Scots TV could face legal action over Air Malta claim in Lockerbie film

In 1993 Air Malta won an out of court settlement against Granada TV, which claimed a bag containing a bomb had been transported, unaccompanied, on one of their flights.

 The STV documentary also made this claim.

In a letter shared with independent legal magazine The Firm, Grahame said: “I was extremely disappointed when I saw the STV documentary and the one-sided and biased manner in which they recounted the events surrounding the atrocity."

"There remains very serious doubts over the safety of the conviction, but the STV film apparently chose to focus on the controversial and highly disputed claims of the senior investigators. There were a number of misleading statements made in the film, but I think the most worrying from STV's perspective will be the unfounded allegation that the case alleged to have carried the bomb, was transported, unaccompanied, on an Air Malta flight.



“When Air Malta sued Granada TV for making the same unfounded allegation the airline was able to prove that all 55 bags that were loaded onto the flight to Frankfurt were ascribed to passengers. Granada TV were forced to settle out of court and pay costs to Air Malta and to this day not a single shred of evidence has ever been produced showing the bomb was on the Air Malta flight.



“I now understand that Air Malta are considering whether to take similar legal action against STV for repeating this unfounded allegation. Once again the gaping holes in the case raise serious questions over the safety of the conviction and have exposed the superficiality of the recent STV film."

Dr Jim Swire, father of Flora, who was murdered in the Pan Am airliner explosion over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, has written to Scottish Television (STV) asking for a correction to claims that Air Malta carried the bomb that destroyed to Frankfurt.

Swire has been campaigning for the truth on the Lockerbie incident for years, claiming that Libyan secret service agent Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, stationed in Malta with Libyan Arab Airlines in 1988, had nothing to do with the bomb plot.

Swire says that when Granada TV aired a programme many years ago alleging that there was, Air Malta threatened court action and Granada settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

“Air Malta showed that no passenger complained that his/her bag had gone missing on reaching Frankfurt, so that could not be what happened either.”

Swire also told STV that the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, which allowed Abdelbaset to file a new appeal against his conviction, found that the trial may have been a miscarriage of justice.

“When the real truth does unfold, I think you will find that the device did not originate from Malta at all, but was most likely introduced through a break-in at Heathrow airport the night before Lockerbie.

“This break-in which was fully documented at Heathrow, but was concealed from the Zeist court until after the verdict had been reached. That however is for the future, but may explain the absence of evidence of any breech of security by Mr Megrahi at Luqa, which forced the judges to point out that the absence of any such evidence was 'a difficulty for the prosecution case'. That was certainly true,” Swire writes.

In a message to Air Malta, Swire also adds that he is “disappointed to hear of this false allegation being aired against you again, even after so many years, and it is likely to have influenced the beliefs of viewers at least in Scotland's Central belt. As a searcher after the truth as to who really murdered my daughter I hope you will be able to force an apology to be broadcast by STV.”