Lockerbie truth at last

The Scottish Review has been admirably persistent in refusing to accept the codged-up evidence that convicted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi of the Lockerbie bombing. Jim Swires, father of a girl who died in the fated plane, never believed it. Neither did John Ashton, a writer, researcher and TV producer who from 2006 to 2009 was a researcher with Megrahi’s legal team. With Ian Ferguson, he wrote a book called Cover-up of Convenience: The hidden scandal of Lockerbie, published by Mainstream 2001, but he did not stop there. His new book, Megrahi: You are my Jury will be published by Birlinn next week.

The evidence against Megrahi rested entirely on the testimony of Majid Gaika, a paid CIA informant since four months before Lockerbie – though the agency considered him so unreliable that it had threatened to stop paying him. That story is now blown, and Megrahi’s claim that he worked for a legitimate trading company, dealing mainly in aircraft spares for Libyan Arab Airlines is admitted to be true.

In 2004 the Libyan regime formally accepted responsibility for the bombing and agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims’ relatives. The Libyan prime minister, Shukri Ghanem, told the BBC later that his government felt ‘it was easier for us to buy peace and this is why we agreed on compensation’. Saif al-Islam went further: I admit that we played with words – we had to. What can you do? Without writing that letter we would not be able to get rid of sanctions’.

As John Ashton wryly puts it, ‘If only our own leaders had been so open about the grubby politics that have plagued Megrahi’s case.’ But that’s another story.

Photograph of John Ashton by Toby Amies.