How Abdelbaset Al Megrahi Became Convicted For The Lockerbie Bombing

Al-Megrahi was wrongfully convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. His photograph was falsely represented to have been identified by a single witness, a Maltese clothing shop proprietor, as bearing a resemblance to a customer who visited his shop. The recollections of the same eyewitness were altered in such a way as to falsely posit al-Megrahi as the purchaser of items matching those found amidst aircraft wreckage at Lockerbie. In court, the eyewitness was presented as credible despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, while the defence failed to make clear that al-Megrahi had plainly been the subject of mistaken identity.

'You know me as the Lockerbie bomber. I know that I'm innocent. Here, for the first time, is my true story: how I came to be blamed for Britain's worst mass murder, my nightmare decade in prison and the truth about my controversial release. Please read it and decide for yourself. You are now my jury'. (Abdelbaset al-Megrahi). For the first time the man known as 'the Lockerbie bomber' tells his story. This long-awaited book argues that, far from being an unrepentant terrorist, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was the innocent victim of dirty politics, a flawed investigation and judicial folly. Based on exclusive interviews with Megrahi himself, and conclusive new evidence, it destroys the prosecution case and puts the Scottish criminal justice system in the dock. Megrahi: You Are My Jury makes a compelling argument that the murderers of the 270 Lockerbie victims were acting on behalf of an entirely different government, rather than Colonel Gadafy and Libya.

A father details his loss, grief, and fight for the truth following his daughter’s death in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 was the largest attack on Britain since World War II. 259 passengers and 11 townsfolk of Lockerbie were murdered. Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the crime. He maintained his innocence until his death in 2012. Among the passengers was Flora, beloved daughter of Dr Jim Swire. Jim accepted American claims that Libya was responsible, but during the Lockerbie Trial he began to distrust key witnesses and supposed firm evidence. Since then, it has been revealed that the United States paid millions of dollars to two central identification witnesses, and the only forensic evidence central to the prosecution has been discredited. The book takes us along Dr. Swire’s journey as his initial grief and loss becomes a campaign to uncover the truth behind not only a personal tragedy but one of the modern world’s most shocking events. Praise for The Lockerbie Bombing “It is hard to read this book without concluding that Dr Swire is right, and that for reasons that are both understandable and shameful, successive British governments repeated obstructed the investigation and they did so at the instigation of our American allies. . . . This book recounts Swire’s long and painful search for the truth about Lockerbie and his version is persuasive. It is disturbing too because, if he has it right, the Scottish judges who have now three times rejected appeals against the original verdict, have made it hard to have confidence in the integrity of our law.” —The Scotsman “Fascinating, compelling—a book about international intrigue, personal feelings, and ethics. Right at its heart is the search for truth.” —Kate Adie “Lockerbie's heartrending epitaph. . . . A shattering tale of grief and love.” —Daily Mail

For the first time the man known as the Lockerbie bomber tells his story. This long-awaited book argues that, far from being an unrepentant terrorist, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was the innocent victim of dirty politics, a flawed investigation and judicial folly.

On 21 December 1988, Pan Am flight 103 departed London Heathrow for New York. Shortly after take-off, a bomb detonated, killing all aboard and devastating the small Scottish town of Lockerbie below. Only one man has ever been convicted of the crime: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, though few believe that he acted alone. In 2009, a request was made by Libya for al-Megrahi's release from prison on compassionate grounds after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The decision to grant or deny that request fell squarely and exclusively on the shoulders of one man: Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's Justice Secretary from 2007 to 2014. Detailing the build-up to the atrocity and the carnage left in its wake, MacAskill narrates the international investigation that followed and the diplomatic intrigue that saw a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. He describes the controversial release of al-Megrahi, explains the international dimensions involved and lays bare the commercial and security interests that ran in the background throughout the investigation and trial. Finally, he answers how and why it happened – and who was really responsible for the worst terrorist attack to have occurred on British soil before or since.

Tunnel vision or organised cover-up? How the Lockerbie investigation got the wrong man Twenty-five years after Maid of the Seas crashed on the town of Lockerbie, this groundbreaking book introduces an entirely new perspective on the controversial investigation and subsequent conviction. Concentrating almost entirely on the transfer baggage evidence, it exposes shocking deficiencies in both the police inquiry and the forensic investigation, which led the hunt in entirely the wrong direction. Cleverly constructed to lead the reader through the complexities of the case, the book provides insights which will be new to even the most seasoned Lockerbie pundit, while remaining accessible to those with little or no previous familiarity with the subject. The reader will see all the main aspects of the official account of the Lockerbie disaster comprehensively destroyed. This is the first book about Lockerbie to deal rigorously with the detail of the transfer baggage evidence. Dr. Kerr has been given access to reports, statements and photographs not previously available to the general public, and has analysed the information with forensic rigour. This analysis proves conclusively that the bomb that brought down the plane was introduced at Heathrow airport and not at Malta as claimed. Key Selling Points: • Published on the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie disaster, which happened on 21st December 1988. • Morag has been Secretary Depute of “Justice for Megrahi” since 2010, and is the author of the widely-acclaimed pamphlet Lockerbie: Fact and Fiction. • On 23rd December 1988, Morag was driving on the A74. This was the stimulus for her research into the subject.

The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 was one of the most notorious acts of terrorism in recent history. Its political and foreign policy repercussions have been enormous, and twenty-five years after the atrocity in which 270 lost their lives, debate still rages over the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, as well as his controversial release on compassionate grounds by Scotland's SNP government in 2009. John Ashton argues that the guilty verdict, delivered by some of Scotland's most senior judges, was perverse and irrational, and details how prosecutors withheld numerous items of evidence that were favourable to Megrahi. It accuses successive Scottish governments of turning their back on the scandal and pretending that the country's treasured independent criminal justice system remains untainted. With numerous observers believing the Crown Office is out of control and the judiciary stuck in the last century, politicians must address these problems or their aspirations for Scotland to become a modern European social democracy are bound to fail.

No aircraft disaster in history has produced the amount of legal wrangling as the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, in which 259 passengers and crew members and 11 people on the ground were killed. The Lockerbie families wanted justice in the name of their relatives that died in the aircraft, but only in 1996 did the US Administration and Congress amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act with the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that allowed civil actions against Libya. Libya was finally served, under the provisions of the Act, in 1997, and answered the complaints, asserting in its answers that the underlying statute was unconstitutional. One area of the Lockerbie litigation was the unusual use by Libya of an international treaty called The Montreal Convention of 1971 for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation. The purpose of this treaty was to prevent attacks against civil aircraft and provide for cooperation between countries when there has been such an attack and to provide appropriate measures to punish offenders. It was not meant to give jurisdiction over criminal proceedings to the country of the alleged wrongdoer. This book contains legal materials related to the Lockerbie Trial and examines this landmark case in international criminal law. (Series: International Courts and Tribunals Cases - Vol. 4)