
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 2, 1990                   TAG: 9007020043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Medium

BOMB VICTIM'S FATHER FAKES OUT AIR SECURITY

The father of one of the victims of the Lockerbie air disaster claimed Sunday to have boarded a New York-bound airliner in London recently, carrying a mock-up of the type of bomb that blew Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky in December 1988.

The unidentified airliner was subjected to special security checks, and the radio cassette player that contained the mock-up bomb was examined before it was replaced in a case, despite having a detonator, hidden batteries, a circuit board, and a block of marzipan resembling the plastic explosive Semtex inside it, according to Jim Swire, a doctor whose 23-year-old daughter was among the 270 people killed by the Pan Am explosion.

Swire said that the radio cassette player was "very similar" to the one that investigators believe was used to hide the original bomb.

Because of the block of marzipan, the fake bomb was much heavier than normal transistor players, he said, adding: "We actually took marzipan because it is pliable, feels like Semtex, and looks like Semtex on X-ray."

He refused to identify the airline that carried the mock bomb but said it was not Pan Am.

Passengers' baggage was opened and searched in front of them, and the radio containing his "bomb" was examined. He was asked if he had taken the batteries out. He said that he had but that the fake contained hidden batteries that rattled when shaken.

The "bomb" was then replaced in his luggage, which was loaded onto the trans-Atlantic flight.

Swire, representative of the victims' families, is to meet British Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson Tuesday. The British government has refused to open an official inquiry into the bombing despite demands from the victims' relatives.

A U.S. presidential commission disclosed major security lapses and called for pre-emptive strikes against nations harboring terrorists involved in airline attacks.

Swire said Sunday that breaching of the system at Heathrow Airport undermined British claims that airport security was now almost foolproof.

John Prescott, the opposition Labor party's transport spokesman, said: "It is extremely alarming in view of all the assurances we have heard about security at airports."

Prescott repeated his demand for an official inquiry. The legal authorities in Scotland have announced that they will open a fatal accident inquiry in Dumfries, near Lockerbie, in October.

by CNB