A FORMER CIA agent has revealed how a prime suspect in the Lockerbie bomb blast was paid more than £250,000 just months after the tragedy.
Bob Baer's evidence was key in winning the man convicted of the attack in 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, an appeal. He claims he told UK police about the payment to Muhammad Abu Talb in 1989 - but heard nothing more from them.
He also says he told them Talb bought clothing in Malta. Similar evidence helped convict al-Megrahi.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission granted the Libyan the appeal last week after a three-year probe into the bombing, which left 270 dead.
They were satisfied a miscarriage of justice may have taken place.
Baer - a CIA agent in the Middle East and Europe for 21 years - met commission investigators twice, the last time just 12 months ago.
He uncovered the massive cash payment to Lockerbie suspect Talb in 1989 when he was based in Paris.
Egyptian-born Talb is a member of the Palestinian Popular Front, a splinter group of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The explosives expert was named as the Lockerbie bomber in CIA documents in 2002.
Baer claims the CIA believed the Iranians hired Talb to blow up Pan Am flight 103 in a revenge attack, after an Iranian Airbus was accidentally brought down by a US warship in July 1988.
He discovered Iran deposited Û500,000 into a German account belonging to Talb's group in April 1989.
Baer said: "We saw it as a thank you payment for Lockerbie. Abu Talb was an Iranian agent."
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