A US District Judge has sentenced Lester K. Coleman, a witness in the Lockerbie disaster civil case, to time served and a $30,000 fine for five counts of perjury based on an affidavit he gave in the Pan Am case which was heard in September 1997. Last week, Coleman, now a talk show host on WLXG in Lexington, Kentucky, retaliated with a $6.5 million damage suit against the US prison service for ill-treatment during his time in jail. 

Coleman had filed an affidavit in 1991 after fleeing to Sweden where he was granted sanctuary on humanitarian grounds. He voluntarily returned to the US in 1996 and was immediately taken into custody. He is the only person in US legal history to be charged with perjury over an affidavit filed in a civil case.  

Judge Thomas C. Platt had warned Coleman during sentencing: 'If I hear you attacking the government on your radio show, I shall take that very very seriously.' Judge Platt also barred Coleman from speaking about his case on the radio programme. Since Judge Platt violated his consitutional rights and departed from the plea agreement, Coleman is filing an appeal.  

Coleman said after the sentencing: 'Today was another episode in the saga of a five-year-old perjury case, based on a seven-year-old civil affidavit, over a ten-year-old air disaster. No American can ever give up free speech to preserve a judge's order.'  

Judge Platt said from the bench: 'I want to send a message to all those inside the beltway in Washington that perjury in a civil case is prosecuted, as this case shows.' (Platt, a Nixon appointee, may have been challenging President Clinton's supporters who claimed that perjury in a civil case is never prosecuted. )  

Coleman, a self-confessed former agent with the Defense Intelligence Agency, provoked controversy on both sides of the Atlantic by claiming in 1998 that the Lockerbie tragedy, in which 270 people died, was caused by a US drug sting operation that went wrong.  

Coleman claimed that the DEA had been operating a number of Beirut-based sting operations, involving more than 130 paid informants, which allowed controlled deliveries of heroin from Lebanon to US airports. The goal was to arrest US-based drug gangs. Several informants had been given CIA 'asset' status in 1987 to lure a suspected terrorist out of Beirut aboard a yacht off the coast of Cyprus.  

The operation, code-named Goldenrod, was co-ordinated by several key figures subsequently drafted in to deal with the bombing of Pan Am's flight 103 from Frankfurt to New York. They include Oliver Buck' Revell, Deputy Director of the FBI, Vincent Cannistraro of the CIA's Rome's station and Michael T. Hurley, the DEA attaché in Cyprus. Coleman suspected that it was Lebanese drug informants, adopted as CIA assets for the drug operation, who eventually provided Syria with the intelligence used to place the bomb aboard Pan Am 103.  

Coleman claimed the DEA's drug operation had been infiltrated by Iranian-financed terrorists, who had been ordered to avenge the mistaken shooting-down by the US Navy of a commercial Iranian flight in July 1988. Instead of placing the usual heroin on the flight, the terrorist checked in a suitcase full of explosives.  

Coleman made the allegations in an affidavit to Pan Am during the airline's investigation into the tragedy. Pan Am had filed notice of legal action against the government. Government attorneys balked at turning over classified documents claiming national security concerns. The case was subsequently dismissed by then District Judge Thomas C. Platt in the Eastern District of New York for lack of evidence.  

It was not until Coleman reiterated his allegations in a book, some two and a half years later, that the US government responded by accusing him of perjury. He became the first person in US legal history to ever be charged with perjury over statements given in an affidavit in a civil case.  

At the timeTrail of the Octopus was published, Coleman and his family were already in Sweden, having successfuly applied for political asylum. Coleman may have already had the feeling that he had become a state target. His supporters claim that the charge of perjury was brought because he had dared to contradict the official US view that Libya was responsible for the bombing.  

After six years in exile, in failing health and with the US pressing for his deportation, Coleman voluntarily returned to home on 11 October 1996. He was held for five months without bail, while a cancerous tumor, the size of a golf ball, grew on his collar bone. Coleman repeatedly told his public defender, Abraham Clott, he needed medical care, but it was not until Vivian Shevitz agreed to take his case without fee that something was done.  

Shevitz wrote to the warden at MDC on 13 January 1997, three months after Coleman's arrival: 'I wrote on January 7 to suggest the need for immediate medical treatment for pre-trial detainee Lester K. Coleman. I visited Mr Coleman yesterday and learned that essentially nothing has been done. A painful growth on his chest is still apparently oozing. His T-shirt is covered with blood. Mr. Coleman advised me that he was told on 23 December that it would take about two weeks for the operation. It has been longer than that and there is a need.'  

On 21 January, he was operated upon, returning the same day to jail. For 16 days, he received no further medical assistance and his wound became seriously infected. Shevitz wrote numerous letters to the court. Coleman was returned to hospital for examination. Shevitz described the visit in a letter to Judge Platt, dated 11 February.  

'It was not until last Thursday, 6 February, that Mr Coleman was taken to see Dr Beaton, at Downtown Hospital. While Dr Beaton refused to tell me directly about his reaction to Mr Coleman's condition, the two Special Deputy US marshals who accompanied Mr Coleman to the doctor were willing to be forthcoming (despite their expressed knowledge that the system expected their silence).'  

'Owen Flynn is a Special Deputy US marshal who kindly spoke to me on the telephone on 7 February... He told me that when he was in the examining room with Lester Coleman on 6 February, Dr Beaton, when first looking at the wound - from which a strong, unpleasant odor emanated, said, in substance: "'Oh my God, look at this...this is criminal." Mr Flynn says that the doctor further expressed that he was "appalled" (or that this is "appalling").'  

She continued: 'Yesterday on 10 February, I spoke to the other Special Deputy, Jospeh Ogen...According to Mr Ogen's description, the wound covering Mr Coleman's left shoulder did not even look like skin: it was raw, looked like a piece of meat and oozed pus.'  

'The doctor warned Mr Coleman that, even though the wound was like that, he would have to remove the stitches, and that it would be painful. Mr Ogen said that Mr Coleman's face showed the pain when the doctor had to probe. Mr Ogen said the wound was so bad that the doctor was “provoked” and, in a sense, “blew his top”. He knows that the doctor wrote orders on the papers, which were then given to Mr. Ogen to bring back to MDC with Mr Coleman.'  

'This frankly is an outrage, as it relates to a man who is charged with no more than perjury in an affidavit in a civil case! Whether he “jumped bail” or not in the past on another charge, that hardly smacks of Jack the Ripper: he voluntarily returned and has no money, nor energy, to go anywhere. He is sick with cancer. He needs medical care. He needs rest. He needs to be able to prepare his case for trial at the same time.'  

After Shevitz's letter to the court, charging the Justice Department with malpractice and cruelty, Coleman was sent to a suburban hospital to recover. It took round-the-clock treatment for 11 days to clear up the infection. While there he was seen by resident psychiatrist, Harvey Berman, clinical professor at New York Medical College.  

Dr Berman later wrote the court on 11 September: 'Mr. Lester Coleman is a patient under my care. He has been in treatment with me since 28 February 1997. His diagnosis is major depression. His symptoms include sad mood, insomnia, lethargy, difficulty in concentrating, ruminations of hopelessness, frequent thoughts of death and nightmares about his experiences at the Metropolitan Detention Center, where earlier this year he received sub-standard medical care. I believe that his depression was precipitated by the way he was treated there.'  

Dr Jim Swire, spoksman for the British relatives of the Lockerbie victims, said he was disturbed at how the US authorities were treating Coleman. Swire wrote: 'The gross maltreatment of Coleman by the American authorities appears to fit a pattern of victimisation of people who challenge the official version that Libya was solely to blame for Lockerbie.'  

Shevitz's campaign to obtain Coleman's release on bail finally bore fruit when Assistant Attorney Alan Vickery agreed on 27 March 1997 that Coleman could be released into the custody of his daughter, living in upstate New York. The terms included house arrest, wearing an electronic bracelet, with no travel except to see a doctor and to court. For the next six months Coleman remained confined, but it was a level up from theordeal of his solitary cell at MDC. He had still not seen the family that he left behind at Atlanta airport almost a year earlier.  

Coleman and Shevitz began preparing to take on the government, filing a host of discovery requests for classified documents, listed by file number and name. It was obvious from the detailed requests that Coleman's past relationship with US military intelligence was real. Shevitz, still representing Coleman for free, filed her expenses with the court only to be denied her motion by Judge Platt.  

Soon she was out of pocket almost US$10,000. Towards the end of the summer, with not one shred of discovery from the government, Shevitz reluctantly told Coleman she was forced to withdraw. His only alternative was the public defender, Abraham Clott, the lawyer who had not even bothered to complain about his medical treatment for months.  

With Clott back, the case ground to a halt. Clott and his boss, Attorney-in-Charge, Thomas J. Cancannon visited Coleman at his daughter's home on 28 August 28. Coleman has little recollection of that day, due to his illness, but did have the where-with-all to tape the meeting.  

Clott and Concannon are heard advising Coleman he could take advantage of the unusual Rule 11 (1)(e) - deal, plead guilty and walk free - or continue to fight, be returned to jail and face two to three years of litigation before Judge Platt. Even in Coleman's distorted mental state, the choice was clear. He had had enough.  

But he wrestled with it until the day before he was to go to court. Clott called him on 10 September. Coleman again recorded the conversation.  

Coleman: I just might walk in there tomorrow and disagree with the whole thing...I don't know, I might do that.  

Clott: If you do that...(chuckles)...you'll be remanded and face two to three years of litigation.  

Coleman: Oh, I don't think that this deal will go away any time soon.  

Clott: Yes it will.  

Coleman: It will?  

Clott: I am sure it will, after tomorrow.  

The following morning, on 11 September, advised that he would never have his day in court, he stood before Judge Thomas C. Platt, and pleaded guilty to five counts of perjury based on the affidavit he gave in the Pan Am civil case more than six and a half years earlier.  

Within two days, he was on a plane to Palm Springs, California at government expense, where he rejoined his wife and three children. After a month's rest, he landed a job as a talk show host in Lexington, Kentucky.