Lockerbie: what really happened?
Families call for investigation into
bombing
A new investigation into Britain's worst ever terrorist attack,
the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, has been called for.
Relatives of some of the 270 victims of the disaster say the
government needs to find out what really happened.
The only man ever found guilty of being involved in the
atrocity, Abdelbaset al Megrahi, died on Sunday at his home in
Tripoli, Libya.
Some people believe that Megrahi was innocent and that the real
killers have not yet been found. Others say he may have been guilty
but couldn't have done it by himself, so we still need to find his
accomplices. Many more think that Megrahi was guilty and should
never have been released from prison.
On 21 December 1988, a bomb went off on a jumbo jet that was
flying from London to New York City. The plane exploded in the sky
above the Borders town of Lockerbie.
A total of 270 people died, including 11 people who lived in the
town. Of the victims on board the plane, 189 were from the United
States.
In 2001, Abdelbaset al Megrahi was found guilty of plotting the
bomb and sentenced to life in prison. He always insisted he was
innocent. His country, Libya, admitted blame for the attack in
2003.
Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland in 2009 because he
was suffering from terminal cancer and was thought to just have
months to live. By then, new evidence had come out that suggested
he may have been innocent. But Megrahi decided not to appeal his
conviction in return for being allowed to go home to die in peace
with his family.
Lots of people, including President Obama and many American
relatives of the victims, were very angry that Megrahi was released
when he had been sentenced to at least 27 years in prison.
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Lockerbie: what really happened?
A miscarriage of justice? Questions over Megrahi's
conviction
Abdelbaset al Megrahi was found guilty of carrying out the 1988
Lockerbie bombing in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison by a
court in the Netherlands.
But a report published earlier this year revealed that Megrahi
may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
The report was written by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review
Commission (SCCRC) in 2007 but was kept secret for five years. It
gave permission to Megrahi to appeal against his conviction. His
first appeal in 2002 had failed.
Megrahi did not take up the offer of a second appeal. Instead he
opted for a release from prison on compassionate grounds in 2009,
by which time he was suffering from cancer and believed he only had
months to live.
The SCCRC report found that there were six grounds for appeal -
areas of uncertainty which had led to an unreasonable guilty
verdict.
These grounds included uncertainty over claims by a witness that
Megrahi had bought clothes from his shop in Malta that were found
in the plane debris, and thought to be in the same suitcase as the
bomb that went off.
Not only was the date that Megrahi supposedly bought the clothes
in doubt, but the reliability of the witness was questioned when it
was found he had been paid at least $3 million by US officials as a
reward for giving evidence.
And the same witness was found to have had a magazine with a
picture of Megrahi stating he was the Lockerbie bomber three days
before he identified him in a line-up parade.
Another ground for appeal related to secret intelligence
documents, which are still being kept secret.
Last month it was also revealed that there was a break-in at
Heathrow Airport on the night the bomb may have been planted.
Details of the break-in were withheld by police for ten years.
Relatives of some of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have
called for a public investigation into the atrocity.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was one of 270 people killed
in the attack, said:
"I am not in the mood to forgo the right to know who murdered my
daughter and who knew the airport was broken into 16 hours before
and decided not to do anything about it."
Both Alex Salmon, Scotland's first minister, and David Cameron,
the prime minister, have rejected the calls for an inquiry.
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Click here to watch a recording of
our most recent Daily What Newsround on Glow TV, featuring a
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