An online petition on the Downing Street website has been opened, petitioning Gordon Brown to "launch a public inquiry to investigate the Lockerbie bombing."

Professor Robert Black has cautiously endorsed the aims of the petition, but qualifed his support by stating that the inquiry should look into the possibility that Pan AM 103 was not brought down by a bomb at all.  

"I would have preferred the petition simply to refer to the "Lockerbie disaster" since there are those, such as John Parkes and Robbie the Pict, who contend, on grounds which are not fanciful, that the destruction of Pan Am 103 was caused, not by a bomb but by the explosion of munitions being carried as cargo. This explanation, as well as the various IED explanations, deserves to be explored," Black says.

"I would also have preferred the petition to refer to an "independent inquiry" since the demand that the inquiry be "public" makes it easier for the UK Government to resist on the ground that certain pertinent evidence is so sensitive that its public disclosure is not in the national interest: witness the assertions of public interest immunity advanced by the Foreign Secretary in Abdelbaset Megrahi's now-abandoned appeal. However, notwithstanding these reservations, I shall be supporting the petition."

The possibility of an explosion caused by means other than semtex is not new, but has gained increasing traction as the paucity of the discredited case against Megrahi has come under concentrated worldwide scrutiny. An independent study by Dr Ludwig De Braeckeleer concluded that it was "scientifically implausible" for a semtex explosion as claimed in the Crown's prosecution case to bring down a Boeing 747.

Prior coverage on these aspects can be accessed here, and here.