Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was amongst those who died in the fall of Pan Am 103 on 21 December 1988, has said on this 24th anniversary of the event that the history of the debacle has “revealed a deceit greater even than that contrived by the police following the Hillsborough disaster.”

He describes the 21st of December as “the darkest day of our year,” for the relatives who attended the “travesty of a trial” at Kamp Zeist, which led to the acquittal of Lhamin Khalifa Fhimah and the conviction of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi.

“And dark for those Scottish police, forensic scientists, lawyers, the American FBI and Britain's MI6, all of whom were responsible for a miscarriage of British justice perhaps greater than any that had occurred before,” he said.

“The history of Lockerbie has in general revealed a deceit greater even than that contrived by the police following the Hillsborough disaster. In that case it is now known that important evidence was concealed and scores of police statements altered so as to make it appear that the many fans who were crushed were responsible for their own deaths. Thankfully the original inquest verdict which formed that view has now been overturned by an act of the British parliament, and a new inquest ordered.

Flora Swire

“Will the Scottish government at least consider that  a Lockerbie verdict based on evidence by bribed identification witnesses and a bomb timer fragment possessing all the hallmarks of a clandestine plant might be overturned by judicial inquiry?”

 A petition before the Holyrood Justice Committee calling for an inquiry remains open after a hearing earlier this month.

Swire concludes “As this darkest of days ticks away the minutes, where does the great deceit of the Lockerbie trial now stand? And why do the British and Scottish parliaments remain silent?”

The Pan Am 103 Archive Part 1

The Pan Am 103 Archive Part 2

Image Credits: BBC/The Times