A tale of three atrocities group whose daughter had died at <strong>Lockerbie</strong> – had come on television to invite UTA relatives to contact him. At that time, the <strong>Lockerbie</strong> families were trying to understand what had happened to their loved ones, from a position of little knowledge. But they had started thinking <strong>about</strong> culpability. We UTA families were able to stop looking for explanations much quicker than the <strong>Lockerbie</strong> families. Within two years, we had a positive outcome that has stood the test of time. <strong>The</strong>y have had no such satisfaction. Two years after the downing of UTA Flight 772, I remember calling Jim Swire from a public phone box outside the Palais de Justice, Paris, after the UTA examining magistrate, Juge Jean-Louis Bruguière, named four Libyans as the culprits (two more were accused in 1996). Jim said the UTA suspects, or indeed any other Libyan suspects, were "not on my radar" – not considered as the culprits for <strong>Lockerbie</strong>. So I was astonished when, on 13 th November 1991, the US Department of Justice and Scottish prosecuting authorities issued murder charges for <strong>Lockerbie</strong> against two Libyans - Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah. Even then, I wasn't in a mind to accept something simply because I was told it by someone in authority. I questioned the Libyan connection to <strong>Lockerbie</strong>. And I was right. As we know, Abdelbaset Ali al- Megrahi has always claimed he did not carry out the <strong>Lockerbie</strong> bombing. He has appealed twice against his conviction. On 28 th June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission announced it would refer the second appeal to Edinburgh's Court of Criminal Appeal because Megrahi “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”. On 20 th August 2009, Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds following reports that he had terminal prostate cancer and less than three months to live. But, to be released, he had to drop his appeal and thereby implicitly accept his conviction. <strong>The</strong>re was a period, which lasted from 1991 to 1999, where I couldn't make sense of <strong>Lockerbie</strong>. But slowly it occurred to me. After twenty years of investigation, I am confident I have now found some of the truth <strong>about</strong> <strong>Lockerbie</strong>. Why Megrahi didn't do it It is the strangest thing. If four Libyans carried out UTA and two carried out <strong>Lockerbie</strong>, then surely they must have been working for the same organisation. But only tentative links were ever drawn between the Libyan personnel involved in UTA and those allegedly involved in <strong>Lockerbie</strong>. Abdullah Senussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law, was the only Libyan referred to during the <strong>Lockerbie</strong> trial who was convicted of the UTA bombing. He was repeatedly mentioned by a witness in Megrahi's trial, Abdul Giaka, but Giaka's evidence was rejected by the court. Indeed, the only official connection between the two tragedies was the imposition of sanctions against Libya in 1992 by the UN, a situation which was explained in a private letter to me from the FCO. Furthermore, it is quite clear that the modi operandi of the two bombings is entirely different. In particular, the bombs are quite different. <strong>The</strong> Libyans didn't lack the ability to create two identical bombs. <strong>The</strong>y had materials for a UTA-style bomb in 1988, according to case notes submitted in Pugh vs Libya – the US UTA victims' claim for compensation 1 . <strong>The</strong>se say that Juge Bruguière, the examining magistrate in the UTA case, received a replica of the suitcase used in the UTA bombing from Libyan officials on a visit in July 1996: “<strong>The</strong> Libyans told Juge Bruguière that the suitcase had been recovered from a thwarted attack by Libyan oppositionists. For the French, it was proof that the Libyan security services had suitcase bombs exactly like the one that exploded on UTA Flight 772.” If they had the materials available, why didn't they use the same technique for <strong>Lockerbie</strong> as for UTA? 1 Pugh vs Libya ne<strong>ws</strong>.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/pughlibya101602cmp.pdf 6
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