On 21st December 1988 a brown Samsonite suitcase was loaded on to Pan Am Flight 103. Inside the case was a bomb. At 7.03 p.m. that night it exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie: 259 passengers and crew and 11 local residents were killed … The bomb was made of 450 grams of Semtex explosive attached to a timer; the bomb was then placed inside a Toshiba radio-cassette player; the cassette player was placed inside a brown suitcase. Lockerbie: The Unheard Voices, Channel 5 2018
Two days earlier, the British transport department wrote to airlines at Heathrow warning of a bomb being concealed in a Toshiba radio-cassette player. The letter was not received by Pan-Am till three and a half weeks later. ibid.
Just how and when the brown suitcase arrives at Heathrow is disputed. The airport’s security system fails to detect the bomb concealed inside. ibid.
‘Run, run, run and I reach the gate’ … Jaswant misses the plane by a matter of seconds but his suitcase is on board.’ ibid.
Lockerbie bombing: Terrorist’s daughter says Iran not Libya was behind bomb:
Iran paid a Palestinian terror group to carry out the Lockerbie bombing, it is claimed.
Member Marwan Khreesat allegedly told relatives boss Ahmed Jibril led the 1988 plot. Daughter Saha said: ‘He has a deal with Iran.’
For 17 years Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has been blamed for the Lockerbie bombing, despite grave doubts over his involvement.
But the Mirror today reveals fresh claims by the daughter of a former terrorist which she says finally proves Iran was behind the outrage that killed 270 people 30 years ago today.
Jordanian Marwan Khreesat left his wife a dossier of evidence that allegedly shows his boss in a Palestinian terror group, Ahmed Jibril, was paid millions of pound by Tehran to mastermind the horrific attack over the Scottish town.
Khreesat’s 43-year-old daughter Saha claims her father even gave the name of the bombmaker to her mother.
It will add to long-held suspicions that Tehran ordered the atrocity in revenge for the US shooting-down of an Iranian passenger plane months earlier, killing 290 civilians. Mirror online article Nick Sommerlad 20 December 2018
The new evidence involves a tiny fragment of circuit board out of the terrorist bomb’s timing device; it links al-Megrahi and the state of Libya to the Lockerbie bombing. Now new scientific tests prove this is false. And that British government’ scientists knew this all along. Lockerbie: Case Closed, Al Jazeera 2012
The Scottish Cases Criminal Review Commission: 6 grounds for saying there was a miscarriage of justice … Even Scotland’s minister of justice is now allowed to read the report. ibid.
Human remains and plane wreckage lay scattered over 850 square miles. ibid.
Evidence that might have favoured him was withheld from his defence lawyers. ibid.
Had his appeal ever taken place, all of this evidence would have come to light and Megrahi would have walked from the court as an innocent man. ibid.
In the beginning a hand, a bag and a baggage tag. And a radio that play cassettes that has its own flip side – a bomb. The Maltese Double Cross, 1994
‘Strange that so many people should be involved in moving bodies, looking at luggage, who were not members of the investigating force.’ ibid. Tam Dalyell MP
Abu Nidal, mastermind of the Rome and Vienna airport massacres, now tried to stop more killing. ibid.
‘There were a number of warnings that came out through the FAA … The Helsinki warning …’ ibid. Jim Berwick security, FAA
‘A number of VIPs were pulled off that plane.’ ibid. dude
Bodies float in the Persian Gulf – Iranians on a flight to Mecca shot out of their airbus by an American warship. ibid.
‘I want to know why that irrefutable evidence has never been made public. I also want to know how it’s now changed dramatically to suddenly be put at Tripoli’s door rather than Damascus’s door.’ ibid. David Yallop
Libya is like magnetic north. The finger always points there. ibid.
35 years ago I was one of the first reporters to arrive here on the scene of the worst terrorist atrocity in European history – the bombing of Pan Am 103 above the small Scottish town of Lockerbie. Return to Lockerbie with Lorraine Kelly, ITV 2023
This is about the people of Lockerbie and what happened after the cameras left. ibid.
At 7.03 p.m. on 21st of December 1988 Pan Am 103 exploded in mid-air over Lockerbie. ibid.
Nothing is what it seems in the Lockerbie story. Lockerbie s1e1, Sky 2023
There was bright red flames in the sky. ibid. witness
There were bodies all over the place everywhere. ibid.
The overwhelming stink of aviation fuel filled the town. ibid.
The bodies of 70 people were recovered from Ella Ramsden’s house and garden. ibid. caption
I canne find the house. It’s gone now. ibid. witness
The largest crime scene in history. ibid.
We wanted to know who got the warning and what were they doing about it. ibid.
We have no knowledge of how this accident happened. Lockerbie s1e2, Reagan
We thought there was no way the Iranians were not going to retaliate. ibid. US investigator
The witness from Libya could decide the outcome of Britain’s biggest murder trial. ibid. UK news
What I know now if I knew it then I would never have joined the intelligence business … The truth needs to be known about this case. Lockerbie s1e3, agent
All of a sudden it wasn’t quite as certain that his timer blew up PanAm 103. ibid.
PT/35(b) [“1”] produced in court to be a falsehood from end to end. ibid. Scottish defence dude
Total BS. The government manipulating the evidence to get what outcome they wanted … I never believed that Libya did it. ibid.
I wonder whether he really did do it. Lockerbie s1e4, Jim Swire, father of victim
I could not believe three senior Scottish judges would convict anybody on that evidence. ibid.
Sahara Desert, Niger: There was another flight nine months after Lockerbie that exploded. ibid. son of victim
Lockerbie: The Lost Evidence: Do these documents prove bomb was planted during Heathrow break-in? ibid. Daily Mirror front page 11 September 2001
Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi died 20th May 2012 three years after his release. ibid. caption
Lockerbie suspect in US custody 34 years on. ibid. The Times front page
It was one of the worst terrorist attacks before 9/11 … Film-maker Ken Dornstein’s search for those responsible for the murder of 270 people including his brother. Frontline: My Brother’s Bomber I, PBS 2015
Disaster at Christmas. Pan Am flight 103 had been in the air for an hour; for reasons we do not yet understand the plane with 50,000 gallons on board plunged into this small Scottish town. ibid. US news
Megrahi did it? Well prove it. ibid. Dr Jim Swire
The verdict was a disappointing mixed bag. ibid. Ken
Theories pinning Lockerbie on Iran were once again revived. ibid.
Many bodies had to be taken down from rooftops. Some like my brother wouldn’t be found for days. Frontline: My Brother’s Bomber II
They found a small segment of the circuit board … ibid. critic
There was still just one person ever convicted for Lockerbie – Abdel Basset al Megrahi – and he continues to protest his innocence. ibid.
Swire says he became troubled by key elements of the prosecution case: the judge had found weaknesses in the identification of Megrahi as the man who bought the clothes wrapped around the bomb. And Swire believed the prosecution had failed to prove the route that the bomb bag had taken to get on to Flight 103. And then there were deep questions that Swire and others would raise about the legitimacy of the key piece of evidence in the case, which they suspected was in some way not genuine. ibid.
A public campaign for his [Megrahi] release. ibid.
The man I suspected of being the Libyan’s bomb expert: Mas’ud Abu Agela. Frontline: My Brother’s Bomber III
The most significant figure in my hunt for answers about Lockerbie: Musbah Abulgassem Eter. ibid.
Megrahi and Abu Agela were travelling on the same flight several times before Lockerbie, flying in and out of the island of Malta where the bomb is said to have originated. ibid.
He [Swire] and others in the Gaddafi regime may have played a role in Lockerbie, but he remained wholly committed to one core belief: that his friend Abdel Basset al Megrahi was innocent. ibid.
The likely mastermind of the bombing – Said Rachid. ibid.