Dad tells of Lockerbie bombings aftermath

[This is the headline over a report published yesterday on the website of Leicestershire newspaper The Hinckley Times. It reads as follows:]

Rev Malcolm Clarke hosted two evenings in conversation with John Mosey, father of Pan Am Flight 103 victim Helga Mosey, at Hinckley’s United Reformed Church in The Borough

Talking in public with the father of one of the Lockerbie bombing victims was one of the most moving things minister Malcolm Clarke has ever done, the clergyman has admitted.

Mr Clarke hosted two evenings in conversation with John Mosey, father of Pan Am Flight 103 victim Helga Mosey, at Hinckley’s United Reformed Church in The Borough.

Around 130 people went along to hear Mr Mosey talk about December 21 1988, the day his life changed forever, and how, as a Christian, he has coped since with the aftermath of the murder of his 19-year-old daughter.

Mr Clarke said: “This event was one of the most moving I can ever remember.

“He told us that he and his family felt able immediately to forgive the bombers but that he has found it more difficult to forgive the western nations who clearly knew something beforehand but chose to say nothing.

“Nevertheless he spoke about the embodiment of the Christian ethic to ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us’.

“And he told us more about the international politics of the event, whereby he holds neither Libya nor the convicted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi responsible but rather feels that more unpalatable facts have been suppressed for 25 years, and he hopes that one day the truth will out.”

Mr Mosey together with Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter was also killed on board the flight, and others are campaigning for the conviction of the so-called Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to be overturned.

Megrahi, who was the only person convicted in connection with the incident, died in 2012 after beingreleased from jail on compassionate grounds because he was suffering from cancer.

Mr Mosey said he would be glad to return to Hinckley to talk again about the situation if the Scottish courts uphold the appeal. 

[Further blogposts referring to the Rev’d John Mosey can be found here.]

We will know one day why it happened

[What follows is the text of an article published in The Spectator on this date in 2011:]

‘We will know one day why it happened,’ said the mother of Helga Mosey. Helga was just 19 when she was killed in the bomb that destroyed PanAm flight 103 as it flew over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on the night of 21 December 1988. Mrs Mosey was being interviewed the day after, doorstepped at her home in the Midlands by several news teams anxious for a story, a reaction, a headline.

This week’s Archive on 4 was the first in a series, ‘A Life Less Ordinary’, which is not so much reliving history as looking back at the radio interviews, the TV reporting, the newspaper stories to examine the ways in which these very dramatic events impact on the people at their heart. How do they cope? How does it change them? And, especially, how damaging is the attention of the world’s media? It was almost like an episode of The Reunion in the way the producer, Geoff Bird, sought to analyse as well as recall the experience as he looked back through the tapes with the Mosey family and some of the journalists who had been the first on the scene in Lockerbie.

The Moseys discovered what had happened to their daughter as they were watching the BBC’s nine o’clock news, two hours after the bomb had exploded. At first they looked on as bystanders, aghast at the story of a plane falling out of the sky in a ball of fire and killing all those on board plus several people on the ground, murdered in their homes just a few days before Christmas. They had no inkling their daughter was on the plane, failing (or unwilling) to make the connection that earlier in the day John Mosey had driven Helga to Birmingham on the first leg of her journey to New York. Only at the end of the news report was the flight number flashed across the screen, PanAm 103. ‘That’s Helga’s plane,’ said her mother.

As Helga’s father relived the scene with such clarity and spareness of detail, it was one of those radio moments when everything beyond the radio set, the voice, the words being spoken, receded into the distance. His 15-year-old son screamed, ‘No, no, no, no.’ John Mosey was himself literally struck dumb by the shock, speechless. But the next night, by which time the reporters had tracked down Helga’s family in their home, he made a conscious decision to speak out. ‘This is where you prove whether what you’ve taught and preached and said “This is what we believe” is real or just a game.’ He wanted to test himself.

‘You’re a Christian minister,’ he was asked (Mosey is a Pentecostal priest). ‘Hasn’t this destroyed your faith?’ Just 24 hours after hearing the news, he replied, ‘So far the grace of God has been more real than we ever dared believe.’

You might have thought he would have resented being required to answer such a blunt and troubling question. But now he’s grateful. He believes it forced him to rationalise what he was feeling, and to find a form of words to express it. ‘The moment when you encapsulate what’s happened in words, it becomes more real.’

Mosey, along with Jim Swire, has been a key figure in the long battle by the families of those killed at Lockerbie to find out not just what happened, who planted the bomb, who was behind it, but also why the political establishment kept secret the fact that there had been very specific warnings about a bomb which would be hidden on a PanAm flight bound for New York from Frankfurt. Flight 103 was the only plane flying across the Atlantic not to be absolutely full in this week before Christmas. Helga was a student needing a cheap flight.

Since then, Mosey has given countless interviews, as many as 47 in a single day. Did this constant media attention begin to take over? Did he get a buzz out of it?

‘Yes,’ he admits. But having realised that he was becoming addicted to being on TV and radio and that his eagerness to be interviewed was unhealthy he still went on campaigning. ‘We’ve exploited the media shamelessly.’

It was a fascinating reversal of what I would have expected him to say. He felt that he could use the media to convey to the political world that the families of the victims were not going to go away. They wanted to know the truth. And with one or two exceptions (such as the reporter who picked up a seatbelt as a trophy to take back to the offices of his Scottish tabloid newspaper) most of the reporting was very sensitive, refusing to use photographs of the bodies scattered across the hillside.

Is Helga’s mother any closer to an answer to that question of why such a terrible thing had happened to her daughter? ‘The question is not why,’ she suggests, hesitating just slightly. ‘It’s what you do with it…How you react.’

Fresh Megrahi appeal "a step in the right direction”

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in today’s edition of the Sunday Mail:]

John Mosey, who lost his 19-year-old daughter Helga in the tragedy, supports appeal to overturn the late Libyan's guilty verdict as it is "a step in the right direction."

The father of a Lockerbie victim has said new moves to clear the man convicted of the bombing bring the truth about Pan Am Flight 103 a step closer.

As we revealed last week, fresh grounds for an appeal to clear Abdelbaset al-Megrahi are in the final stages of preparation before being handed to the Scottish ­Criminal Cases Review Commission.

John Mosey, who lost his daughter Helga, 19, in the 1988 ­explosion which killed 270 people, welcomed the development.

Megrahi’s widow Aisha and son Ali met with lawyer Aamer Anwar and Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the tragedy, in Zurich in November to discuss the appeal.

They believe crucial evidence was withheld from Megrahi’s trial.

Reverend Mosey, of Lancaster, said his family supported their ­concerns over the guilty verdict and want to know why then justice ­secretary Kenny MacAskill met Megrahi in jail before he was released on ­compassionate grounds in 2009.

John, who is among 25 ­UK-based relatives of victims ­supporting the appeal, said: “The question of who did it is our basic question.

“It’s important that we live in a society where the legal system ­cannot be manipulated for political ends. The rule of law is vital.

“I don’t think all of the truth will ever out – there’s probably too much at stake. But some things will come out, I’m convinced of that.”

He admitted to being “amazed” that Megrahi was found guilty of planting the bomb that blew the plane up over Dumfriesshire and said campaigners were ­supporting efforts to clear the ­Libyan’s name.

He said: “We’re approaching it on two fronts with our Justice for Megrahi group and this legal action on behalf of the Megrahi family, which is backed by British relatives.

“It is a step in the right direction into getting an inquiry into what went on and why it wasn’t prevented.”

John felt MacAskill was holding back when they met.

He said: “We had several meetings and found him to be a gentleman who treated us with dignity.

“I always got the feeling he would like to have been more helpful than he was allowed. I would be fine if he was called as a witness in the case.”

He believes US politicians exerted influence. He added: “It seems to us ­Washington leaned on Westminster, who leaned on the Scottish legal system.

“It seems to me it’s linked to something the Americans were doing, perhaps in the Middle East.”

Anwar said: “Without the likes of Rev Mosey and Dr Swire, it is likely this campaign for the truth would have been over a long time ago.

“John and Jim, I suspect, will never give up fighting for the truth because they know without it there can never be justice. I hope we can deliver that one day.”

Reverend John Mosey to speak at Life After Lockerbie event

A minister who lost his 19-year-old daughter in the Lockerbie bombing is to speak in York about the positives he took out of her death.

The Reverend John Mosey, whose daughter, Helga, was on the Pan Am jumbo jet that was blown up over the Scottish town on December 21, 1988, will also take questions from members of the public during the Life After Lockerbie event at Foxwood Community Centre.

Mr Mosey, 69, told The Press he was devastated by his daughter’s death and it was an “incredibly difficult” time.

“It’s hard to explain in just a few words,” he said. “We have found amazing strength in our faith and that’s really what’s brought us through. We’ve seen great things come out of it.”

About two years ago, Mr Mosey telephoned convicted bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to tell him he did not believe he was guilty of the atrocity. Mr Mosey told al-Megrahi that only he and God could know for sure. (...)

In about 1992, he set up a home for abused and abandoned children in a rural area of the Philippines. “We have 286 there, a day school and a nursery school,” he said. “I also have a children’s home in India where we have 32 girls who are destitute. Most of them are just girls off the street who have had no education and no healthcare, but they have a good home now and they do very well.” Mr Mosey, who lives near Kendal, in Cumbria, was invited to the city by Steve Redman, the pastor of the Ark Church, which meets at Foxwood Community Centre, in Bellhouse Way [York]. (...)

The event is happening on Sunday, November 8, at 7pm.

[From an article in The Press, a newspaper circulating in York.]

Lockerbie and how victims forgave

[This is the headline over an article by Rob Virtue published today on the Wharf.co.uk website.  It reads as follows:]

A father who lost his daughter in the Lockerbie disaster was in Canary Wharf to talk about how he forgave those responsible for the attack and then backed calls to compensate east London victims of Libyan-sponsored terrorism.

The Rev John Mosey was speaking at St Peter's Barge on West India Quay last week.

He recalled the day of the terrorist attack on the Pan Am flight over Scotland in 1988. He said when he and his family saw it unfold on television he had no idea his 19-year-old daughter Helga was on the plane.

"I remember saying how awful this was," he said. "We're usually observers in other people's disasters - it doesn't happen to us. But sometimes it does.

"Then they said the flight number which meant little to me but my wife said 'that's Helga's plane'.

"The silence was broken by my son shouting 'no, no, no' at the television and my wife just saying 'Helga, Helga, Helga'.

"She said at the time when her little girl needed her the most she couldn't be there for her."

He soon gave his forgiveness to those responsible - although he has strong doubts the man tried, sentenced and subsequently released, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was anything more than a fall guy.

Mr Mosey later received compensation as part of a package the United States agreed with the Libyan state. 

Most of his settlement has been used to set up charities in Helga's name and these are present in 12 countries.

He is now calling on victims of the IRA, which Gaddafi supplied Semtex to for explosives, to also be compensated by the Libyan state. [RB:  Here is a clarification from John Mosey: "His claim that I called for Libya to compensate other victims is false. What I said was that I thought it would be a good thing if such victims were compensated by the perpetrators."]

These include those affected by the South Quay bombing of 1996, which killed two and seriously injured dozens more.

"People who are guilty of terrorist acts should pay compensation," he said. "It doesn't take away the pain or bring anyone back, it's a distraction in a way, but it brings good out of evil.

"We have set up groups such as a children's home in the Philippines. Social services there said if we weren't around, many of the children would be dead.

"The way I see it is we've got lots of daughters around the world that would be dead today if Helga was still alive. Some good can come of tragedy."

Talks are progressing with the transitional government in Libya to secure compensation for IRA victims following the state's past sponsorship of Irish terrorism.

The latest developments were discussed in a debate in the House of Lords [on 4 October].

Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Lord Howell of Guildford said: "The National Transitional Council's chairman, Abdul Jalil, and Prime Minister [Mahmoud] Jibril have assured the Government they will work with the UK to resolve bilateral issues arising from the wrongs of the Gaddafi regime."

Lord Howell said a memorandum of understanding for compensation, signed by Jalil earlier this year, formed a "basis of future work".

It followed a question from Lord Empey about the progress of talks.

Lord Empey said: "What is required now is a vigorous and determined approach by the Government to ensure that this matter is resolved, and that United Kingdom citizens who have suffered as a direct result of what was nothing short of an act of war by the then Libyan regime can be properly compensated."

Ghosts of Lockerbie stirred with prospect of posthumous appeal

[This is the headline over a report published this evening on the Al Jazeera website. It reads in part:]

On March 11, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) stirred the ghosts of a painful past when it announced that the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the bombing might have constituted a miscarriage of justice. (...)

Several relatives of victims have also celebrated the legal development.

Jim Swire collaborated with the al-Megrahi family on the SCCRC application. He lost his 23-year-old daughter Flora on the New York-bound flight that exploded over Scotland just 38 minutes after its takeoff from London.

Swire has long believed that al-Megrahi was innocent of the bombing - and is already looking ahead to the next phase of the judicial process which will see the case make its way to Scotland's High Court of Justiciary.

"I'm delighted that the case has been referred back to the Appeal Court - but I'm already concerned about how the case in the Appeal Court will be conducted," Swire, now in his 80s, tells Al Jazeera.

The Glasgow-based legal team highlighted six grounds why al-Megrahi's conviction constituted a grave miscarriage of justice - but the SCCRC upheld just two: "unreasonable verdict" and "non-disclosure" of evidence. (...)

John Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter Helga was killed in the bombing, also threw his support behind the application.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from his home in England, Mosey, a reverend, said the commission's decision, which prompted him to exclaim "Hallelujah", was the "end of a first step of a long battle".

Like Swire, he remains concerned that the grounds for appeal, as selected by the SCCRC, "are limited".

But the commission's decision will likely reopen painful wounds, especially in the United States where many victims' families and involved law enforcement officials continue to view al-Megrahi as guilty.

However, Richard Marquise, who led the FBI's US Lockerbie taskforce, told Al Jazeera that the "the circumstantial evidence" that put al-Megrahi behind bars in a Scottish jail "was overwhelming".

"I have seen the evidence; know, personally, some of the witnesses and; have read the entire transcript," said the retired special agent of the SCCRC's claim that "no reasonable trial court, relying on the evidence led at trial, could have held the case against Mr Megrahi was proved beyond reasonable doubt".

"Those who passed judgment from an ivory tower were never involved in the investigation, nor did they attend one day of trial."

[RB: Dr Jim Swire and the Rev'd John Mosey attended every day of the trial at Camp Zeist. I did not (and I suspect I may be one of the inhabitants of an "ivory tower" that Richard Marquise is intending to refer to) but, like Mr Marquise I read every day's transcript as it appeared. From the day after the verdict was announced I have expressed the view that no reasonable court could have convicted Megrahi on the evidence led at the trial. That is the unshakeable view that I continue to hold nineteen years later. And the independent and expert SCCRC, after two separate investigations conducted thirteen years apart by two quite separate and different teams, has twice now reached the same conclusion as me. Mr Marquise's protestations are starting to look rather desperate.]

Father of victim says nothing reliable will come out of Lockerbie probe

[This is the headline over a report published in today’s edition of The National. The Rev’d John Mosey, as ever, speaks sound sense on Lockerbie. The article reads as follows:]

The father of a teenage Lockerbie victim yesterday said the new probe will not help “find the truth” after Libyan authorities offered prosecutors the chance to interview suspects.

Musician Helga Mosey was just 19 when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town, killing her and 269 other people in 1988. Now Scottish prosecutors have been invited to Libya to interview two new suspects in the case.

Although the pair have not been officially named, it is understood that they are Mohammed Abouajela Masud and Abdullah al-Senussi.

Both are serving prison terms in Libya, with Masud thought to be serving 10 years for bomb-making and Senussi – the brother-in-law and intelligence chief of former dictator Colonel Gaddafi – on death row.

Jamal Zubair, spokesman for the self-declared National Salvation government which controls much of the country, said authorities would facilitate interviews with the men, telling the BBC: “They can send some investigators, they come here to see those guys and see what they can do.

“Always we are very helpful, we want to talk to people and we want to show what we have.

“We might have more evidence about other people or maybe those guys have more information about something else.”

However, Mosey’s father John has expressed doubt about the development, telling broadcaster West Sound: “I’m not quite sure whether I would accept as genuine or real anything that came out of troubled Libya just at the moment.

“I think that if you spread enough dollars around and make enough promises you could get almost anybody to say almost anything.

“I know that if I was on death row like Senussi is there, I would offer to make any confession they wanted in exchange for a centrally heated cell in Glasgow with Sky TV.”

Though Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who died in 2012, is the only person ever convicted of the atrocity, it was always believed that he did not work alone and Scottish and US investigators announced that two new suspects had been identified last week.

The development follows the screening of a three-part documentary series by American Ken Dornstein, whose brother David died in the atrocity.

He said: “We went in with a list of names that had come from the original investigation, pulled out of the tens of thousands of pages of documents. I established many were dead or missing. “Ultimately, I concluded there may be three people left.”

Speaking about Masud, he added: “Figuring out simply that he existed would solve many of the unanswered questions to the bombing because he was attached to Megrahi according to the best information there was, including at the airport in Malta on the day that the bomb was said to have been infiltrated into the baggage system and ultimately on to Flight 103.”

However, Mosey, from Lancaster, who believes Megrahi was innocent, said: “I don’t think it’s a step forward, I think it’s an effort to delay forward movement.

“The Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, an independent body, came up with six grounds on which there could have been a miscarriage of justice against Megrahi, who personally I don’t believe was involved at all.

“These are the things that need looking at really, not remote interviews with people that might or might not be involved.

“They need to look at the serious, serious questionings there are about the outcome of the trial, which I attended the whole of.

“I have no confidence that any good will come out of this. I think it’s a blind of some sort to delay facing the real facts.

“There’s certainly no closure for us. We think of our daughter every day and it’s something we carry til the day we die.

“If you mean closure in finding the truth, no I don’t think this is going to bring us any closure at all.”

Lockerbie father calls for restraint

[This is the headline over a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2001, four days after the aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It reads as follows:]

The father of one of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster has called for caution in any retaliation for the US terror attacks.

John Mosey, a leading member of the Lockerbie support group, wrote to the prime minister to express support for action, but also of his concerns.

The UK Families Flight 103 group wrote to Tony Blair after he pledged unqualified support for any reprisals the US should take.

It reminded Mr Blair of the 1988 tragedy, in which 270 people were killed, and said care should be taken so that more innocent people are not hurt.

Mr Mosey's daughter Helga, 19, was among the victims when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie.

''The utmost care must be taken that whatever path is eventually pursued is successful and does not harm innocent people thus producing another batch of terrorists,'' Mr Mosey wrote.

He said the civilised world clearly had to support the US in taking ''drastic and effective action to root out this network of evil''.

But he added: "We must find a better way of dealing with our international differences than simply picking up a bigger stick with which to beat the other guys."

Mr Mosey said his daughter and those who died in Lockerbie were victims of ''aggressive American foreign policies'' either in the Gulf or Tripoli.

He also expressed the sadness felt by the Lockerbie support group over the US terror attacks and for the victims' families.

''Our feelings go out to the many in whose homes there is an empty place today, who are eagerly watching their TV screens and waiting desperately for information regarding someone who is missing."

Mr Mosey said he wrote ''as an individual whose family has been a victim of a terrorist attack''.

Tuesday's attacks in the US brought back memories of 13 years ago to the families of victims and residents of Lockerbie.

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter died in the Lockerbie bomb, said: "It's times like this that those of us who have experienced something of this nature are drawn together.''

Lockerbie inquiry commitment dishonoured

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Tam Dalyell MP entitled The Lockerbie scapegoat that was published in The Spectator in August 2002:]

At no point did Megrahi get the chance to tell his story. When I went to see him with his solicitor, Mr Eddie McKechnie, in Barlinnie, he expressed his dismay that his previous defence team had prevailed upon him, against his every instinct, not to go into the witness box. Had he done so, he would have made the convincing case that he was not a member of the Libyan intelligence services, but a sanctions-buster, scouring Africa and South America and the Boeing Company for spare parts to allow Libyan Arab Airlines to continue operating in the face of sanctions. (...)

There should have been an inquiry. For an adversarial system of justice to arrive at the truth requires both of the adversaries to place before the court all information that was available to them. In the Lockerbie trial, the defence team of Abdelbaset al Megrahi chose not to do so. In such circumstances, the adversarial system simply does not work, and the objective becomes not to uncover the truth, but to find someone to shoulder the blame.

The British relatives of the Lockerbie victims were, as far back as 19 September 1989, offered an inquiry by the then secretary of state for transport, Cecil Parkinson — subject, he said, as they filed out of his room, to the agreement of colleagues. Somewhat sheepishly on 5 December 1989 Parkinson told the relatives that it had been decided at the highest level that there would be no inquiry.

[RB: In January 1995 Mr Dalyell had asked the Prime Minister, John Major, about the Parkinson meetings. Here is the Hansard report:]

Mr Dalyell To ask the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library his correspondence with Mr Martin Cadman, of the Lockerbie victims' relatives association, and in particular his response to Mr Cadman's letter of 18 December 1994, concerning Lord Parkinson's meetings on 19 September 1989 and 5 December 1989 with the relatives, and his answer of 15 December [1994], Official Report, column 1068.

The Prime Minister No, it is not my normal practice to do so.

Mr Dalyell To ask the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of his response to Lockerbie victim relative Rev John Mosey's letter to him of 28 December 1994.

The Prime Minister No, it is not my normal practice to do so.

Mr Dalyell To ask the Prime Minister if, following communications from Mr Martin Cadman, Pamela Dix, Rev John Mosey and Dr Jim Swire, relatives of Lockerbie victims, he has anything to add to his oral answer to the hon Member for Linlithgow of 15 December [1994], Official Report, column 1068.

The Prime Minister I understand that the meeting between Lord Parkinson and a group of British relatives of the Lockerbie victims to which I referred in my reply to the hon Gentleman on 15 December took place in December 1989, not in 1990. At that meeting, Lord Parkinson explained the Government's decision not to hold a confidential inquiry into the disaster, but said that the Lord Advocate was likely to hold a public fatal accident inquiry. I have received representations from several relatives of Lockerbie victims calling for a further inquiry. However, in view of all the investigations that have already been carried out, and the need to avoid the danger of prejudicing a criminal trial of the two accused, I do not believe such an inquiry is warranted.

The secret graveyard of Lockerbie jumbo

[This is part of the headline over a report published today on the website of the Coventry Telegraph. It reads in part (and with interesting photographs omitted):]

The twisted remains of Pan Am flight 103 lie in a forgotten heap – nearly 30 years after a terrorist bomb sent it crashing into the town of Lockerbie.

The 325 tons of aluminium alloy, including part of the fuselage bearing the identification number N739PA, are fenced off in a scrapyard next to a go-kart track, and cannot be moved until all investigations into the atrocity have been concluded.

Among the 270 people who died when the Boeing 747 exploded over south west Scotland on December 21, 1988, were 25-year-old Clayton Flick, from Binley Woods, near Coventry, and his 19-year-old partner Clare Bacciochi, from Kingsbury, who had got engaged only a month before.

Following the atrocity, parts of the plane were taken for examination to an army base near Carlisle.

The mid section, where the bomb exploded, remains under wraps at the HQ of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch in Farnborough, Hants.

But the rest of the wreckage, including parts of the engines and pieces of the distinctive nose cone of the Boeing 747, was transported to Windleys Salvage in Tattershall, near Boston, Lincs, where it has remained ever since.

Earlier this month, the family of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi lodged a new bid to appeal against his conviction, five years after his death.

Lawyer Aamer Anwar joined family members and supporters to hand files to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in Glasgow. (...)

He lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002, with the review commission recommending in 2007 that he should be granted a second appeal.

He dropped the second attempt to overturn his conviction in 2009, before his return to Libya, but his widow Aisha and son Ali met Mr Anwar late last year to discuss a posthumous appeal to overturn the murder conviction.

The commission will now decide whether there are grounds to refer the case to the appeal court.

The move has the support of Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga also died.

It is believed the new appeal bid is based on concerns over the evidence that convicted the Libyan, including that given by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who died last year.

Gauci sold the clothes allegedly wrapped around the improvised explosive device that brought the aircraft down.

He was the only witness to link Abdelbaset al-Megrahi directly to the bomb.

Mr Anwar said: “It has been a long journey in the pursuit for truth and justice.

"When Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, killing 271 people from 21 countries - including al-Megrahi, it still remains the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed in the UK - 28 years later the truth remains elusive.

“The reputation of Scottish law has suffered both at home and internationally because of widespread doubts about the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi.

“It is in the interests of justice and restoring confidence in our criminal justice system that these doubts can be addressed.

“However the only place to determine whether a miscarriage of justice did occur is in the appeal court, where the evidence can be subjected to rigorous scrutiny.”

The son of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has said he is “100% certain” his father was innocent.

Ali Megrahi, 22, said: “When my father returned to Libya, I spent most of my time next to him and had the opportunity to talk to him as much as possible before he passed away.

"I am 100% certain that he was innocent and not the so-called Lockerbie bomber.”

Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga was killed, and Geoff and Ann Mann, who lost her brother John, his wife and their two children, joined Mr Anwar.

Dr Swire said: “As the father of Flora, I still ache for her, what might have been, the grandchildren she would have had, the love she always gave us and the glowing medical career.

“It has always been and remains my intent to see those responsible for her death brought to justice.

“I feel encouraged and optimistic that this may mark the start of another step towards discovering the truth about our families, why they were murdered and in particular why their lives were not protected in all the circumstances.”

A long journey in the pursuit for truth and justice

[What follows is excerpted from a report published today on the Coventry Live website, based on an article originally posted there in August 2017:]

The twisted remains of Pan Am flight 103 lie in a forgotten heap – nearly 30 years after a terrorist bomb sent it crashing into the town of Lockerbie.

The 325 tons of aluminium alloy, including part of the fuselage bearing the identification number N739PA, are fenced off in a scrapyard next to a go-kart track, and cannot be moved until all investigations into the atrocity have been concluded. (...)

The mid section, where the bomb exploded, remains under wraps at the HQ of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch in Farnborough, Hants.

But the rest of the wreckage, including parts of the engines and pieces of the distinctive nose cone of the Boeing 747, was transported to Windleys Salvage in Tattershall, near Boston, Lincs, where it has remained ever since.

In August 2017, the family of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi lodged a new bid to appeal against his conviction, five years after his death.

Lawyer Aamer Anwar joined family members and supporters to hand files to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in Glasgow. (...)

The commission will now decide whether there are grounds to refer the case to the appeal court.

According to a BBC report in May 2018, a review of al-Megrahi's conviction was to be carried out by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

The commission said it would examine the case to decide whether it would be appropriate to refer the matter for a fresh appeal.

The move has the support of Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga also died.

It is believed the new appeal bid is based on concerns over the evidence that convicted the Libyan, including that given by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who died last year. (...)

Mr Anwar said: “It has been a long journey in the pursuit for truth and justice.

"When Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, killing 271 people from 21 countries - including al-Megrahi, it still remains the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed in the UK - 28 years later the truth remains elusive.

“The reputation of Scottish law has suffered both at home and internationally because of widespread doubts about the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi.

“It is in the interests of justice and restoring confidence in our criminal justice system that these doubts can be addressed.

“However the only place to determine whether a miscarriage of justice did occur is in the appeal court, where the evidence can be subjected to rigorous scrutiny.”

The son of al-Megrahi has said he is “100% certain” his father was innocent.

Ali Megrahi, 22, said: “When my father returned to Libya, I spent most of my time next to him and had the opportunity to talk to him as much as possible before he passed away.

"I am 100% certain that he was innocent and not the so-called Lockerbie bomber.”

Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga was killed, and Geoff and Ann Mann, who lost her brother John, his wife and their two children, joined Mr Anwar.

Dr Swire said: “As the father of Flora, I still ache for her, what might have been, the grandchildren she would have had, the love she always gave us and the glowing medical career.

“It has always been and remains my intent to see those responsible for her death brought to justice.

“I feel encouraged and optimistic that this may mark the start of another step towards discovering the truth about our families, why they were murdered and in particular why their lives were not protected in all the circumstances.”