THE families of the Lockerbie bombing victims have asked the Crown Office to explain why it has rejected the possible carriage of illegal munitions on the doomed flight as a contributory factor to the disaster.

Dr Jim Swire, the spokesman for UK Families Flight 103, has accused the UK and Scottish governments of closing ranks behind the "unlikely fantasy" which led to the conviction of Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. Swire is certain Megrahi has been wrongly convicted. Now he wants answers on why the Crown Office seems to have rejected out of hand the evidence of John Parkes, an explosives engineer present at the crash site in December 1988, who reported damage indicating the carriage of munitions on the plane. Parkes helped in the rescue operation when the Boeing 747 came down on part of the town, killing 259 on board and 11 on the ground. He claims wounding he observed on three bodies recovered from the crash site, and on one young female victim in particular, were not caused by Semtex-based explosives as claimed in the trial.

"Every munitions or explosives device has its own characteristic signature," Parkes says. "The signature I saw was not consistent with the device they maintained was used. There was not enough power or heavy material around that device to have gone through the luggage and floor and through the back of an aircraft seat to inflict these wounds."

Swire has asked the Crown Office to explain why this testimony was not included in the Air Accident Investigation Board report, asking "whether the AAIB gave any reason for rejection of Mr Parkes's ideas, and if so what that reason might have been".

He says the aircraft's flight recorder "could not conceivably have contributed information on this issue since it stopped at the moment of explosion with an indecipherable final noise, and besides, it had no sensors relevant to the cargo hold". The letter, sent on 7 July, has yet to receive a reply; Swire is threatening to seek answers himself using the Freedom of Information Act.

The AAIB investigated the cause of the crash and concluded "the detonation of an improvised explosive device led directly to the destruction of the aircraft", but did not specify what type.

Megrahi is serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison after a trial in the Netherlands concluded a Semtex bomb had been stored in luggage introduced to the plane at Luqa Airport in Malta. The trial was unique in Scots law, presided over by three Scottish judges. The trial accepted the AAIB findings.

Swire met with Megrahi in prison in November 2005 and believes him to be innocent. He related Parkes' views to UK Families Flight 103 at a recent meeting.

Swire vehemently believes Megrahi has been made a scapegoat. "Governments have closed ranks behind the extraordinarily unlikely fantasy of the Malta bomb story," he says. "Parkes deserves to be listened to. Attendance at the Zeist trial convinced me the story about the Libyans in Malta using a MEBO timer from Zurich was pure fabrication."

Parkes reported his conclusions immediately following the disaster, but these were ultimately not alluded to in the AAIB report. At the time of the trial he advised the Lord Advocate of his findings, but he was not called to appear at the Fatal Accident Inquiry or the trial. In the absence of a satisfactory explanation for the presence of a manufactured fragmentation device on board the airliner, he has postulated that the plane may have been carrying a cargo of munitions in the hold, which are known to be sensitive to specific radio frequencies.

Parkes believes it is possible components within such a cargo could have detonated as the airliner made its first transmission to Shannon/Prestwick air traffic control.

From the Scotsman. Original can be viewed here.