Difference between revisions of "Gerald Bull/Assassination"
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==Background== | ==Background== | ||
| − | From the early 1980's Bull worked for both the Peoples Republic of China and Iraq on a number of weapons projects. Initially on fairly conventional long-range artillery designs and latterly both the Iraqi [[Supergun]] project and ballistic missile nose-cone design. The projects benefitted from his earlier experience on artillery design for the South African armaments company [[Armscor]]. The timeframe covered the period of the Thatcher government and its illegal covert supply of arms to both Iran and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, which later became known as the '[[Arms-to-Iraq]] affair'. Bull visited Bagdad on many | + | From the early 1980's Bull worked for both the Peoples Republic of China and Iraq on a number of weapons projects. Initially on fairly conventional long-range artillery designs and latterly both the Iraqi [[Supergun]] project and ballistic missile nose-cone design. The projects benefitted from his earlier experience on artillery design for the South African armaments company [[Armscor]]. The timeframe covered the period of the Thatcher government and its illegal covert supply of arms to both Iran and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, which later became known as the '[[Arms-to-Iraq]] affair'. Bull visited Bagdad on many occasions and had substantial contact with senior military people in the government of Saddam Hussein. He would have had considerable inside knowledge of Iraqi weapons aquisition programs and the involvement of both the UK and US Intelligence services in them. His work for the Iraqi military would have been most unwelcome to Israel who, at the time, already considered Iraq a serious threat. |
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| + | In the 3 month period prior to his murder, his appartment suffered unauthorised intruders on at least 3 occasions with nothing stolen but odd disturbances to furniture and other contents noted. | ||
==Gerald Bull's murder== | ==Gerald Bull's murder== | ||
Revision as of 16:47, 8 July 2015
| Date | 1990/03/22 |
|---|---|
| Location | Brussels |
| Blamed on | Unknown, Mossad |
| Type | killing |
| Description | The killing of Gerald Bull as he returned home from his nearby office whilst unlocking the door to his Brussels, Belgium appartment. |
Contents
Background
From the early 1980's Bull worked for both the Peoples Republic of China and Iraq on a number of weapons projects. Initially on fairly conventional long-range artillery designs and latterly both the Iraqi Supergun project and ballistic missile nose-cone design. The projects benefitted from his earlier experience on artillery design for the South African armaments company Armscor. The timeframe covered the period of the Thatcher government and its illegal covert supply of arms to both Iran and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, which later became known as the 'Arms-to-Iraq affair'. Bull visited Bagdad on many occasions and had substantial contact with senior military people in the government of Saddam Hussein. He would have had considerable inside knowledge of Iraqi weapons aquisition programs and the involvement of both the UK and US Intelligence services in them. His work for the Iraqi military would have been most unwelcome to Israel who, at the time, already considered Iraq a serious threat.
In the 3 month period prior to his murder, his appartment suffered unauthorised intruders on at least 3 occasions with nothing stolen but odd disturbances to furniture and other contents noted.
Gerald Bull's murder
On a damp grey evening, at about 17:15 on 22 March 1990, Gerald Bull left his Space Reasearch Corporation (SRC) office on Rue de Stalle in the Uccle district of the Belgian Capitol Brussels. He was accompanied by his secretary Monique Jaminé who was to drive him the short distance to his appartment building on Avenue Francois Folie. He had spent most of the day, including lunch, with Christopher Gumbley, who had been forced to resign as Managing Director of Astra Holdings about 6 weeks earlier, on a fabricated corruption accusation and without compensation. Their discussions centred around plans to initiate legal action against Société Générale de Belgique (SGB) over their sale of Poudreries Réunies de Belgique (PRB) to Astra, and in the British courts over Gumbley's dismissal. They had agreed to collate all relevant documents in their possession and to meet again in the near future. Both Bull and, to a lesser extent, Gumbley were undoubtedly in possession of information that could prove very damaging indeed to the British government if properly collated and presented in open court.
The drive took about 15 minutes including a brief stop at a bakery to a buy a large baguette
Bull entered his appartment block carrying a heavy shoulder bag and the baguette tucked under his other arm. He ascended to the 6th floor and walked a few paces from the lift to the door of his appartment, No 20. As he fumbled with the key, juggling his shoulder bag and the baguette, a figure stepped up behind him from the alcove beside the lift door and fired 5 shots from a silenced 7.62mm pistol into the back of his head and neck. He died instantly.
Nobody heard the shots although a tenent in the appartment below claims to have heard Bull slump heavilly to the floor, a noise which she took to be furniture moving above.
The $20,000 in cash that he was carrying on his person was left untouched. It was clearly a carefully planned professional killing.
Who contracted the murder?
Bull's work had earned him state-level enemies in at least 3 countries: Israel, the UK and the US. Israel had an interest in halting the weapons development programs to which Bull was a major contributor; Both the US and UK had wanted to keep their illegal arms dealings under wraps.
Old version below here
Who killed Gerald Bull?
According to the journalist Gordon Thomas in The Telegraph:
- Within the global intelligence community, respect for Mossad grew following the kidon assassination of Dr Gerald Bull, the Canadian scientist who was probably the world's greatest expert on gun-barrel ballistics. Israel had made several attempts to buy his expertise. Each time, Bull had made clear his dislike for the Jewish state.
- Instead he had offered his services to Saddam Hussein, to build a Supergun capable of launching shells containing nuclear, chemical or biological warheads directly from Iraq into Israel. Saddam had ordered three of the weapons at a cost of $20 million. Bull was retained as a consultant for a fee of $1 million.
- On the afternoon of 20 March 1990, the sanction to kill Bull was given by the then prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir. The head of Mossad, Nahum Admoni, sent a three-man team to Brussels, where Bull lived in a luxury apartment block. Each kidon carried a handgun in a holster under his jacket.
- When the 61-year-old Bull answered the doorbell of his home on 22 March 1990, he was shot five times in the head and the neck, each kidon firing their 7.65 pistol in turn, leaving Bull dead on his doorstep. An hour later they were out of the country on a flight to Tel Aviv.
- Within hours, Mossad's own department of psychological warfare had arranged with sayanim in the European media to leak stories that Bull had been shot by Saddam's hit squad because he had planned to renege on their deal.[1][2]
The co-operation between Gerald Bull and Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to Iran and Israel as Iran had endured an eight-year long war with Iraq, and Israel had had previous military engagements with Iraq during the Arab–Israeli war. Watching development of the gun, Israel feared it could be used to launch nuclear weapons, but the re-designed SCUD missiles were of greater concern at that moment. As for Iran, it was under threat from both Bull's Supergun and his re-designed SCUD missiles.[3]
Although it seemed obviously to be in Iran and Israel's immediate interest for Gerald Bull to discontinue his co-operation with Saddam Hussein, he had worked for many different parties in a number of critical defence projects, which could have made him a target for assassination by both US and British intelligence as well as by the governments of Chile, Syria, Iraq and the apartheid South African regime.[4]
Related Documents
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:CIA Research Paper SW91-10076X - Intelligence Summary | Research paper | November 1991 | CIA | Transcription of the unredacted 'Intelligence Summary' (pages 22-26) of CIA Research paper SW91-10076X titled 'Project Babylon' which names two ex-SAS soldiers as having been contracted to eliminate Gerald Bull |
| File:CIA Research Paper SW91-100076X Redacted.pdf | Research paper | November 1991 | CIA | Redacted CIA Research paper SW91-10076X titled 'Project Babylon' as it appeared on the CIA web site in July 2012 |
| File:CIA Research Paper SW91-100076X summary.pdf | Research paper | November 1991 | CIA | Unredacted 'Intelligence Summary' (pages 22-26) of CIA Research paper SW91-10076X titled 'Project Babylon' and naming two ex-SAS soldiers as having been contracted to eliminate Gerald Bull |
| File:CIA Research Paper SW91-100076X un-redacted.pdf | Research paper | November 1991 | CIA | Unredacted CIA Research paper SW91-10076X titled 'Project Babylon:The Iraq Supergun' (pages 1-21) |
The Official Culprits
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Mossad | "Mossad" (Hebrew for Institute) is an abbreviation for ha-Mossad le-Modiin ule-Tafkidim Meyuhadim (Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks). It is the Israeli State Agency with overall responsible for external intelligence and covert operations. |
| Unknown |
References
- ↑ "Mossad's licence to kill" 17 February 2010
- ↑
{{URL|example.com|optional display text}} - ↑
{{URL|example.com|optional display text}} - ↑ Dr. Gerald Bull: Scientist, Weapons Maker, Dreamer at CBC.ca
