“It clearly looked to me like the body was in what we call mummification, or early stages of mummification, which essentially means drying. Because of the drying certain areas become sunken like the eyes are sunken. If you look at the Higgins pictures, they certainly look that way. … I’m inclined to think he was dead before he was hanged.”
Dr. Werner Spitz — Professor of forensic pathology at Wayne State University
February 17 2020 — William Richard Higgins (January 15, 1945 – Unknown but declared dead on July 6, 1990) was a colonel in the United States Marine Corps who was captured on February 17 1988 while serving on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. He was held hostage, tortured and eventually murdered by his captors. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
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“The presence of Mr McKee on PA103, along with certain others, appears to have been the focus of high level discussions between Senior Police, Security Service and American officials.”
Lockerbie X File
Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!
QUICK NOTES — To make it easier for the readers to retrieve various chapters of my book, I have created a special page “Lockerbie” where all the links to the chapters will be listed with a brief description. You can access that page directly as it appears at the far right of the top bar of this blog.
Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!
UPDATE (February 17 2021) — During its investigation, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission [SCCRC] uncovered the existence of a “Lockerbie X File”.
The relevant part of their 2007 800 pages report reads:
“The presence of Mr McKee on PA103, along with certain others, appears to have been the focus of high level discussions between Senior Police, Security Service and American officials.
It is clear that the American authorities were keen to recover any items that may have belonged to McKee in particular, which could be linked to their duties.
It may well have been the case that certain items were not recorded in the normal manner to protect American interests …”
Obviously you want to know who is Mr McKee? Who are the “certain others”? What items were not recorded in the normal manner? And why on earth does it relate to this post?
Major Charles – Chuck – Dennis McKee (December 3, 1948 – December 21, 1988) was an intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency stationed in Beirut, Lebanon.
RELATED POST: Spy Quotes — CIA Whistleblower Victor Marchetti (December 23, 1929 – October 19, 2018) [#11]
Matthew Kevin Gannon was killed in the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 at the age of 34. He was returning from Beirut, Lebanon where he was the Station Chief.
Although the CIA denied for many years having any officers on Pan Am 103, this is no longer a secret. In May 2012, the CIA officially confirmed that Gannon was a CIA officer.
He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery and honored with a star on the CIA Memorial Wall.
RELATED POST: CIA — The Language of Espionage : Lockerbie & The CIA Darkest Blunder [UPDATE]
Gannon “had mastered the key elements of the Arabic language and had a solid grasp of Arab culture. He had also succeeded in recruiting an asset in one of the most notorious international terrorist organizations.” [CIA web-page]
According to the SCCRC Report [5.9], the Golfer had “profiled” Pan Am 103 passenger Khaled Jaafar, and he was adamant that Jaafar had carried the bomb in a suitcase placed in the hold of the aircraft.
Actually, Khaled Jaafar was neither a terrorist nor a drug smuggler as many have alleged.
The Lockerbie investigators knew very early on that he was living a double life. His employer was the US ARMED FORCES. Jaafar was working as an informant for Gannon and McKee. [Despite McKee being seated at the front and Jaafar at the very back of the plane, their bodies were found a few yards from each other.]
RELATED POST: Khaled Nazir Jaafar & the Unwitting Drug Mule Theory
In the Newcastleton Forest, Lockerbie searchers found maps and plans indicating the location of the American hostages in Beirut, Lebanon. [McKee’s suitcase was carefully opened — a rectangular hole was cut near the locking mechanism — and none of the items found in his suitcase belong to him.]
McKee was the coordinator of a Special Forces group. According to a well informed DIA source, a rescue mission — involving a Delta Force unit — was in its final stage.
Then, without explanation, the mission was cancelled at the last minute. When McKee was told that the order had come from the White House, he decided to return to the US without authorization.
The day before the Lockerbie bombing McKee called his mother. “Meet me at the Pittsburgh airport tomorrow night,” McKee told his mother.
“This was the first time Chuck ever telephoned me from Beirut,” McKee’s mother said. “I was flabbergasted. It’s a surprise. Always before he would wait until he was back in Virginia to call and say he was coming home.”
McKee’s mother says she is sure her son’s sudden decision to fly home was not known to his superiors in Virginia.
As I have explained in my book, there are two stories about Lockerbie. One is the truth about the crash of Pan Am 103. The second is about the cover up.
The rescue mission planned by McKee and Gannon is irrelevant to the first, but it played a major role in drafting the second one.
END of UPDATE
“C is for coffin — Two coach-loads of officials arrived at the disaster scene in the day after the crash. Many were plain-clothed Americans with no obvious affiliation. Among their baggage was a single coffin for which no explanation has ever been given. Labour MP Tam Dalyell later produced evidence indicating that the Americans had stolen a body from the wreckage. A local doctor identified and labelled 59 bodies and was then puzzled to find that the Americans had relabelled and tagged only 58 in the area where he had been working.”
Lockerbie Conspiracies — Paul Foot & John Ashton (The Guardian -1995)
On February 17, 1988, Higgins disappeared while serving as chief of the United Nations Military Observer Group in Lebanon.
Higgins was driving alone on the coastal highway between Tyre and Naqoura in southern Lebanon, returning from a meeting with a local leader of the Amal movement, when he was pulled from his vehicle by armed men who it is suspected were affiliated with Hezbollah.
As a reaction to his abduction, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 618, demanding his release.
During his captivity, he was interrogated and tortured. A year and a half after his abduction, images of his body, hanged by the neck, were televised around the world from a videotape released by his captors.
His remains were recovered on December 23, 1991, by Major Jens Nielsen of the Royal Danish Army, who was attached to the United Nations Observation Group in Beirut.
Higgins’ remains were found beside a mosque near a south Beirut hospital. His remains were interred at Quantico National Cemetery, Triangle, Virginia, on December 30, 1991.
Date of Death Unknown — The exact date of Higgins’ murder is uncertain. He was declared dead on July 6, 1990.
Although his captors said they hanged him Monday July 31 1989, medical examiners who saw a videotape of the hanging believe Higgins was dead before he was hanged.
″The impression from the video is that he might have been killed soon after he was captured.″
Dr. Michael Baden — Director of forensic sciences for the New York State Police
Top News Story July 30, 1989
REFERENCES
William R. Higgins — Wikipedia
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On This Day — USMC Col. William R. Higgins Is Abducted in Lebanon (February 17 1988)
On This Day — USMC Col. William R. Higgins Is Abducted in Lebanon (February 17 1988) [2020]
On This Day — USMC Col. William R. Higgins Is Abducted in Lebanon (February 17 1988) [2021 UPDATE — The Lockerbie X FILE]
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