Dateline: June 12, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PAN AM 103 WITNESS TO BE RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER
New York> A former U.S. intelligence agent who claimed a government drug sting operation gone wrong led to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 is to be released from a Brooklyn federal prison on September 17. The agent, Lester K. Coleman, is the only American ever charged with perjury over a civil affidavit in a federal case.

The news of Coleman's release follows a federal hearing on June 1, in which he told Judge Thomas Platt that he was coerced into pleading guilty to perjury before the same judge in 1997. In a statement in open court, he described how he was medically maltreated and brutalized while in federal custody awaiting trial in 1996-97. Coleman's claim is supported by Harvey Berman, M.D., a White Plains, NY psychiatrist. Dr. Berman wrote, "his illness is due to his experiences in federal custody at MDC, Brooklyn and the maltreatment he received there."

Dr. Jim Swire, MD, spokesman for the British relatives of the Lockerbie victims, expressed alarm about Coleman's treatment by federal authorities early on. He was quoted as saying that the maltreatment Coleman suffered fit "a pattern of victimization" of those who challenge the official version that Libyan terrorists were to blame for the crash.

Attorneys for the two Libyans on trial in Zeist, Holland flew to the U.S. last March to interview Coleman.

On May 3 of this year, a former Pan Am baggage handler broke a 12-year silence, admitting he knew that the DEA and CIA were running drugs through the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, confirming Coleman's story. Roland O'Neill told the "Sunday Herald" in Glasgow, Scotland, "I could have loaded Semtex explosives on doomed flight 103."

According to another report by the "Sunday Herald," a former CIA operative, Dr. Richard Fuisz, is currently prohibited from revealing what he knows about the Pan Am bombing on the grounds of military and state secrets privilege. Allegedly, Fuisz once stated that Libya had nothing to do with the bombing.

Prior to Coleman's hearing on June 1, his attorney, Michael M. Meehan, requested the U.S. Justice Department to investigate his client's treatment and harassment by the FBI. Meehan wrote:"We urge you to take every measure to protect Mr. Coleman's rights as well as the integrity of the proceedings before the Scottish Court in the Netherlands."