Lockerbie families lobby Gordon Brown for public inquiry

[This is the headline over an article just published on the Telegraph website. The following are excerpts.]

More than two decades have passed since Britain’s worst terrorist attack but the relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing remain united by a single common goal: the pursuit of the truth.

This weekend 11 of them descended on Downing Street to urge the Prime Minister to order a public inquiry into the atrocity that claimed 270 lives when Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to New York was brought down over Scotland.

Pam Dix, a prominent campaigner, handed over a letter addressed to Gordon Brown calling for a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss the need for a public inquiry and the main issues that it must address.

The families of those who died on Dec 21 1988 – 259 on the flight and 11 on the ground in Lockerbie – have been spurred into renewed action by the release in August, on humanitarian grounds, of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, 57, the only man convicted of the bombing. Megrahi, who has returned to his homeland of Libya, has terminal prostate cancer and may only have weeks, or even days, to live.

The relatives believe that a public inquiry offers the last realistic hope of finding out how and why their loves ones perished.

They are worried that without it their chances of learning the truth could end when Megrahi dies.

Ms Dix, whose brother Peter Dix, 35, was on the doomed Pan Am jet, said: “One of the central purposes of a full inquiry would be finally to scotch the many, often outlandish, conspiracy theories that exist around Lockerbie and why and how it happened. To take Megrahi and the criminal investigation: there are those who believe he is innocent, those who believe he is guilty and those somewhere in the middle – like me – who believe that they simply don’t know.

“Our adversarial system [of criminal law] means that it all hangs on the balance of reasonable doubt – it is not really about getting to the bottom of the matter. I found the trial process [in the Netherlands from 2000-01] baffling and very disappointing – my expectations were that it would at least take us further along the road to who might have been responsible.

“The UK has a fine tradition of public, independent inquiries that have been watershed events in changing our approach to the way in which an individual murder as well as disaster – the Herald of Free Enterprise, Stephen Lawrence, the Marchioness – for example, is investigated and how people are treated. These inquiries have all resulted in highly significant recommendations. The sad and unacceptable fact, however, is that such inquiries usually come about only because of the efforts of the bereaved and survivors. This must be wrong.”

Ms Dix said that, like the other relatives, she feels she owes it to her late brother, an Irishman, to press for major breakthroughs in the Lockerbie story. (...)

The Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga, 19, died in the Lockerbie tragedy, said: “We are still waiting for answers to the big questions, notably why this happened despite 14 or 15 explicit warnings. This was a preventable disaster.”

Until Megrahi’s release, the relatives were pinning their hopes on the new evidence that had been due to be made public at his second appeal hearing.

The appeal had been permitted in 2007 after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission uncovered six separate grounds for believing the conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice. However, Megrahi dropped his appeal two days before his release to improve his chances of being allowed to gain his freedom.

Those supporting the relatives’ call for a public inquiry include senior lawyers Gareth Peirce, Michael Mansfield QC, and Prof Robert Black QC, the “architect” of the Lockerbie trial.

Elaine Wright, a retired consultant psychiatrist whose son Andrew Gillies-Wright, 24, was another Lockerbie victim, said: “From our earliest meetings, all we wanted to establish was the truth.

“But we still haven’t found out what really happened and we must not allow this opportunity [the publicity resulting from the release of Megrahi] to slip away.” (...)

However, there was little encouragement for the relatives from Downing Street yesterday . A spokesman said: “We have received the letter and we will be responding to it. But in the past, the Foreign Office has said that the Scottish courts have made a decision in the case – and we still have a convicted individual. It is our belief that nothing can be gained from a public inquiry.”