Nineteenth anniversary of Megrahi accusation

It was on 14 November 1991 that the prosecution authorities in Scotland (the Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC) and the United States (acting US Attorney General, William Barr) simultaneously announced that they had brought criminal charges -- principally murder and conspiracy to murder -- arising out of the destruction of Pan Am 103 against two Libyan nationals, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah, who were alleged to be members, and to have been acting throughout as agents, of the Libyan intelligence service.

According to the Scottish and American prosecutors, what had happened was this. The two Libyans had manufactured, or caused to be manufactured, a bomb using a Toshiba cassette recorder, Semtex explosive and a digital electric timer (supplied and manufactured by a Swiss company based in Zurich, MeBo AG, the principals of which were Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier). The device had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase in Malta, along with items of clothing purchased for the purpose from a particular shop (Mary's House) in Sliema owned by the Gauci family. Using stolen Air Malta luggage tags, the Libyans (one of whom -- Fhimah -- had occupied the post of station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta) introduced the suitcase at Luqa Airport into the interline baggage system as unaccompanied luggage on Air Malta Flight KM 180 from Malta to Frankfurt, with directions for its onward transmission (first) on to a feeder flight (PA 103A) to Heathrow and (second) on to Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to J F Kennedy Airport in New York.

[From a forthcoming book on the Lockerbie case.]