Swire hails new play on Lockerbie

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of The Herald.  It reads as follows:]

A new play about the Lockerbie bombing has been described by the father of one of its victims as "searing and soul-searching".

The Lockerbie Bomber, written by Alan Clark, will be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and will look at the links the CIA had to Libya around the time of the 1989 atrocity, which claimed 270 lives.

Dr Jim Swire, who lost a daughter at Lockerbie, said: "The Lockerbie Bomber is a searing and soul-searching drama of international significance, which dramatically shows how absolute power corrupts absolutely and how individuals and nations are diminished by the lies told in their names."

Mr Clark claims in his work that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, was made a scapegoat for the bombing, which he described as an open wound. The playwright, from Falkirk, said: "I started with an open mind but the more I researched, the clearer it became that governments and agents have systematically covered up the truth for nearly 25 years."

The Crown Office is re-examining events leading up to the attack.

[The press release on which The Herald’s story is based reads as follows:]

The revelation today (July 5) that the CIA sought to assassinate Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and his co-accused Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah comes as no surprise to the Scottish author of a new play about the atrocity that’s being staged at the Edinburgh Fringe later this month.

“I believe the CIA wrote the script to incriminate Libya,” says Alan Clark, author of The Lockerbie Bomber.

The Washington lobbyist William C Chasey made the allegation in his autobiography, Truth Never Dies.

“The murky involvement of the CIA is a central strand in the play,” said Falkirk-basedClark. “There’s a widespread view it wanted Megrahi and Fhimah quietly removed, as this would prevent a public trial taking place which would show that Iran and Syria, not Libya, were behind Lockerbie following the destruction of an Iranian passenger aircraft by the USS Vincennes.

“And then when the trial did take place, there are allegations they fabricated evidence and paid witnesses for their evidence. So their fingerprints are all over Lockerbie.

“These issues are all covered in the play which concentrates on their attempts to cover up the truth and why Megrahi was made a scapegoat. This in itself raises serious questions, such as who in Scotland permitted it all to happen.”

Dr Jim Swire, who lost a daughter at Lockerbie, said: “The Lockerbie Bomber is is a searing and soul-searching drama of international significance which dramatically shows how absolute power corrupts absolutely and how individuals and nations are diminished by the lies told in their names.”

Clark added: “Lockerbie has been described as "an open wound", "an indelible stain on the reputation of Scotland and its justice system" and “our national shame”. I wrote the play as a reminder that the 270 victims and their families still await justice and the truth. I started with an open mind but the more I researched, the clearer it became to me that Governments and their agents have systematically covered up the truth for nearly twenty-five years. Allegations that evidence was withheld. Evidence fabricated. Witnesses paid for their testimony. Scottish justice reduced to the level of a banana republic. It stinks.”

The Lockerbie Bomber is being staged at C Venues in Edinburgh's Chambers Street from July 31-August 13 at 12 noon daily.