Doubts Remain 20 Years After Lockerbie

by Associated Press

LONDON(AP) -- Much of the political fallout from the Lockerbie air disaster has been resolved, but doubts remain about who was behind the explosion 20 years ago Sunday in the skies above Scotland.

A cancer-stricken Libyan secret agent is in prison, the sole person convicted in the tragedy, but he has earned a second appeal by convincing judges that ''a miscarriage of justice'' may have occurred during his trial.

Some of the victims' families are still not convinced that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, 56, is to blame for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 259 people, mostly Americans, in the air, and 11 more on the ground. Al-Megrahi, convicted in January, 2001, is serving a life sentence.

The Rev. John Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter Helga was killed on the flight, attended all but one week of al-Megrahi's nine-month trial before deciding the Libyan was probably not responsible.

''I came away from the court 85 percent convinced he did not do it, based on the evidence I heard,'' said Mosey, from Cumbria, England. ''He was convicted on circumstantial evidence and not beyond all reasonable doubt.''

Mosey is putting his faith in the appeal set to be heard next year -- if al-Megrahi lives that long. The prisoner is suffering from incurable prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of his body, but his lawyer's bid to free him on humanitarian grounds has failed.

Mosey thinks the bombing may have been carried out by a Palestinian organization backed by Syria and Iran, as many believed in the immediate aftermath. He thinks the focus was shifted to Libya -- an archenemy of then-President Ronald Reagan -- for political reasons.

''Sadly, I believe there is not the political will to catch the real perpetrators and this terrible case will remain unsolved,'' he said.

Mosey plans to deliver a sermon at a memorial service at London's Heathrow Airport on the 20th anniversary, with other commemorations set for the village of Lockerbie.

''In the first five to 10 years after her death I thought about her every single day, every hour,'' he said of his daughter. ''Twenty years on, time heals to some degree, but I still think about her very often.'' Al-Megrahi was granted a new appeal in June, 2007, after his lawyers claimed British and U.S. authorities tampered with evidence, disregarded witness statements and steered investigators away from suggestions the bombing was an Iranian-financed plot carried out by Palestinians to avenge the shooting down of a civilian Iranian airliner by U.S. forces several months earlier.

In a statement summarizing its 800-page report, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said it had found new evidence that led its members to believe ''that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.''

That view is rejected by almost all of the Americans who lost family members in the explosion, said Kara Weipz of Cherry Hill, N.J., whose late brother was on board.

''Most people absolutely, unequivocally believe it was al-Megrahi,'' said Weipz, president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 group. ''His guilt was never in doubt.''

The Palestinian groups suspected of being involved have steadfastly denied any link to the plot.

The dynamics of the case have changed in recent years as Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi has engineered a rapprochement with the West in the dangerous times following the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York.

The self-styled revolutionary leader, who once seemed to thrive on confrontation, has renounced terrorism and voluntarily dismantled his clandestine program to develop nuclear weapons.

Britain, the United States and Libya are friendly now, publicly committed to working together to contain the threat of international terrorism.

Libya has paid out several billion dollars to the families of Lockerbie victims, and has accepted ''general responsibility'' for the attack.

U.S. officials, and the families involved, said in November that Libya had made the final compensation payments. These acts of contrition have allowed Libya to restore diplomatic ties to Britain and the United States and to curtail United Nations-imposed sanctions.

Former U.S. intelligence officer Bob Ayers, now a terrorism analyst at Chatham House in London, said Gadhafi was able to ''rehabilitate'' Libya by accepting responsibility for Lockerbie and paying compensation.

''This was ultimately good for the world,'' he said. ''But these were decisions reached by Gadhafi and Libya, not actions imposed by the court. To my way of thinking, there are still doubts as to whether the prosecution was done in such a way to result in a safe conviction.''

Ayers said the Lockerbie explosion was ''a seminal event'' in modern terrorism that had led to a massive revamp of airline safety procedures designed to keep bombs from being smuggled onto planes.

''It's been a constant battle since then between the authorities and the terrorists,'' he said.

Although most of the victims' families have accepted the compensation deal, which paid out $10 million per victim, some close relatives who have not been included in the deal are trying without success to sue the Libyan government.

Washington lawyer Mark Zaid, who represents about 20 families, said that since the U.S. government and Libya regard the matter as closed there is no forum he can use to seek money for those who were left out.

''These families have been forgotten,'' he said, describing how some parents and adult siblings did not receive any part of the settlement, which usually went to spouses or children. ''The hard and cold truth is that as far as the government is concerned the issue with Libya has been resolved, and if a few stragglers are left out, they don't care.''