Updated Friday, October 9,
1998
| Crashed
airliner carried chemical used in nerve
gas
![](../../std/masthead/DTel.GIF) Friday
2 October 1998 By
Paul Marston, Transport
Correspondent AN
Israeli
cargo plane that crashed into a block of
flats in Amsterdam six years ago was
carrying a chemical used to make the
lethal nerve gas sarin, it emerged in
Amsterdam yesterday. The
disaster, which involved an El Al Boeing
747, killed four crew and 39 people on the
ground. Hundreds of residents living near
the site have complained of unexplained
illnesses. The
Dutch government confirmed that the
aircraft, which
had just made an intermediate stop in
Amsterdam en route between New York and
Tel Aviv,
had 42 gallons of dimethyl
methylphosphonate (DMMP) on board.
The
chemical is regarded as a crucial
component for sarin, which was used in a
terrorist attack on the Tokyo gas
underground in 1995, killing six
passengers and harming more than 3,000.
The
flight's dangerous goods shipping
declaration named the destination for the
chemical as the
Israel Institute for Biological
Research,
near Tel Aviv. The institute is alleged to
be a military facility.
The
Israeli government has accused Syria, Iraq
and Iran of developing chemical and
bacteriological arms but has never
acknowledged that it has its own programme
for weapons of mass destruction.
There
have been concerns about the content of
the cargo hold ever since the crash, which
occurred after one of the aircraft's
engines sheared off. Six
months ago, the Dutch Health Ministry
ordered an inquiry into claims that
exposure to depleted uranium, used as wing
ballast, had led to health problems in
local people and rescue workers. Health
officials pledged yesterday to widen their
investigation to include any effects from
DMMP. Transport
officials said details of the shipping
declaration had been passed to parliament
two years ago, but MPs complained that the
significance of the cargo had not been
explained. ![](../../std/dings/arrowshbl.GIF) | ![El Al 747-200](images/ELAl747.jpg) Dutch
politicians were shocked that the
documents were under their noses for more
than two years.
A
spokesman for the Liberals, who govern in
coalition with Labour said: "It's possible
that parliament itself should shoulder
some of the blame. Strange things have
happened." El Al said that it had told the
Dutch authorities what the cargo contained
immediately after the accident. A
spokesman said: "We have not tried to hide
anything." Shaul
Yahalom, the Israeli Transport
Minister, ordered the Civil Aviation
Authority to investigate what was in the
hold of the plane after a Dutch newspaper
reported that it carried the chemicals.
Nachman Klieman, an El Al
spokesman, said: "The cargo documentation
states that DMMP was on the plane, that it
was packed in accordance with the
international regulations governing uplift
of this material and the document was
signed by the captain of the aircraft
stating that everything was in order prior
to departure. All these documents were
turned over to the Dutch authorities
following the accident." The
man who headed Israel's investigation of
the crash, Reserve Maj-Gen Amos
Lapidot, asked if DMMP was part of the
cargo, told Israel's army radio: "It is
possible that was part of the cargo, so
what? They are chemicals that are used for
various purposes and known throughout the
world. We don't buy chemical weapons
materials from abroad. This is
nonsense." ![](../../std/dings/square.gif)
©
Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited
1998. |
WE
ARE SHOCKED -- AND PUZZLED. Since
Israel, unlike Saddam Hussein,
does not possess weapons of mass
destruction (right?), these chemicals
can only have been destined for the
nerve-poisons used in hypodermic
syringes by agents of The Mossad with
prime minister Binjamin
Netanyahu's blessing to dispatch
controversial politicians in friendly
neighbouring countries like Jordan. But
forty gallons? How many
killer-shots would that have
provided? History
Note: Adolf Hitler's
scientists had manufactured thirty
thousand tons of the secret nerve gases
Sarin and Tabun by the end of WW.II,
but although they would have given his
troops a clear tactical advantage, on
his orders these gases (K-Stoffe) were
not used. He refused to be the first to
initiate poison-gas warfare, the
documents show. Winston
Churchill ... well, that's
different story.
| THE
SUNDAY TIMES London, Sunday,
October 4, 1998
Israeli
jets equipped for chemical
warfare by Uzi
Mahnaimi ISRAELI
assault aircraft have been equipped to
carry chemical and biological weapons
manufactured at a top secret institute
near Tel Aviv, military sources revealed
yesterday. Crews of F-16 fighters have
been trained to fit an active chemical or
biological weapon within minutes of
receiving the command to attack, they
said. The
weapons are manufactured at the Institute
for Biological Research in a suburb of Nes
Ziona 12 miles southeast of Tel
Aviv. The
plant attracted unwanted scrutiny last
week when the Dutch authorities confirmed
that it was the intended destination of 42
gallons of a chemical called DMMP aboard
an El Al 747-200 that crashed into
high-rise flats in Amsterdam six years
ago, killing the four crew and 39 people
on the ground. The chemical is used in the
manufacture of sarin nerve gas, and local
inhabitants have complained of health
problems since the crash. The
Israeli plant manufactures not only
chemical and biological weapons for use in
bombs, but more unusual arms as well. It
supplied the poison for a bizarre attempt
last year on the life of Khaled
Meshal, a leader of the Hamas Islamic
fundamentalist group. Agents
of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence
service, sprayed a liquid into his ear as
he arrived at his office in Amman, the
Jordanian capital. If one of Meshal's
bodyguards had not chased and caught the
agents, the mysterious chemical would have
caused Meshal to die within days of
apparent heart failure. Instead, the
institute was forced to supply an antidote
when King Hussein of Jordan
threatened to put the captured Israelis on
trial. | Israel
has accused Egypt, Libya, Syria and Iran
of developing chemical and biological
weapons, but has never acknowledged its
own programmes to develop weapons of mass
destruction. The
Jewish state signed but never ratified the
chemical weapons convention, a treaty that
prohibits countries from developing,
producing, stockpiling or using such
weapons. The Israeli programme for weapons
has been an open secret for
years. "There
is hardly a single known or unknown form
of chemical or biological weapon ... which
is not manufactured at the institute,"
said a biologist who once held a senior
post in Israeli intelligence. The
institute is one of the most secretive in
Israel. Founded in 1952 as a single
building hidden in an orange grove, it now
sprawls over several acres. It is
surrounded by a 6ft-high concrete wall
topped with sensors that reveal the exact
location of any intruder but is erased
from local and aerial survey
maps. Official
publications disguise its more sinister
activities, indicating merely that the
institute provides services to the defence
ministry as well as chemicals for
agriculture and research for civilian
companies. Following
rumours about risks to the neighbourhood
from toxins, members of the parliament's
foreign affairs and defence committee
asked to visit the plant. They were denied
access. Nes
Ziona's mayor won a temporary injunction
last week freezing plans to expand the
institute by 14 acres. His anxiety is
wellfounded. Accidents at the plant have
killed at least six workers but details
have been protected by military I
censorship. ![](../../std/dings/square.gif)
©
Copyright of Times Newspapers Limited
1998. | The
Independent on Sunday London,
October 4, 1998 Israel
fails to calm Dutch anger over 'nerve gas'
crash | From
Katherine Butler in Brussels
IT
WAS AROUND Songs of Praise time on a
Sunday evening. The residents of the
Bijlmermeer flats would probably have been
pottering around at home, getting dinner,
thinking about the week ahead, watching
TV. There was a good football match on;
top Dutch clubs Eindhoven and Feyenoord
were playing. Norma
Habibi had popped out to the night
shop for something, leaving her two
toddlers with the woman next door. Turning
the corner of the estate on her way back
she heard a low drone and looked up to see
"a terrible black shadow" fall over the
block of flats. The drone turned to a roar
like thunder. Then there was a ball of
fire and before her eyes an El Al Boeing
747 cargo plane on its way from New York
to Tel Aviv ploughed into the
building. The
worst air crash in the history of the
Netherlands, six years ago today, turned
the Amsterdam apartment complex into a
hell-like inferno in seconds, killing
Norma Habibi's two children and 41 of her
neighbours. Six years on, the surviving
residents of the suburb are suffering
physical ailments which their doctors have
long suspected, and which new revelations
last week appear to confirm, were caused
by exposure to something more sinister
than burning perfume, paints or electronic
equipment. El
Al, the Israeli state airline, admitted
last week it was also carrying three of
the four chemical ingredients needed to
make the odourless, highly toxic nerve
agent sarin, the gas Saddam Hussein
used against the Kurds in Iraq and which
killed a dozen people in the Tokyo metro
in 1995. People
in Amsterdam were appalled but not
surprised. Rumours
have been circulating for years that the
men in coveralls and gas masks who
appeared mysteriously at the site after
the crash were from Mossad, the Israeli
secret service.[*] Prompted
by Dutch newspaper reports and a statement
from El Al, the Israeli government
admitted on Thursday there was a quantity
of dimethyl methylphosphonate or DMMT on
board, but denied the plane carried any
"dangerous goods". | The
material was destined for "testing
filters", a statement from the Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
office said. Freight
papers for the El Al flight indicate that
190 litres of DMMT were on board the plane
-- enough, when combined with two other
chemicals in the cargo, to generate more
than a quarter of a tonne of
sarin. The
materials, purchased from a US plant, were
bound for the Institute for Biological
Research in the Israeli town of Nes Ziona
south of Tel Aviv. Israel has never
admitted producing chemical or biological
weapons and has signed,
but not ratified,
the International Convention on the
Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons. Jan
Medema, who heads a team of chemical
weapons inspectors and directs the toxic
substances division at the Dutch defence
research institute in The Hague, is
concerned about the quantity of DMMT, the
presence of two other substances
(isopropanol and hydrogen fluoride) and
the destination of the cargo. Dr
Medema believes that the volume of DMMT in
itself was too big for routine experiments
at a research lab. "We have been trying to
think what possible research purposes you
would need this compound in such large
quantities for. The likelihood has to be
that it was for sarin. Either they had
some special plan for an experiment or
they needed a quantity of sarin for some
special purpose. This raises many
questions." Responding
to the outcry, the Dutch government has
ordered a full public inquiry. Beyond the
chemicals which were identified last week
and some ordinary industrial goods,
mystery still surrounds one third of the
cargo. When
and if the answers come they will be of
interest not just to the sick people of
Bijlmermeer and Nes Ziona (who have also
been demanding to know what goes on there)
but to anyone alarmed at the build-up of
chemical and biological weapons in a
region as volatile as the Middle
East. ©
1998 The Independent on
Sunday *
ACTION
REPORT No.
13 commented on the TV newsreel images of
similar appartions, in Hassidic garb,
scouring the still smouldering crater
where the Boeing 747 of Flight Pan-Am 101
crashed at Lockerbie.
| ![JEWISH CHRONICLE](../../std/masthead/JChron.GIF) London,
Friday, October 9, 1998
DUTCH
ATTACK "TOO SECRETIVE" ISRAELIS OVER CRASH
JET CARGO FROM
ELISE FRIEDMANN, AMSTERDAM, AND ERIC
SILVER DUTCH
PRIME Minister
Wim Kok this week accused Israel of
"being secretive" about the cargo of an El
Al plane which crashed on to an Amsterdam
housing estate in 1992, killing 43
people. His
criticism followed reports in the Dutch
press that the El Al jumbo had been
carrying 190 litres -- 50 galIons -- of a
component of the lethal nerve gas,
Sarin. | Israel
officials confirmed the plane was carrying
di-methyl methylphosphonate (DMPP), one of
four chemi-cals used in the manufacture of
Sarin, but said the Dutch had been aware
of this from the cargo
manifest. Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's spokesman,
Aviv Bushinsky, said last Friday
that the DMMP was on its way from the US
to the top-secret Biological Research
Institute in Ness Ziona, south of Tel
Aviv. "The
chemical was intended to test filters," Mr
Bush-insky said, "including the filters
for gas masks. The shipment was lost in
the crash and a replacement shipment was
ordered and safely arrived at its
destination." The
spokesman stressed that DMMP was not
itself toxic and was used for a number of
industrial purposes.[*] Doctors
near the crash site have claimed that
about 300 people have health problems
resulting from the crash. Patients
themselves have blamed anxiety attacks,
ex-haustion, pain, rashes, and many other
chronic complaints on the
disaster. ![](../../std/dings/square.gif) [*
Website comment: As was
Zyklon-B].©
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1998 | The
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