Lockerbie victim's father calls on government to clear Malta's name
25 years after the UK’s worst terrorist attack, Lockerbie victim's father calls for the truth to be revealed.
The father of one of the Lockerbie bombing victims today called on the government to demand the Scottish authorities to revoke the sentence which found Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi guilty and clear Malta's name.
Jim Swire who lost his 24-year-old daughter in the bombing today said "25 years after murdering my daughter the truth is still withheld from us by politicians of my own country and America and their story has put Malta in a bad light because the al-Megrahi sentence holds that Malta was involved, when I'm sure that it was not involved."
Al-Megrahi, who was convicted of killing 270 people when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over the south of Scotland town 25 years ago, was freed from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds because of cancer. Throughout the case the prosecution argued that the accused had planted the bomb on a plane which had left Malta.
Swire who was addressing a press conference about the UK's worst terrorist attack and its links with Malta, is in Malta in connection with the play 'The Lockerbie Bomber' which is being staged at St James Cavalier.
Swire who is accompanied by Robert Forester from the Justice for Megrahi Group, has met Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and foreign minister George Vella.
"Malta has the option to call for an appeal in the Scottish Criminal Care Rreview Commission, so as to clear its name," Swire said.
The man convicted of the bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was convicted of planting the bomb in Malta before it made its way to the ill-fated flight.
He called al-Megrahi 'a friend' and asserted that he was certain about his innocence. "The evidence that persuaded me and many other individuals that al-Megrahi was innocent and a scapegoat was the evidence about the technology of the bomb," Swire said.