Lester Coleman

Lester K. Coleman III
File:Lester Coleman (1990).jpg
Allegiance	United States of America
Service / branch	Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
Rank	Commander
Battles / wars	Lebanon Civil War

Lester Knox Coleman III (born 1943), is a retired Lieutenant Commander of the United States Navy and a former military intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the United States Department of Defense. He often worked under the aliases of Thomas Leavy and Benjamin B while a DIA agent. He claims that he ran a DIA covert operation backing a Christian militia in Lebanon, known as the Lebanese Forces (Samir Ghea Ghea), during the Lebanese Civil War.

Coleman drew the attention of the international media in 1990 when he publicly claimed that a secret drug sting enabled terrorists to evade airport security in the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Coleman espoused that a compromised American covert drug-operation allowed Iranian-backed terrorists—the PFLP-GC, led by Ahmed Jibril—to slip a Semtex bomb aboard the plane.  These allegations, however, were proven false and on September 11, 1997, Lester Coleman admitted to a New York federal court, "... that he lied when he claimed that a secret drug sting enabled terrorists to evade airport security in the bombing ...."

Perjury

Coleman left the U.S. Embassy in Cyprus in 1988 and claims in his book, Trail of the Octopus, The Untold Story of Pan Am 103, that he was not engaged by the DIA again until 1990. According to him, he was told to apply for a passport using a former false identity used primarily for work with the DIA. That identity was to be a man named Thomas Leavy. In May 1990, as he prepared for his unknown job, Coleman was arrested by the FBI and charged with applying for a false passport. Coleman sought, and was granted political sanctuary in Sweden. After he was under Swedish protection he provided Pan American World Airways with a civil affidavit which cleared Pan Am of full responsibility for the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing. He is the only person in U.S. history to ever be charged over a affidavit in a civil case.

1999 arrest on charges of fraud

On April 10, 2000, he was sentenced to ten years on thirty-six counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument. The trial court then suspended imposition of the sentence and granted Coleman probation for five years. However, on June 11, 2002, his probation officer filed an affidavit stating that Coleman had violated the terms of his probation and was residing in Saudi Arabia. Coleman was then apprehended later in Florida and was returned to Kentucky where he was then formally sentenced to ten years in prison on May 29, 2003. Later, upon appeal to vacate his sentence, the Fayette Circuit Court of the Commonwealth of Kentucky denied his motion and affirmed his conviction on May 28, 2004.

Published works

Books

• Donald Goddard (2001). Trail of the Octopus, The Untold Story of Pan Am 103. Argonaut Press. ISBN 1882206118. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Further reading

• Hurley, Micheal T. (2004-04-30). I Solemnly Swear. iUniverse. p. 539. ISBN 9780595299478. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

External links

• The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie (1994) at IMDb
• Trail of the Octopus, Kindle edition at Amazon.