The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-16005, in the name of Christine Grahame, on “The Lockerbie Bombing—A Father’s Search for Justice”. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I invite those members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes the publication of Dr Jim Swire’s book, The Lockerbie Bombing, A Father’s Search for Justice, which has been serialised on television; recognises what it sees as Dr Swire’s painful but steady commitment to uncovering the facts behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which, shortly after 7.00 pm on 21 December 1988, was destroyed by a bomb over the town of Lockerbie, killing all 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 Lockerbie residents, a total of 270 fatalities, including his much loved daughter, Flora; understands that Dr Swire, with many others, considers that the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, under Scots law at Camp Zeist, is insecure; believes that the failure of subsequent Scottish courts to allow any appeal, despite two referrals by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, on the grounds that there may have been a miscarriage of justice, gives concern; notes the view that, until there is a full and independent inquiry and full disclosure at a UK level into all aspects of this, the worst terrorist attack in the UK, the integrity of the conviction, and indeed Scots law, will remain in question, and commends Dr Jim Swire for never giving up on his search for the truth and for those responsible for the murder of his daughter and the other 269 people whose lives were so cruelly ended.
17:07
I thank those members who signed the motion to allow the debate to take place, as it is quite controversial.
I have been campaigning on the Lockerbie bombing, and on whether the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was safe, for decades, but not for as long as Dr Jim Swire has done. His daughter, Flora, on her way to meet her American boyfriend, was murdered on 21 December 1988 when Pan Am flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, killing all 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 Lockerbie residents—270 folk in all. Of those, 190 were American citizens and 43 were British—all individuals with their lives ahead of them. Nineteen other nationalities were represented, and those killed included a group of US intelligence specialists.
Because of time pressure, this is a potted history. The suspicion initially fell on Iran. Five months before Lockerbie, an American warship, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iranian passenger airliner over the Persian Gulf after mistaking it for a fighter jet. A total of 290 men, women and children on board were killed. Iran swore revenge. In October that year, West German police raided flats in Frankfurt where members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command were preparing bombs in radio-cassette players. They had timetables for airlines, including Pan Am. Less than two months later, Pan Am 103 was brought down.
Three years later, in 1999, after a joint investigation by Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and the Federal Bureau of Investigation—for some of us, this came out of the blue—arrest warrants were issued for two Libyans. That was after negotiations and the lifting of United Nations sanctions against Libya. When Gaddafi handed over two men for trial at a special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, held under Scots law and before three judges, the case against one of the accused, Fhima, was found not proven; Megrahi was found guilty.
I turn to the significant role of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. Megrahi lost his first appeal against his conviction in 2002, but won a second right to appeal after a four-year investigation and referral by the independent SCCRC. The commission found that there was no proper basis in allegations that investigators had manipulated, altered or fabricated evidence to make a case against Megrahi. However, it concluded that the court had “no reasonable basis” for finding that Megrahi bought the clothes in Malta, undermining a cornerstone of the prosecution case. It said that the verdict had been “unreasonable” and that Megrahi might have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
Terminally ill, Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government in 2009, abandoning his second appeal. He died three years later in Tripoli.
In 2020, after a request from Megrahi’s family, the SCCRC referred the case back to the appeal court. The commission said that the trial court should not have accepted that Megrahi bought the clothes that were beside the bomb. It also said that he was denied a fair trial because of non-disclosure, as the prosecution did not give the defence certain information that could have helped him. However, five of Scotland’s most senior judges upheld the conviction, saying that the identification of Megrahi was just one part of the overall picture and the information that was not disclosed to the defence would not have changed the verdict.
There are many aspects of the evidence that led to the conviction that give me cause for concern. However, given the time that is allocated to me, I recommend that members read for themselves writings on both sides of the arguments for and against the conviction, and make up their own minds.
To give some context, the wreckage of the crash was scattered over 770 square miles, and 4 million pieces of wreckage in total were collected and registered on computer files. That gives an idea of the size of the crime scene.
A key piece of evidence comprised recovered fragments of a Samsonite suitcase that was believed to have contained the bomb, together with parts of a circuit board that were identified as components of a Toshiba BomBeat RT-SF16 radio-cassette player, which was similar to that used to conceal a Semtex bomb that West German police had seized from the Palestinian militant group PFLP-GC two months earlier. There were also items of clothing, subsequently proven to have been made in Malta, that were thought to have come from the same suitcase.
Those clothes were traced to a Maltese merchant, Tony Gauci, who became a key prosecution witness, testifying that he had sold them to a man of Libyan appearance. Gauci was interviewed 23 times, giving contradictory evidence about who had bought the clothes, that person’s age and appearance and the date of purchase, but he later identified Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
I will restrict my comments to the evidence of the Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, whose identification of Megrahi as the man who bought the suitcase containing the clothes that hid the bomb timer was key to Megrahi’s conviction. Incidentally, Gauci was reportedly also in receipt of $2 million. He described Megrahi as 50 years old, over 6 feet tall, dark skinned and heavily built. At the time, however, Megrahi was aged 36, 5 feet 8, light skinned and slightly built. Indeed, five years after the trial, the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, publicly described Gauci as being
“an apple short of a picnic”
and
“not quite the full shilling”.
So much more can be said, but—at the very least—doubts over that identification should be enough for a public inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding the events, from the day on which the Iranian passenger plane was shot out of the sky by an American warship while that plane was flying over Iranian airspace to date. Subsequent United Kingdom Governments have prevented the publication of documents that are said to have indicated that Palestinian militants were involved in bombing Pan Am 103. Indeed, in 2020, the then Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, imposed public interest immunity certificates on the documents, so no one has access to them. At the very least, those documents should be released.
Finally, although decades have passed, my condolences go to all those who have been affected by this cruel terrorist act. My thanks go to the people of Lockerbie who, at the time, provided what comfort they could to distraught friends and relatives, even washing the clothes of the deceased once they were no longer needed for forensic evidence. They commemorate those losses to this day.
I take no pleasure in reminding us all of that horrific day, but until there is full disclosure, these serious, unsettling questions about who committed this heinous crime and why it was committed will continue to be raised, certainly by me.
17:14
I congratulate Christine Grahame on securing the debate. I know that she has been an advocate on matters relating to the Lockerbie air disaster for many years, and she laid out the history very well in the short time that she had. I thank her for her work, and for her support for Jim Swire and the other families in their search for truth and justice in relation to the Lockerbie bombing, and for Jim Swire’s search for truth and justice in relation to the murder of his daughter, Flora.
It was the worst terrorist bombing in the UK. Lockerbie is part of my South Scotland region and I spent my teenage years growing up 8 miles from the town. I know the strong emotions that are still felt locally and the huge impact that the bombing had on Lockerbie and the wider area. There are many parts of the motion with which I agree, and I pay tribute to the families of the justice for Lockerbie campaign.
On the night of the bombing, I was working in the operating theatre at Dumfries and Galloway royal infirmary. When I first heard the news, the report said that a military plane had crashed over the border here in Scotland. My dad called my sister—we were flatmates at the time—and said that he had been out checking the dairy cows in the maternity paddock as they were about to calve. He was just going about his routine dairyman duties. He said that he had heard a
“boom in the night sky overhead just after 7pm ... mebbes an explosion”.
After he phoned us, we turned on the news; there would be news for many months.
These are some of my memories. My sister and I were summoned to the hospital where we both worked. Under professional, calm, efficient and effective instruction from the senior charge nurse, the theatre team were initially told to anticipate mass casualties, and we prepared for that. We prepped theatres 1 and 2 for major trauma, theatre 3 for orthopaedic trauma and theatre 4 for minor injuries, and we primed intravenous fluids and set up trolleys for general anaesthesia and intubation for arterial lines and for central venous access line placement.
At 10 pm, the theatre staff were crowded in the coffee room, glued to the news as the facts were beginning to unfold. There would be no casualties coming to theatre. This was not a military plane crash—it was Pan Am flight 103, which, with 259 humans on board, had exploded at 7.02 pm, four days before Christmas. Later, we found out that 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie were also killed.
That night will always stick with me. I pay tribute to the people of Lockerbie and of Syracuse, including Lockerbie academy and Syracuse University, for everything that they do to keep the memory of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing alive. I attended the 35th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing at Lockerbie academy, with the launch of a photographic exhibition of the people of Lockerbie going about their normal lives, rebuilding.
For many families, the search for justice continues. The upcoming US court case, involving the trial of a Libyan man, is scheduled for May this year in Washington DC. A section of the fuselage from Pan Am flight 103 was transported to the US as evidence. I understand that US prosecutors will use evidence from the first trial and new information that has been obtained since then. Given that the man who has been charged has denied building the bomb, it is important that, under the Lockerbie Victims Access Act, the court is directed to make “reasonable efforts” to provide video and telephone access to the case for people affected by the bombing.
I agree with the First Minister’s response to Christine Grahame at First Minister’s question time last month. I think that it is right to allow the US trial to progress and therefore not to make any comment that could prejudice proceedings.
In closing, I acknowledge the work of the emergency services at the scene during that time, which I am sure was traumatic. I reiterate my respect for the resilience of the families of the justice for Lockerbie campaign, and for the people of the town for keeping the memory of the victims alive.
17:19
On 21 December 2024, I attended the service of remembrance and gratitude at Tundergarth church, which was organised by Tundergarth Kirks Trust and the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie Legacy Foundation. Members of families who lost loved ones, students from Lockerbie academy and members of the community quietly and poignantly read out the names of each of the 270 souls lost, accompanied by pictures of each victim in happy times.
Wives, husbands, mums, dads, and 14 children and babies—some as young as two months old—were murdered in the atrocity that was the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. Two hundred and fifty-nine of those victims, from 21 nations, were on the flight, including 16 crew members and 35 students from Syracuse University in New York. Eleven victims—some as young as 10 years old—were in Lockerbie as the wreckage showered down on their town. When we discuss in the Parliament what remains the worst terrorist atrocity that our nation has ever seen, we should always remember, first and foremost, the 270 innocent people who needlessly lost their lives.
The service at Tundergarth also recognised the truly humbling response of the community and the emergency services to the tragedy, both at the time and ever since. Those involved represent the decent, ordinary people whom we do not hear much about any more: the couple who found the body of a young man in their field and did not want to leave him, so they stood vigil there overnight; the man who scooped up the body of a toddler and took them into the town to avoid them being left in the dark and the wet; and the women of Lockerbie who, in the aftermath of the explosion, washed, ironed and carefully packed the clothes and belongings of victims back into the suitcases that had been strewn across the fields, so that they could be returned to the victims’ loved ones.
I could say so much more about the remarkable people at the sharp end of the response to the Lockerbie bombing, from the community and from the emergency services, many of whom worked tirelessly for days on end, trying to cope—and help others to cope—with the magnitude of the destruction. Many continue to do so to this day, as families of the victims continue to visit the last resting places of their loved ones. They take comfort from the memorial garden and lodge in Dryfesdale cemetery, the remembrance room at Tundergarth church, the peaceful memorials in Sherwood Crescent and Rosebank Crescent, and the glass window in the town hall that depicts the flags of the 21 countries that lost citizens in the bombing.
Most importantly, families take comfort from the warmth of a community that has supported them since then, over the past 36 years. That is not just about visiting the physical memorials. Lasting friendships have been formed between the families of those lost and the local community, and bonds have been formed between Lockerbie academy and Syracuse University.
Each time that the spotlight has been shone on Lockerbie—whether it be through news coverage of trials, discussion of conspiracy theories or the showing of television dramas—the dignified humanity of the people of Lockerbie has shone back. When I speak to families from around the world who come to the town, what always strikes me most is not only their gratitude for the way in which those in the community opened their hearts and homes to them but those families’ realisation that Lockerbie is not just where the horrific events of 21 December 1988 cruelly happened.
I make that point because, although it is so important to reflect on and remember the tragic loss of the Maid of the Seas over Lockerbie, which will, of course, always be part of the town’s stories, we should also reflect that there is much more to the town of Lockerbie—a vibrant, proud and forward-looking community.
17:23
I thank Christine Grahame for bringing the debate to the chamber. I know that, over many years, she has spoken with passion and dedication on issues relating to the Lockerbie disaster. I know that she will continue to pursue them, but this might be one of the final occasions on which she brings discussion of Lockerbie to the Parliament, because she intends to stand down next year. The Parliament will be poorer as a result. I also thank Emma Harper and Colin Smyth for their powerful personal contributions.
I begin by offering my continuing sympathy to everyone who lost loved ones on that awful night all those years ago, on Pan Am flight 103 and in the town of Lockerbie. We should also remember the emergency workers from around the town, and further afield, who responded in the immediate aftermath of that atrocity. Their rapid response, along with that of the people of Lockerbie, in extraordinary circumstances, demonstrated remarkable professionalism, kindness and humanity in the face of one of the worst terrorist attacks on Scottish soil.
Although the events of 21 December 1988 have had a lasting impact on the town, I know that, following the disaster, links were forged between Lockerbie and other affected communities. They include the establishment of a scholarship programme involving Syracuse University and Lockerbie academy.
Ms Grahame’s motion highlights the work of Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the disaster. Dr Swire’s steadfast commitment to his cause, in memory of his daughter, is a testament to the endurance of the human spirit.
I am sure that members will understand that it would be inappropriate for me, as a Scottish minister, to make any comment on the criminal cases that followed the disaster. However, the motion refers to concerns that Dr Swire and others have expressed about the criminal justice process. It is therefore important that I confirm to the Parliament the checks and balances that exist in the Scottish justice system.
The processes for investigating and determining alleged miscarriages of justice operate independently of the Scottish ministers. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is an independent public body, which, as the motion notes, has responsibility for investigating cases when it is alleged that a miscarriage of justice might have occurred in relation to a conviction or a sentence. The commission has extensive powers to obtain documents from any person or organisation and to request that evidence be given under oath.
Under the statutory test set by the Parliament, the commission can refer a person’s conviction to the appeal court for a fresh appeal if, after considering the application, it thinks that
“a miscarriage of justice may have occurred”
and that
“it is in the interests of justice”
for the case to be referred back to the appeal court.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I will, if the member could give me just a moment, please.
When a case is referred to the appeal court for a fresh appeal, it will be for the appeal court to determine whether to quash or to uphold the person’s conviction or sentence.
Three appeals have been made on behalf of the late Mr Megrahi. In 2002, the Scottish appeal court, sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, heard his first appeal and refused it. Thereafter, the commission referred the relevant conviction of Mr Megrahi to the appeal court twice, and each time appeal proceedings were heard.
It might be helpful to put on the record that Mr Megrahi abandoned his second appeal in 2009, shortly before he was released on compassionate grounds. As Christine Grahame said, Mr Megrahi died in Libya in 2012.
A second, and posthumous, application to the commission was made by Mr Megrahi’s family in 2017, which resulted in his conviction being referred back to the appeal court in March 2020. The appeal court fully considered the case and published in January 2021 its judgment on that appeal, which upheld Mr Megrahi’s conviction. An application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was refused by that court in July 2022.
Although the appeal court has already heard and rejected two full appeals against Mr Megrahi’s conviction, it remains open to his family to submit a further application to the commission. That would probably be on the basis that there had been new evidence that the appeal court had not heard when it considered a previous appeal against conviction, to support a claim that there had been a miscarriage of justice. That is an essential element of how the Scottish justice system operates, and it is available to anyone who has unsuccessfully appealed against their conviction to the High Court. I hope that that information has reassured members that processes are in place to allow any alleged miscarriage of justice to be fully investigated and that those processes have been used in this case.
I finish by commending the people of Lockerbie, all of whom were affected by the tragedy. The town will, unfortunately, always be known for what happened more than 36 years ago. However, in their own individual ways, the people there have shown a determination to look to the future while acknowledging and reflecting on the past. That has been achieved through the connections made with families in America who were affected by the loss of life and through the work of community groups in the Lockerbie area.
Sherwood Crescent in Lockerbie was devastated by the disaster. At the time, one of the residents there said:
“They were here one minute. Then they were gone.”
The victims in the town of Lockerbie are not forgotten; they are remembered through the actions of the people in the town who lived through that horrendous act of terrorism and by those in succeeding generations. We also remember Flora, and all the other victims on board Pan Am flight 103, through the enduring human spirit of people such as Dr Swire and many others who ensure that we do not forget the horrific events of that fateful night.
Meeting closed at 17:30.Air ais
Decision Time