UK Families Flight 103 ask Gordon Brown to instigate a full independent inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing

[What follows is a press release (and notes to editors) just issued by the the Lockerbie relatives group UK Families Flight 103.]

UKFF103 (n1) have delivered a letter to the Prime Minister asking him to instigate a full independent inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing under the auspices of the Inquiries Act 2005 (n2). We have also requested a meeting with him.

Since 1989 senior political figures from successive governments have agreed in principle to an inquiry but have qualified their comments by saying that it could not take place while the criminal investigation was ongoing.

As Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw told the families, ‘there should have been a full-scale enquiry after Lockerbie but it didn’t happen. There should have been a scrutiny of intelligence…but it didn’t happen.’(n3)

With the abandonment of Mr Megrahi’s appeal against his conviction, there has been no resolution to any aspect of responsibility for the bombing (n4).

During the trial and subsequently, we heard of ‘significant information’ from a foreign power. On repeated occasions, Her Majesty’s Government has sought to prevent or obstruct access to documents (some viewed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission) for reasons of ‘national security’. We seek access to documents previously the subject of Public Interest Immunity Certificates.

Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights demands that an inquiry into the circumstances of a death conform to certain minimum standards where it has occurred at the hands of a state or at the hands of agents of a state. As host nation, the state - i.e. the UK – had responsibility for the security of the aircraft, as confirmed in the findings of the Lockerbie Fatal Accident Inquiry and for the safety of its country’s airports, as well as for the proficient use of intelligence that might have prevented the disaster (n5). We maintain that there has been no investigation compliant with the Article 2 rights of the families.

The outstanding questions about Lockerbie include:

· What was the motivation for the bombing of Pan Am 103?
· Who was responsible and in conjunction with whom? (Although Mr al-Megrahi was charged with “acting in concert with others”, no “others” have been brought to justice.)
· How was it financed?
· How was the bombing allowed to happen given the amount of information available to the intelligence and security services?
· What lessons have been learned from Lockerbie?

We have waited patiently for almost 21 years to learn the full truth of what happened. Now we await Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s response to our renewed calls for a full inquiry into all the circumstances of the bombing.

Notes to editors

Note 1 UK Families Flight 103 is a group of relatives and friends of those killed at Lockerbie. We came together early in 1989 with the aims of:

· Offering each other mutual support

· Establishing the full truth of what happened at Lockerbie

· Preventing similar disasters from happening in the future.

Note 2 Under section 1 of the Inquiries Act 2005, any government minister can appoint an inquiry if:

a) the events in question have caused or are capable of causing public concern, or

b) there is public concern that particular events may have occurred.

No inquiry has yet been set up under the auspices of this Act.

Note 3 Quote from Foreign & Commonwealth Office notes of the meeting between then Foreign Secretary of State Jack Straw and representatives of UK Families Flight 103, on 17th December 2002.

Note 4 Convicted of the bombing in 2001, Mr Megrahi maintains his innocence. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007 found six possible grounds on which a miscarriage of justice might have taken place. Mr Megrahi abandoned his appeal and was released for return to Libya on compassionate grounds by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill on 20 August 2009.

Note 5 Sheriff Principal Mowat’s determination following the Scottish Fatal Accident (FAI) Inquiry, October 1990 – February 1991 concluded that the bombing was preventable. No evidence concerning the political or criminal aspects of the case was heard at the FAI.

Lockerbie: Salmond confirms court can still review Megrahi's conviction

[This is the headline over a report published this afternoon on the Herald Scotland website.  It reads as follows:]

Abdelbaset al Megrahi's conviction for the Lockerbie bombing could still be reviewed even after his death, Scotland's First Minister has confirmed as the 25th anniversary approaches.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) can refer cases back to court even after the death of the convicted individual, Alex Salmond told MSPs.

Megrahi protested his innocence until his death in May last year, three years after he was sent home to Libya on compassionate grounds following a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer.

SCCRC reviews can be requested post-mortem by the family of the convict or by the families of the victims.

Megrahi's family in Libya "could be risking their lives" if they pursue a fresh appeal against the conviction, according to Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing in December 1988.

Dr Swire will attend a meeting of the UK Families Flight 103 group in the new year to consider whether to appeal against the conviction on behalf of the UK families.

The US Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 group does not share the British families' belief that Megrahi may have been innocent, with many publicly opposing the campaign to reopen the case.

The UK families will also consider whether a public inquiry is the best route to get answers at their meeting next year, although Dr Swire conceded that approach may ultimately fail.

Their hopes for an inquiry were dealt a fresh blow today by the First Minister, who insisted that a court of law is the only place to test Megrahi's conviction, but he also confirmed the court route was not completely closed.

Speaking at First Minister's Questions, SNP MSP Christine Grahame, convener of Holyrood's justice committee, said: "I am a signatory to the Justice for Megrahi campaign, concerned that the wrong man and possibly the wrong nation was in the dock.

"Will the First Minister write to the Prime Minister requesting a joint inquiry into all aspects of the atrocity?

"If the Prime Minister does not agree, will his Government take the lead and instigate an inquiry into the devolved issues such as the policing and the Crown Office actions, which might at last kick-start a full UK inquiry, which is what I would suggest the victims' families really require?"

Mr Salmond said: "There are live investigations into the crime to see if others can be brought to account.

"The Scottish Government has not written to the UK Government asking for a joint inquiry.

"Mr al Megrahi was convicted in a court of law, and the conviction was upheld by the appeal court.

"We have made it clear that our view is the only place that Mr al Megrahi's conviction could be upheld or overturned is in a court of law.

"There are established procedures in place as part of the checks and balances in our justice system that allow the SCCRC to consider referring a case back to court.

"It is important to note that the processes can be used even after Mr al Megrahi is deceased."

He said the debate over Megrahi's conviction should not overshadow the commemorations of the bombing on Saturday, 25 years to the day since it happened.

"The local community in Lockerbie will be commemorating the tragic events of a quarter of a century ago," he said.

"I will be attending a wreath-laying ceremony in memory of all of those who were lost in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on Saturday.

"There will be ministerial attendance at the evening service at the church, the commemorative service at Westminster Abbey in London and the memorial service at Arlington national cemetery in Washington.

"One of the themes of the memorial event in Washington is to look forward, and that will involve students in Lockerbie and Syracuse University which lost 35 students in the tragedy.

"The Scottish Government will make a contribution of £60,000 towards the fund that allows Lockerbie students to study at the university in the US."

Relatives of Lockerbie victims begin new legal fight for public inquiry

[This is the headline over a report recently published on the Telegraph website. It reads in part:]

UK Families Flight 103, the relatives' campaign group, will use human rights laws in a bid to uncover the truth about the terrorist attack, which claimed 270 lives in December 1988.

The group has hired Gareth Peirce, the prominent human rights solicitor better known for her work representing terror suspects, to devise a legal strategy to secure the inquiry for which families have long campaigned.

It is the first time the families have formally hired lawyers to pursue an inquiry.

The development comes after Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, rejected the group's latest demands for an independent review of the bombing. He informed them of his decision in a letter, dated Christmas Eve, which was received by the relatives last week.

In the letter, Mr Brown said: "All of the matters which you have raised in support of the case for an inquiry are points which were raised at the original trial or the appeal in Scotland, and I do not see that it would be in the public interest to air them again at an inquiry." (...)

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was killed in the atrocity, said: "We are arguing that our human rights have been transgressed by the failure to hold an inquiry.

"This is the first time we have hired lawyers to do this. We have until now relied on appealing to the good sense and good nature of our politicians, and that has been to no avail."

The Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga, 19, was among the victims when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, said: "I feel extremely positive about this development. For 21 years we have been asking the same questions and asking for an inquiry but I think we are nearer to getting it than we have ever been."

Legal tactics used by UK Families Flight 103 are likely to focus on Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, enshrined in British law by the Human Rights Act, which details the right to life.

Previous legal cases have shown that any failure by the state to properly investigate a suspected murder may amount to a breach of the right to life of the victim.

Options open to the families include launching a judicial review of the Government's decision to refuse an inquiry, or using human rights laws to overturn Megrahi's conviction so that ministers are forced to act.

Dr Jim Swire, whose 24-year-old daughter Flora died on the flight, said it was crucial to overturn Megrahi's guilty verdict so that "public outrage" left the Prime Minister with no choice but to allow in independent inquiry into the bombing.

Jean Berkley, who lost her 29-year-old son Alistair, said Mr Brown's letter "was not a well-considered reply" and added: "This is a kind of treatment we are used to receiving. Our perfectly-well thought out points were dismissed in a rather thoughtless way."

[The Prime Minister's letter, dated 24 December 2009, is in reply to the letter delivered by the UK relatives on 27 October 2009. It reads as follows:]

Thank you for your letter of 27 October.

As I said in my letter of 23 October, I am deeply aware of the pain and suffering caused to you and the other families of the Lockerbie bombing victims. You continue to have my deepest sympathies for your loss.

You referred in your previous letters to the need for a public inquiry into the investigation of the Lockerbie bombing and in your letter of 27 October you again referred to the Heathrow incident. As I said in my last letter, the Heathrow incident to which you refer was examined by the Court of Criminal Appeal in Scotland, which concluded that it did not render the conviction of Mr Megrahi unsafe.

All of the matters which you have raised in support of the case for an inquiry are points which were raised at the original trial or the appeal in Scotland, and I do not see that it would be in the public interest to air them again at an inquiry.

I do appreciate that this answer is still not what you were looking for. Please be assured that my thoughts, and those of the Government, remain with you and the other families, especially at what must be a particularly difficult time of year for you all.

Significant Lockerbie developments expected in 2014

[The Hogmanay and New Year festivities at Gannaga Lodge being now over, may I take this opportunity to wish all the readers of this blog a happy and productive 2014.

Here is an item from the archives, headed Relatives of Lockerbie victims begin new legal fight for public inquiry, first published on 2 January 2010 and based on a report appearing on The Telegraph website :]

UK Families Flight 103, the relatives' campaign group, will use human rights laws in a bid to uncover the truth about the terrorist attack, which claimed 270 lives in December 1988.

The group has hired Gareth Peirce, the prominent human rights solicitor better known for her work representing terror suspects, to devise a legal strategy to secure the inquiry for which families have long campaigned.

It is the first time the families have formally hired lawyers to pursue an inquiry.

The development comes after Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, rejected the group's latest demands for an independent review of the bombing. He informed them of his decision in a letter, dated Christmas Eve, which was received by the relatives last week.

In the letter, Mr Brown said: "All of the matters which you have raised in support of the case for an inquiry are points which were raised at the original trial or the appeal in Scotland, and I do not see that it would be in the public interest to air them again at an inquiry." (...)

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was killed in the atrocity, said: "We are arguing that our human rights have been transgressed by the failure to hold an inquiry.

"This is the first time we have hired lawyers to do this. We have until now relied on appealing to the good sense and good nature of our politicians, and that has been to no avail."

The Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga, 19, was among the victims when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, said: "I feel extremely positive about this development. For 21 years we have been asking the same questions and asking for an inquiry but I think we are nearer to getting it than we have ever been."

Legal tactics used by UK Families Flight 103 are likely to focus on Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, enshrined in British law by the Human Rights Act, which details the right to life.

Previous legal cases have shown that any failure by the state to properly investigate a suspected murder may amount to a breach of the right to life of the victim.

Options open to the families include launching a judicial review of the Government's decision to refuse an inquiry, or using human rights laws to overturn Megrahi's conviction so that ministers are forced to act.

Dr Jim Swire, whose 24-year-old daughter Flora died on the flight, said it was crucial to overturn Megrahi's guilty verdict so that "public outrage" left the Prime Minister with no choice but to allow in independent inquiry into the bombing.

Jean Berkley, who lost her 29-year-old son Alistair, said Mr Brown's letter "was not a well-considered reply" and added: "This is a kind of treatment we are used to receiving. Our perfectly-well thought out points were dismissed in a rather thoughtless way."

[The Prime Minister's letter, dated 24 December 2009, is in reply to the letter delivered by the UK relatives on 27 October 2009. It reads as follows:]

Thank you for your letter of 27 October.

As I said in my letter of 23 October, I am deeply aware of the pain and suffering caused to you and the other families of the Lockerbie bombing victims. You continue to have my deepest sympathies for your loss.

You referred in your previous letters to the need for a public inquiry into the investigation of the Lockerbie bombing and in your letter of 27 October you again referred to the Heathrow incident. As I said in my last letter, the Heathrow incident to which you refer was examined by the Court of Criminal Appeal in Scotland, which concluded that it did not render the conviction of Mr Megrahi unsafe.

All of the matters which you have raised in support of the case for an inquiry are points which were raised at the original trial or the appeal in Scotland, and I do not see that it would be in the public interest to air them again at an inquiry.

I do appreciate that this answer is still not what you were looking for. Please be assured that my thoughts, and those of the Government, remain with you and the other families, especially at what must be a particularly difficult time of year for you all.

[That was four years ago. Obduracy on the part of UK and Scottish Governments has so far stymied the campaign for an independent inquiry. But I am reasonably confident that 2014 will see significant developments leading ultimately to Abdelbaset Megrahi’s name being cleared.]

A cynical spoiling operation?

Intriguing, is it not, that on the very day that UK Families-Flight 103 submits a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a full, independent inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster (and gains the support of a major national newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph) the story breaks, citing Crown Office sources, that the investigation is not closed and that a police review is being carried out?

Not, of course, that the case against Abdelbaset Megrahi will be scrutinised. He has been convicted by a Scottish court and so is indubitably guilty. Forget the concerns of a bunch of meddlesome do-gooders like the UN observer, Professor Hans Köchler, and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. Forget the material that has been placed into the public domain on Mr Megrahi's website. If three Scottish judges say he is guilty, then guilty he must be. The fact that the SCCRC regarded those judges' findings on crucial matters as conclusions that, on the evidence, no reasonable court could have reached, can be either completely ignored or treated with lofty contempt. If the establishment decides that a man is guilty, then guilty he is and most assuredly will remain.

What follows are excerpts from the coverage of this story in the "serious" press and The Scotsman.

The Times: "Lockerbie relatives suspect investigation will head off public inquiry"

'Relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie disaster are worried that the police investigation into the atrocity is being stepped up in an attempt to scupper their demands for a full public inquiry. (...)

'Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the bombing, said: “The argument which has been consistently used against us having the public inquiry we want is that there is an ongoing criminal investigation.

'“I find it an extraordinary coincidence that the latest development in the police case emerged on the same day the families demanded a proper investigation from Gordon Brown.” (...)

'Martin Cadman, who lost his son William in the 1988 bombing, also raised concerns. He said: “It’s very curious the way the law is going about things. We’ve been led up the garden path by the authorities for a long time. I’m deeply suspicious of this.”'

The Herald: "Lockerbie relatives cautiously welcome review"

'Relatives of the Lockerbie bombing victims have welcomed a review of the criminal investigation into the atrocity but warned that it should not stand in the way of a full public inquiry.

'Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 killed, said yesterday a desktop review of the criminal inquiry has always been the excuse to block a full investigation into how Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on December 21 1988.'

The Scotsman: "Lockerbie: eight other 'high-level' suspects"

'Eight suspects who may have been involved in the Lockerbie bombing have never been investigated because the Libyan government refused to co-operate with Scottish police, The Scotsman has learned. The individuals emerged as possible "high-level" suspects as part of the original inquiry into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 following the atrocity in December 1988.

'Now The Scotsman can reveal that the eight – all thought to be male – were never ruled out of the investigation because Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi refused to release them for questioning. (...)

'Meanwhile, the Crown Office moved to play down suggestions that a wholesale review of the case was under way, stressing that there was no question of the Crown reopening the case against Megrahi himself.

'A spokeswoman added: "The open case concerns only the involvement of others with Megrahi in the murder of 270 people, and the Crown will continue to pursue such lines of inquiry that become available.

'"The trial court accepted the Crown's position that Mr Megrahi acted in furtherance of the Libyan intelligence services and did not act alone." (...)

'The UK Families Flight 103 group revealed it had written to the Prime Minister demanding a full independent inquiry, a development quickly overtaken by news of the revived police investigation. Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died on the plane, said he was concerned the ongoing police work might be used as an excuse to block any independent public inquiry.

'His concerns were echoed by the Rev John Mosey, who lost his daughter, Helga, in the attack. He said: "It may be a damage-limitation exercise on behalf of the government in order to say, 'We are doing this instead of giving you an independent inquiry'. That would not be acceptable."'

[This cartoon from The Guardian sums things up beautifully.]

Dismayed by a 35-year-long miscarriage of justice

[What follows is excerpted from a report published yesterday evening on the website of The Telegraph:]

Ever since Flora was killed on Pan Am Flight 103, Dr Jim Swire has been searching for answers – and says the FBI has the wrong man

Flora Swire is everywhere in her parents’ home. There are sketches and photos of her pinned to a board in the kitchen, on the mantelpiece, on the cover of a book; her portrait fills the wall across from their bed. There remains too a lock of her hair – a heartbreaking keepsake taken when the Swires saw her last, almost 35 years ago, after a bomb exploded beneath her feet in the Lockerbie disaster.

It was on 21 December 1988, the eve of her 24th birthday, that Flora, a promising neurology student who had just been accepted to do a PhD at Cambridge, took her seat on a plane bound for New York. She had hoped to spend Christmas with her boyfriend, but would never make it.

Thirty-eight minutes after taking off at Heathrow, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in the sky over the town of Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway, with such force on a windy night that the debris landed across an 845-square-mile radius from southwest Scotland to the east coast of England. The fairylights on Christmas trees all over Lockerbie blew their fuses, along with the rest of the grid; smoking orange flames illuminated the town, which quickly filled with the stench of jet fuel. (...)

The investigation has remained open ever since, with one man, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan national, the only person ever to be convicted of the atrocity. He was convicted in 2001 and given a life sentence, and died in 2012. But in February this year, the case returned to the courts for the first time in more than two decades.

Another Libyan national, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi (known as Mas’ud) has been accused of making the Lockerbie bomb, and is now awaiting trial (he has pleaded not guilty). The development should offer some shred of hope for the families whose lives irreparably changed that night. Yet Dr Jim Swire, Flora’s father, ‘has no interest’ in the prospect of Mas’ud’s conviction.

‘I know he didn’t make the bomb,’ Jim tells me. ‘I know who made the bomb.’

As such, the official criminal verdict on events to date – upcoming trial included – is, in his view at least, nothing more than ‘twaddle’.

Jim, now 87, had been writing Christmas cards on that December night in 1988 when his wife Jane told him that a plane had just come down over Scotland. He tried calling Heathrow, where Flora had been dropped off by her younger sister, Cathy, a few hours earlier – he spent five hours on hold to Pan Am as news coverage blared, showing body parts hanging from a roof, the 30ft hole a chunk of the 747 had left in a Lockerbie street, and relatives howling in anguish at JFK Airport. When he finally got through, staff confirmed the worst possible news: Flora had been on the flight. (...)

Jim, an old Etonian who went to Cambridge, is still spry in his late 80s – part-raconteur, part activist, wearing a sharp grey suit and trainers. Today, Jim, who became a GP but ultimately left the profession after his daughter’s death, and Jane, 84, take turns bustling between the kitchen and back garden of their home in the Cotswolds town of Chipping Camden with offers of cheese sandwiches and cups of tea. It is a cosy idyll that conceals the sea of names and dates and evidence-tag numbers still etched on their minds.

Some 35 years on, the Swires’ agony remains barely beneath the surface, the memories of their eldest child both a precious gift and cruel reminder of what they have lost. ‘To lose a close family member gives you a life sentence immediately,’ Jim says. ‘Your whole life is altered. And you have to start asking yourself how, how can you go on living, or how can Jane go on living, with a loss so terrible as this?’

Their experiences are documented in Lockerbie, a new four-part documentary that airs on Sky next week. It is a panoptic watch, following the lives of the residents in the town that was, until that day, just a fish ’n’ chip pitstop, 75 miles from Glasgow, before it was completely upturned. The documentary follows the families of UK and US victims, and officials from across the town’s police force, the FBI and the CIA, too. But it also lays bare how devastation led to remarkable acts of humanity, as residents mounted a volunteer effort to wash the clothes and teddies scattered thousands of miles from where they should have ended up, and sent them back to passengers’ loved ones; some of which resulted in relationships with grief-stricken families an ocean away that remain strong. Their lives are, now, forever intertwined.

But underlying the heartfelt stories is a darker thread – for decades on, opinions about who was to blame for the disaster are more divided than ever.

Jim remains dismayed by what he sees as a 35-year-long miscarriage of justice. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, he became the spokesperson for the UK Families Flight 103 group and in the intervening decades, he has met numerous experts and officials, and had independent reviews of evidence undertaken. All of which has convinced him that justice has not been served – and that the wrong man was imprisoned, just as another ‘wrong man’ is now about to be tried.

His theory – that Libya wasn’t responsible for the bombing – runs counter to al-Megrahi’s conviction and Mas’ud’s arrest, and has been dismissed by many. But there are others in his corner, too. ‘Enough honest, reliable and knowledgeable people have discovered the awful truth behind this to know that the truth will now be able to look after itself,’ Jim says. ‘If I die tomorrow, I know the truth will eventually come out.’

Among those people is former CIA investigator John Holt, the long-time handler for the principal US government witness at al-Megrahi’s trial, Libyan agent Abdul Majid Giaka. Holt said at the time that Giaka never provided ‘any evidence pointing to Libya or any indication of knowing anything about that nation’s involvement in the two years after the bombing’ – despite later testifying. But when accused of lying under cross-examination, Giaka replied: ‘I had no interest in telling anybody any lies.’

Others who have been vocal about what they view as Libya’s wrongful implication include solicitor Clare Connelly, director of the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit, an independent project established by the School of Law of the University of Glasgow, and other UK relatives, including John Moseley [sic], whose 19-year-old daughter Helga was killed on Flight 103.

Al-Megrahi’s trial took place 22 years ago at Camp Zeist, a Scottish law court set up in the Netherlands (deemed a neutral territory), where judges heard that he had placed a bomb in a Samsonite suitcase. Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, his co-accused, was acquitted.

There was no smoking gun for the prosecution, but al-Megrahi was found guilty based on a series of links they felt couldn’t otherwise be explained: including that he had an office in Switzerland down the hall from a clockmaker whose device was used to make the bomb; and that clothing fragments found alongside remains of the bomb were traced back to a Maltese shop that its owner, Tony Gauci, said al-Megrahi had visited.

At the same time, there were escalating tensions between the West and Libyan premier Colonel Gaddafi, who was suspected to have ordered the bombing of a nightclub frequented by US personnel in West Berlin in 1986. Judges in al-Megrahi’s trial conceded the case included ‘a number of uncertainties and qualifications’; yet he was sentenced to life. (Libya later paid $2.7 billion to families of Lockerbie bombing victims, though this was considered a political move rather than an admission of guilt.) (...)

Time has only bolstered his defence of ‘poor’ al-Megrahi, having formed personal relationships with both him and Gaddafi before they died. They would exchange Christmas cards, and when al-Megrahi was given compassionate release in 2009 following a diagnosis of prostate cancer – returning to a hero’s welcome on the tarmac at Tripoli airport – Jim travelled to Libya to see him on his deathbed. At the time, Jim recalled al-Megrahi’s words to him: ‘I am going to a place where I hope soon to see Flora. I will tell her that her father is my friend.’

He was, in Jim’s eyes, only ever an unwitting pawn in geopolitically motivated ‘deception’ that he says is even now preventing justice for Flora and the other victims from being served. He also took a handful of clandestine trips to Gaddafi’s compound (he did not tell any authorities, and only informed Jane imminently beforehand), in which he would hear that the regime had not been to blame. On leaving their first meeting, Jim pinned a UK Families Flight 103 badge to Gaddafi’s lapel as a show of solidarity for the truth. He believes other UK families are onside, although many have never spoken publicly. But there are certainly others, particularly those in the US, who see this affinity with Gaddafi as a grave error.

For Jim, there are two pieces of evidence that point to al-Megrahi’s wrongful conviction. The 2001 case heard that the explosive had first travelled from Malta to Frankfurt, where Flight 103 began its journey to New York. (The London Heathrow stop was a layover.) But Jim believes the bomb was planted at Heathrow. At al-Megrahi’s appeal in 2002, a baggage handler told lawyers that the baggage build-up area at Terminal 3 had been broken into the night before the bombing.

The other piece of evidence relates to the bomb fragments. According to John Ashton, a researcher on al-Megrahi’s legal team, documents not disclosed during the original trial found differences between the metals of the timers being supplied to the Libyans at the time and those within the fragments police recovered from the Lockerbie site. The circuit-board patterns, however, did align, deemed to be the more important evidence.

Clare Connelly of the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit also questions the veracity of shopkeeper Tony Gauci’s evidence, as there have been claims that he was paid in connection with his participation in the inquiry, which she says would be ‘totally contrary to the interests of justice’. But in November 2013 the Crown Office said: ‘No witness was offered any inducement by the Crown or the Scottish police before and during the trial and there is no evidence that any other law ­enforcement agency offered such an inducement.’

As for who was actually responsible, Jim argues it was Iran, not Libya. He goes on to suggest that it might have been a retaliatory attack for the US shooting down an Iranian passenger plane, thought to have been incorrectly identified as a fighter jet in July 1988, which killed 290 innocent civilians. In his view, with American hostages held in Iran at the time and an upcoming election, the finger had to be pointed elsewhere. ‘What we’re being told is absolute nonsense from beginning to end. It was designed to protect the relationship between Britain and America and to help in getting home American hostages held by Iranian interests back in ’88.’

Jim insists that the bombmaker was not Mas’ud, as the US alleges, but ‘a Jordanian who was a double agent, or even a triple agent’ – feeding intelligence both to his own country and the CIA, while making explosives for a militant group active in Palestine at the time, called the PFLP-GC. Others have theories of their own around Iran’s involvement: Holt has also said ‘there was a concerted effort, for unexplained reasons, to switch the original investigations away from Iran and the PFLP-GC’ – backing Jim’s belief that the focus on Libya was politically motivated.

For the officials who spent years putting together their case, however, Jim’s theory is not credible enough to upend ‘the biggest case the FBI ever had… I don’t believe, in the history of law enforcement, there was a crime quite like Pan Am 103.’ So says Richard Marquise, who led the FBI investigation. ‘I will never attack [Jim], I will never tell him he’s a liar or wrong. I will never say a negative thing, because I cannot feel his pain; I am sure it’s enormous. But I disagree with his assessment of the evidence.’ (...)

For Jim, his ‘obsession’ has been an outlet for the pain of losing Flora. As he puts it: ‘It has provided me with a way of coping with my grief.’

As for Jane, she has had little choice but to accept her husband’s dogged pursuit of answers; something Jim is painfully aware of. ‘[I often think] what is it doing to Jane, that I’m still doing this?’ he admits. (...)

There is another source of anguish for the Swires – a series of missteps without which Flora may never have boarded Flight 103 in the first place.

In late October 1988, West German police found a bomb hidden inside a Toshiba radio cassette player in an apartment in Neuss, believed to have been manufactured to detonate mid-air. The British Department of Transport (DoT) went on to warn airports and airlines of its existence via telex the next month.

Then, on 5 December, an anonymous threat was phoned in to the US embassy in Helsinki, stipulating that within two weeks, someone would carry a bomb on to a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt to the US. Notices were put up on embassy walls, and US officials were told they could rebook on another flight home for Christmas if they so wished; Interpol informed 147 countries, Britain included – yet the ‘Helsinki warning’ was never made public.

Two days before Lockerbie, a circular featuring images of the explosives authorities feared had been designed to blow up planes was signed by the DoT’s principal aviation security advisor, but never sent out. (...)

Jim would like there to be an examination of the evidence in the International Criminal Court. He sees this as the only possible route to justice now – but each passing year makes it less likely.

‘Our numbers are dropping all the time from people dying off from old age,’ he says of the families’ group, ‘and I’m amazed that I haven’t long ago because the stress all this has been over the last 35 years – why I haven’t died of a heart attack, I don’t know… But I would love it if [the truth] were to come out while we were still around.’

John Dower, director of the new documentary, says that his main hope is that those involved in it will ‘get some resolution, some peace, because that’s what struck us most making this, the ongoing trauma. It’s 35 years later, but that trauma is still there.’

Lockerbie will be on Sky Documentaries and Now from 25 November

Very serious unanswered questions

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in The Scotsman on this date in 2004:]

Tony Blair told families of Lockerbie victims yesterday that he would use his renewed links with Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi to press for further information about the 1988 Pan Am tragedy.

The families emerged from a meeting with the Prime Minister at Downing Street to say they were "encouraged" by Col Gaddafi’s reaction to their demands for further action to uncover the truth about the bombing.

They requested the meeting after becoming concerned that, despite the renewal of Britain’s relations with Libya, little progress has been made to identify those responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

They have long called for a full public inquiry into the outrage, but a spokesman for the families, Dr Jim Swire, declined yesterday to say whether that specific demand had been made at the meeting. He said: "The Prime Minister did listen very carefully to all the things we asked for and didn’t reject any out of hand.

"We expect the issues we raised to be considered and we expect to be informed as to what decisions are made about them. I am encouraged."

Asked whether he believed an inquiry would be called, Dr Swire said: "We shall have to wait and see. Time will show.

"The Prime Minister of our country has spent considerable time listening to the concerns of people who have been bereaved now for 15 years and firmly believe that there are very serious unanswered questions surrounding the circumstances of that bereavement.

"All we can hope for, I think, is that he - as someone who was not in the know politically at the time - will now indeed consider - and I am sure he will do, as he has undertaken to do - what has to be done about the mess that currently still exists."

Dr Swire said he hoped the families would hear Mr Blair’s response within "quite a short timescale" but said he was unable to estimate how long it would be. (...)

A Former Libyan intelligence agent, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 51, was convicted of the bombing at a special trial in the Netherlands in 2001 and is serving a life sentence at Barlinnie prison in Glasgow.

But the UK Families Flight 103 Victims Group has made it clear that his conviction did not answer their questions about the outrage.

They want Mr Blair to use the UK’s improved relations with Libya, following Col Gaddafi’s renunciation of weapons of mass destruction last year, to press for the truth about how the bombing was planned, financed and perpetrated.

In a statement issued before yesterday’s meeting, the families said: "Recent letters from [the Foreign Office minister] Baroness Symons and the Lord Advocate make it plain that the criminal investigation is effectively inactive and that no further initiatives are planned by government to take advantage of the renewed relationship with Libya.

"Libya is not being asked to abide by its written commitment to the UN Security Council to co-operate ‘in good faith’ with any further inquiries into Lockerbie.

"We will therefore be asking Mr Blair to find a means to address the outstanding and unresolved questions about the circumstances of the biggest mass murder of the 20th century in the UK.

"What was the motivation for the bombing of Pan Am 103? Who was responsible? How was it financed?

"How was the bombing allowed to happen, given the amount of information available to the intelligence and security services? What lessons have been learnt from Lockerbie?"

After the meeting, the Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga, 19, died at Lockerbie, said that the families had raised questions over why Flight 103 was the only transatlantic service with empty seats in the busy pre-Christmas period and whether this was as a result of intelligence that it could be a target.

Mr Mosey said: "The Prime Minister said he is going to look into certain things we raised - the fact that there has never been a forum granted to ask the important questions about how this disaster was allowed to happen.

"He has undertaken personally to look into certain matters on warnings and they are going to get back to us. We have to wait and see whether he is as good as his word."

Tony Blair's "assurances" of independent Lockerbie inquiry

[What follows is taken from an item posted on Safia Aoude’s The Pan Am 103 Crash Website on 10 December 1998 based on Reuters news agency reports:]

The father of one of the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing said on Thursday the 10th of December 1998 he felt certain Libya would hand over two suspects in the case for trial soon, probably within weeks. Jim Swire, whose daughter was among 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, said he had spoken by telephone to a Libyan official earlier on Thursday.

"I've had an encouraging phone call from Libya's permanent representative to the United Nations only today," Swire told BBC television.  "And I see nothing on the horizon that would make me alter my opinion, which is that the handover will definitely occur, and that it will occur within the next few weeks." (...)

Swire, who was scheduled to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair later on Thursday, said he would urge that any new leads arising from the trial be followed up. "The two accused, even if they were found guilty, could only be small minnows in a very large pond," he said. 

Later that day (10 Dec 1988) Dr Swire finally met the UK prime minister Tony Blair. The meeting came less than two weeks before the 10th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which killed 270 people.  It was the first time a prime minister had agreed to meet  relatives of the disaster. The members of the UK Families Flight 103 Group, led by Dr Jim Swire, spent 50 minutes at Downing Street with Mr Blair and Foreign Office Minister Tony  Lloyd.  Lockerbie's MP, Russell Brown, and another Labour backbencher, Dr George Turner, were also at the meeting.

Dr Jim Swire, spokesman of the UK Families Group, said he wanted to thank Mr Blair for persuading the United States to accept the idea of a trial in a neutral third country. He said it was this concession which had broken the deadlock. Dr Swire and the British relatives have been told by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair he will do everything he can to find out the truth about the disaster.

Dr Swire told BBC News he was "certain" the two prime suspects would be given up by the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and he said when the trial began he wanted the government to follow up several news lines of inquiry.  Dr Swire, whose daughter Flora died at Lockerbie, said he also wanted a new inquiry to investigate how the bomb got on board the aircraft.

Dr Swire said he had received assurances from the prime minister that there would be an independent inquiry into the disaster.  He told BBC News 24: "He was very receptive to the idea and we came away much encouraged that there will be a meaningful inquiry at some stage.

"We were left with the impression that there would be the necessary investigation into how this appalling tragedy happened in 1988," said Swire.

"We feel without such an investigation the door is open to this happening again." [RB: Whatever assurances about an inquiry were given by Tony Blair were never honoured.]

Dr Swire said Libya's permanent representative to the United Nations, Omar Dorda, had rung him on Thursday and he said he was confident the two prime suspects would be handed over by the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, "within the next few weeks". "The best estimate is a few weeks," said Swire. "Possibly the latter half of January." [RB: In fact the suspects surrendered themselves for trial in April 1999.]

A Downing Street spokesman said: "Mr Blair briefed them on the latest developments on the progress towards a third country trial.

"The families want to discover the whole truth and the prime minister is committed to bring these men to justice and discover the truth."

Jim Swire meets Tony Blair

[On this date in 1998 Dr Jim Swire had a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair. The following account, based on news agency reports, is taken from The Pan Am 103 Crash Website:]

The father of one of the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing said on Thursday the 10th of December 1998 he felt certain Libya would hand over two suspects in the case for trial soon, probably within weeks. Jim Swire, whose daughter was among 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, said he had spoken by telephone to a Libyan official earlier on Thursday.

“I've had an encouraging phone call from Libya's permanent representative to the United Nations only today,” Swire told BBC television.  “And I see nothing on the horizon that would make me alter my opinion, which is that the handover will definitely occur, and that it will occur within the next few weeks.”

His optimism appeared to be somewhat at odds with a report from Libya on Thursday, in which the commentator of the official news agency JANA said a decision on whether to hand over the suspects should not be expected soon. Swire acknowledged in his interview with the BBC that “there are complications.” The decision on the handover would probably be referred to the 300 Libyan grassroots committees which JANA said had real authority in Libya, he said.  “How long that will take I don't know,” he added.

Swire, who was scheduled to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair later on Thursday, said he would urge that any new leads arising from the trial be followed up. “The two accused, even if they were found guilty, could only be small minnows in a very large pond,” he said. (...)

Later that day (10/12) Dr Swire finally met the UK prime minister Tony Blair. The meeting came less than two weeks before the 10th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which killed 270 people.  It was the first time a prime minister had agreed to meet relatives of the disaster. The members of the UK Families Flight 103 Group, led by Dr Jim Swire, spent 50 minutes at Downing Street with Mr Blair and Foreign Office Minister Tony Lloyd.  Lockerbie's MP, Russell Brown, and another Labour backbencher, Dr George Turner, were also at the meeting.

Dr Jim Swire, spokesman of the UK Families Group, said he wanted to thank Mr Blair for persuading the United States to accept the idea of a trial in a neutral third country. He said it was this concession which had broken the deadlock. Dr Swire and the British relatives have been told by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair he will do everything he can to find out the truth about the disaster.

Dr Swire told BBC News he was “certain” the two prime suspects would be given up by the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and he said when the trial began he wanted the government to follow up several news lines of inquiry.  Dr Swire, whose daughter Flora died at Lockerbie, said he also wanted a new inquiry to investigate how the bomb got on board the aircraft.

Dr Swire said he had received assurances from the prime minister that there would be an independent inquiry into the disaster.  He told BBC News 24: “He was very receptive to the idea and we came away much encouraged that there will be a meaningful inquiry at some stage. We were left with the impression that there would be the necessary investigation into how this appalling tragedy happened in 1988,” said Swire.

“We feel without such an investigation the door is open to this happening again.”

Dr Swire said Libya's permanent representative to the United Nations, Omar Dorda, had rung him on Thursday and he said he was confident the two prime suspects would be handed over by the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, “within the next few weeks”. “The best estimate is a few weeks," said Swire. "Possibly the latter half of January.”

A Downing Street spokesman said: “Mr Blair briefed them on the latest developments on the progress towards a third country trial. The families want to discover the whole truth and the prime minister is committed to bring these men to justice and discover the truth.”