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Air Malta, citing a detailed internal probe, has denied existence of a "Malta Connection" linking one of its flights last Dec. 21 and the Pan American flight that blew up over Scotland later that day.
In an unusual statement responding to reports in two British newspapers, the airline Tuesday said none of the passengers or luggage aboard its Flight KM-180 from Malta to Frankfurt, West Germany, had boarded the doomed Pan Am Flight 103 to London.
Nonetheless, U.S. officials said yesterday that they still suspect a suitcase carrying the radio bomb that found its way onto Pan Am 103 came to Frankfurt from Malta. "The {Air Malta} denial hasn't closed that door," one official said.
The "Malta connection" is the latest rumored lead in the exhaustive investigation that security authorities of four nations are conducting into the bombing, which killed all 259 passengers aboard as well as 11 on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.
Two London newspapers reported Sunday and Monday that investigators had uncovered evidence that the bomb came to Frankfurt in an unaccompanied suitcase aboard the Air Malta flight and was transferred onto Pan Am 103.
The Air Malta statement said there had been no "interlining passengers" or luggage transferring from the Air Malta flight to Pan Am 103. "Air Malta's records also show clearly that no unaccompanied baggage was carried on flight KM-180," it said.
"In fact, 39 passengers checked in 55 pieces of baggage; 55 pieces of baggage were loaded onto Flight KM-180 and 39 passengers traveled on the flight. Air Malta has been informed that all 55 pieces of baggage have been accounted for and that every one of the 39 passengers has been identified," the statement concluded.
When asked about the British reports Tuesday, U.S. officials would not comment but did not steer reporters away from the stories.
They did, however, deny news reports that Mohammed Abu Taleb, a Palestinian on trial in Stockholm for terrorist activities, belonged to the same group as the one suspected of masterminding the Pan Am bombing.
Taleb, they said, was not a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) led by Ahmed Jabril and regarded by U.S. intelligence agencies as the prime suspect behind the Pan Am bombing. Taleb belongs to another, more obscure group called the Palestine Popular Struggle Front (PPSF), they said.
Both groups have headquarters in the Syrian capital of Damascus and have gotten financial and other help from Libya in the past.
Taleb and three other Palestinians, two now Swedish citizens, are on trial for alleged involvement in the bombing of a Jewish synagogue in Copenhagen in July 1985 and an attempted bombing of the Northwest Airlines office in Stockholm the same year.
Swedish newspaper reports said Taleb and his three colleagues had visited members of the PFLP-GC network in West Germany, led by Hafez Dalkimoni. Fourteen of Dalkimoni's associates were arrested in Neuss by West German officials Oct. 26. Subsequently, radio bombs similar to the one used to sabotage Pan Am 103 were found in several of their apartments, but all but two suspects were later released.
One Swedish report said Taleb was found in possession of the same kind of radio bomb when he was arrested in Sweden last May.
U.S. anti-terrorist experts said it would not be unusual for two such Damascus-based groups to have close ties, share intelligence, safe-houses and expertise and help each other in their operations.
Taleb visited Malta in October 1988 and one U.S. press report said he was seen there in the company of Dalkimoni. However, both U.S. and Swedish sources said it has been established that Taleb visited Malta Oct. 19-26 while Dalkimoni was under surveillance in West Germany. Dalkimoni was arrested Oct. 26.