Lockerbie families call for fresh investigation

I am grateful to a reader of this blog (and a welcome commentator) for drawing my attention to a video on the website of the Daily Record, one of Scotland's largest-circulation and fiercely Labour-supporting tabloids. In it Pam Dix, spokesman for the Lockerbie relatives group UK Families Flight 103 expresses the group's support for a full independent inquiry into the Lockerbie case.

I am grateful to another reader and welcome commentator for drawing my attention to an article by Joan Burnie headed "We must unlock truth on atrocity" in her Friday Column in the Daily Record on 23 July. The following are excerpts:

There is something distasteful about willing Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to die, no matter how evil he may or may not be.

As malignant as the cancer spreading through Megrahi's body is this baying for his corpse, with the bloodlust of a crowd at a public stoning.

It is understandable that the families of the victims want vengeance but let's not pretend that they matter a jot to the real players in all of this.

They are pawns in a game of global politics, duplicity and corporate might.

The main focus of the debate is ludicrous, anyway.

Doctors can't give a survival time in cancer cases. They are not gods.

From the moment of diagnosis, cancer is a waiting game. (...)

In the meantime, the elephant in the room - the real issue of whether Megrahi was even behind the bombing - has been pushed conveniently to one side.

It is barely mentioned and yet it is the most important issue of all.

Do we really want Megrahi to die when he will take the truth to his grave?

On June 28, 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission completed their investigation, having concluded that there was evidence of a potential miscarriage of justice.

It is more than likely that Megrahi was innocent and, as someone who believes that, I am glad he will spend his dying days at home in Libya. (...)

It is a grave pity that, with all the backroom dealing, his appeal didn't go ahead.

And that's the key, because it was never in the interests of the UK or American governments to have the truth outed in a courtroom.

The US government, who now so piously condemn the release of Megrahi, forget their part in covering up the truth, the witnesses paid off, allegedly, with the authority of the FBI. (...)

If the families of the Lockerbie victims matter at all, why haven't their calls for a full public inquiry into the atrocity been answered?

Instead, they have been lied to and their need for answers has been ignored. What a tragedy. What an utter betrayal.

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was killed in the bombing of Pan Am 103, claims the families have "faced years of denials and obfuscation".

Jim Swire, whose beautiful young daughter Flora died in the disaster, is convinced the wrong man was jailed.

At the heart of all of this is not that Megrahi should lose his life but that on Wednesday, December 21, 1988, 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing lost theirs.

Their families deserve to know why they died and, for all the millions thrown at them, that is the only compensation that counts.