Lester Knox Coleman is the first American citizen since the Vietnam war to seek political asylum in another country. Hounded by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Middle East heroin traffickers, Coleman is a victim of the biggest international cover-up in modern times.
In the spring of 1988 Coleman was on a mission for the world's most secretive and well-funded espionage organization -- The Defense Intelligence Agency. Coleman had been ordered to spy on the DEA in Cyprus which, along with the CIA, was running a series of 'controlled deliveries' of Lebanese heroin through the airports of Frankfurt and London en route to America. Coleman discovered that the security of this 'sting' operation had been breached and warned the American embassy that a disaster was waiting to happen. He was ignored. Seven months later, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie. Among the dead was a DEA courier.
Over the last four years Washington has ensured that the blame for the bombing rests with Libyan terrorists and negligent Pan Am officials. With Pan Am and their insurers fighting this version all the way, it was never likely that Coleman's experiences in Cyprus would go unnoticed. In 1991 America's state security apparatus -- the 'optopus' -- made its move.
Trail of the Octopus is a gripping investigation into the causes of the Lockerbie disaster and the subsequent manipulation of the evidence. It is a revelatory insight into the rival American intelligence agencies and their use of Middle East drug traffickers and terrorists. And it is the story of a man who became a prisoner of his own knowledge.
