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From the Eye archives
The Lockerbie Files
Issue 1246, 29th September 2009
flight justice.jpg
Lockerbie: The Flight From Justice »
The Libya ‘link’
So was Libya even involved in the Lockerbie bombing? The answer is that nobody knows. Libya certainly had a grim record in state-sponsored terrorism, but there was scant evidence to link it directly to Lockerbie at the Zeist trial. The links to Libya came from the suggestion that a fragment of a timing device which survived the blast was an MST-13 timer produced by a Swiss company, Mebo, which had supplied some to Libya. But it had also supplied them to East Germany; and in any event Libya could have sold them on. Libya could well have had links with the PFLP and PPF cells; but again there was no evidence of such a link.

So why, then, was all this evidence against the Syrian- and Iranian-backed PFLP and PPF ignored? As Paul Foot explained in Private Eye’s special report, Lockerbie: The Flight from Justice, initially they were pursued - for a solid 18 months, right up to the point of announcing that arrests were imminent. Then suddenly the political mood in the Middle East changed dramatically. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and the US/UN forces needed Arab support beyond their usual friends in Egypt. The Syrians were themselves worried about Hussein’s expansion in the area, and in November 1990 deals were signed to both neutralize Iran and to bring Syrian forces into the combined operation known as Desert Storm to reclaim Kuwait.

As Paul Foot described it, Lockerbie was to be played down and President Bush snr declared: “Syria took a bum rap on this.” No wonder no one now wants a public inquiry and the question remains: who was really behind the biggest ever terrorist atrocity on British soil?

Why the wrong man was in the dock »

Read Paul Foot's definitive account, Lockerbie: The Flight From Justice »

More top stories in the latest issue:

COLOMBO MYSTERY
UK immigration chiefs reject Sri Lankan asylum seekers, claiming they either tortured themselves or paid someone to maim and scar them.

PEARL AND SWINE
Payday lender British Pearl boasts of high standards – shame about its chief financial officer who secretly used its cash to prop-up a sandwich bar he owned with his cousin!

DEVON AND HELL
Why elderly residents at the brand-new River View Care Centre in south Devon were so badly neglected just weeks after its opening.

AIRCRAFT FUMES
Pilots condemn their ‘trade union’ Balpa’s ‘preposterous’ suggestion that conking out in the cabin due to ‘fume events’ might just be hyperventilation.

UNSAFE HARBOUR
Anger as a ‘dumbed down’ Marine Navigation Act allows inexperienced junior crew members to pilot ships in difficult harbours.

PINCH OF COSALT
More on the cosy ‘pre-pack’ administration of Cosalt plc – swiftly bought up at a knockdown price by its chairman, big-time Tory donor David Ross.

HIGH PRINCIPALS
Trouble ahead for the University of Salford as it accepts hundreds of students on to courses that may not run next year due to cutbacks.

SINK OR SWIM
Richard Parry, new boss of the Canal and River Trust, has ‘fantastic experience of managing complex infrastructure’. Er, does he?

WE’RE ALL TRUCKED…
As firms like trucking giant Eddie Stobart cash in on the reorganisation of legal aid (Stobart Barristers, anyone?), specialist criminal defence solicitors become an endangered species.

private eye issue 1340
To read more from issue 1246 you can order a copy from our archive of back issues here.
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