The UK families of those killed in the Pan Am 103 event have expressed their doubts over the Crown Office’s announcement that a fresh investigation is to be carried out.

Dr Jim Swire told the Firm that -contrary to their usual practice- the Crown Office have not even contacted him to advise that any new investigation was planned. He said the coincidental timing of the Crown’s announcement had unavoidably distracted attention from the same day announcement by UK Families 103 that they had delivered a letter to the Prime Minister asking him to instigate a full independent inquiry into the Lockerbie event under the Inquiries Act 2005. He described the Crown’s act as a “spoiler,” pointing out that any investigation would be useless as long as the Crown refused to quash the outstanding guilty verdict against Megrahi.

“Naturally the UK Lockerbie relatives would love to see a fully enabled objective criminal investigation re-examining all the currently available Lockerbie evidence. But how can an objective criminal investigation not impinge on the verdict against Megrahi?” he said.

“Are those currently and previously forming the Crown Office, as well as Colin Boyd, the most implicated Lord Advocate, prepared to see their 'new investigative directions' lead to such an outcome? There is of course no evidence that any of them offered any inducements to Gauci or anyone else, but surely their careers and reputations depend on their past conduct of this case? So would the new criminal investigation be objective, I ask myself?

“I cannot free my mind of he words of Prof Hans Koechler, the UN's appointed special International Observer at the court: he thought the verdict so incomprehensible that it could only have been reached through -his words- 'deliberate malpractice by Scotland's Crown Office.’ “

Swire also told The Firm that now he feared the Crown Office would use the announcement of a fresh investigation as an excuse to decline to answer any questions into the Pan Am 103 event, claiming potential prejudice into the case.

The case will become active under the Contempt of Court legislation only when an arrest has been made.

Swire’s full remarks to The Firm can be read here. The Firm's investigation into the event published in 2007 can be read here.