Iran Denies Khomeini Ordered Jet Bombing

Iran on Sunday dismissed as “unfounded and ridiculous” a report that the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine reported Saturday that German officials were looking into information that Khomeini ordered the bombing after a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people. The United States has said the U.S. jet mistook the airliner for a warplane.

The information came from Abolghassem Mesbahi, a former co-founder of the Iranian intelligence agency who later went into exile.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mahmoud Mohammadi told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that Mesbahi was “fabricating unfounded and ridiculous allegations against Iran.”