December 18, 1995. Copyright, 1995, Graphic News. All rights reserved

LOCKERBIE: SEVEN YEARS ON
By Nicholas Booth

LONDON, December 18, Graphic News Ð Seven years ago this week, a Jumbo Jet  banked at 31,000 feet over the Scottish lowlands, preparing to enter its designated flight lane high over the Atlantic. Pan AmÕs ÔMaid of the SeasÕ was full with passengers wanting to get to New York in time for Christmas. At 7.03pm on the evening of December 21, 1988, the aircraft was wrenched apart by an explosion which killed all 259 people aboard. Wreckage was rained over an estimated area of 845 square miles, with a further eleven lives claimed in a quiet, largely unknown town called Lockerbie.

The loss of Pan Am flight 103 catapulted Lockerbie into international headlines and has become synonymous with the worst air disaster this country has ever seen. In the seven years since, nobody is certain who planted the bomb or why. The evidence is complex and convoluted, the theories often contradictory and murky. Both the British and American governments state that it was an act of revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian Airbus that same year and that the bombs were planted by two Libyans. Others suggest that the truth is more elusive and certainly more disturbing.

In the immediate aftermath, curious events occurred on the ground in and around the town. Dr David Fieldhouse is a Yorkshire police surgeon who travelled to Lockerbie to help issue death certificates. He certified 59 dead bodies, but only 58 were mentioned at the official inquiry a few months later. A local farmer, Jim Wilson, found a suitcase full of cellophane-wrapped bags Ð which he presumed contained drugs Ð in his fields which was taken away by local police. Others have reported finding a red tarpaulin covering an object and being ordered away by people with American accents. 

In May of this year, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary called ÔThe Maltese Double CrossÕ which alleged that a CIA drug ÔmuleÕ carrying heroin as part of a sting operation was aboard the flight. The bombers may have also targeted another passenger Ð a U.S. intelligence agent who had made it clear that he was going to expose the operation. But the veracity of documents shown in the programme and the credibility of witnesses allegedly associated with intelligence agencies has been brought into question. The programme was part-funded by an investment company owned by the government of Libya.

Today, two Libyan airline officials stand accused of planting the bomb in Malta which later exploded above Lockerbie. In November 1991, Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah were indicted by both the U.S. and UK governments. Both men protest their innocence and Colonel Gaddafi refuses to allow them to be extradited. Circuitry believed to be part of the bombÕs timer was found within the wreckage, but accounts differ as to where and when it was found. Solicitors acting for Air Malta have revealed that all 55 pieces of luggage on the flight which connected with Pan Am 103 in Frankfurt have been accounted for.

Whatever the cause, the human tragedy has endured. Many people in and around Lockerbie continue to bear the psychological scars of the accident. An estimated 900 people Ð a number of which includes relatives of the dead Ð have been examined by clinical psychiatrists. Many exhibited classic signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, perhaps best summarised by one woman who lost her brother: ÔPeople always want to change the subject when it comes up in conversation. But those of us who have experienced it close up, we never want to change the subject.Õ

Sources: The Guardian, ÔThe Maltese Double CrossÕ, Time Magazine