics and international humanitarian law. He blogs on « The GaiaPost. »