Exclusive:Lockerbie families: Release official files in 'act of amnesty'
Dr Jim Swire hopes permament archive of research material can be sited in Scotland
A prominent campaigner who lost his daughter in the Lockerbie bombing has reiterated his call for the UK government to release official documents relating to the atrocity, and vowed he would spend his remaining years aiding those fighting “in the interests of truth.”
In an interview with Scotland on Sunday, Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, was among those killed in the 1988 terror attack, maintained that the reason for certain official documents continuing to be withheld from public view was due to the fact that Britain had been “slavishly following instructions” from the US.
Dr Swire has long called on successive UK governments to release its files on Lockerbie and today described such an act as an “act of amnesty” towards the relatives and friends of those killed.
He told Scotland on Sunday that although he did not think he would live long enough to see their release, the files could not be withheld indefinitely.
Dr Swire also revealed he is working to establish an archive of his files, documents and research relating to Lockerbie that he hoped will be based in Scotland.
Dr Swire, who will turn 90 later this month, has also written a reflection on Easter and the current events in the Middle East, in which he drew parallel between Lockerbie and warned that the “world be a needlessly dangerous place” for so long as those in power in Tehran can “slake their lust for revenge.”
In the article, published in today’s edition, he said revenge denied forgiveness or healing, and argued that the judgement of others “should be the realm of God, not us.”
Flora, 23, was one of 243 passengers on board the Boeing 747 who were killed along with 16 members of crew as it flew over Scotland en-route from London to New York four days before Christmas in 1988. A further 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie also lost their lives.
Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. He died in 2012 aged 60, three years after being released on compassionate grounds. However, Dr Swire and other relatives believe Megrahi was innocent, and that the atrocity was committed by Ahmed Jibril’s Palestinian terror group, the PFLP-GC, financed by Iran.
Authorities in the US are currently pursuing legal action again against a Libyan national, Abu Agila Mohammed Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, referred to as Masud, who the US Department of Justice has accused of building the device used in the Lockerbie bombing. However, Masud has claimed a 2012 confession is false, was made under duress, and should be ruled inadmissible before his trial in Washington DC, which is expected to begin later this year.
“I think eventually they will be released, and I’m trying to leave enough behind so that the message remains,” he explained. “We’re currently trying to organise our written files and documents that we’ve accumulated over the years into an ideal, established resource that can be accessed by people.
“We would love for there to be an archive where serious readers can access the materials that will, in the future, be in the interests of truth.”
In his article, Dr Swire pointed to shifting relations between the UK and the US under Donald Trump, reasoning that “the bonds between our country and the USA have loosened considerably,” as one driving force for the release of the files, and argued that the passing of nearly four decades meant the arguments in favour of keeping the files hidden from view held less weight than ever.
“It was after all our loved ones who were killed, and time must have loosened both the need for security over the events of December 1988 and the need to protect any ongoing idea of prosecuting the guilty,” he wrote.
Dr Swire, who believes Lockerbie an act of retaliation on the part of Iran after the downing of Iran Air flight 655 by the USS Vincennes on 3 July 1988, which killed all 290 people onboard, predicted that the current attacks being waged against Iran would also be met with a “lust for revenge” by those in power in Tehran.
He warned: “Knowingly or not those currently assaulting Iran and her people from above will now find themselves embedded in asymmetrical warfare. The story of how Vincennes captain Will Rogers III’s wife Sharon came to escape miraculously from the shrapnel of a powerful pipe-bomb placed underneath the family’s van within the continental USA itself in 1989 should leave no doubt about that prediction. American investigators were ‘unable to discover’ who had planted that pipe bomb.
“Just so long as those in power in Iran, ayatollahs or not, remain in power and able to slake their lust for revenge, so long will the world be a needlessly dangerous place. The Iranian people on the other hand have tried to make their dissatisfaction with their regime known with the greatest bravery, losing around 10,000 citizens’ lives to the weapons of their own rulers recently.”
Dr Swire, a former GP, described the pursuit of revenge on the part of those who are attacked or who lose loved ones as a “desperately sad aspect of humanity” and pointed out that rather than seeking retribution, the Lockerbie families instead “sought the truth.”
He explained: “Knowledge of what the truth really is about the origins of the dreadful attack on Pan Am 103 has only reinforced the realisation for us that revenge is self-defeating and generates hatred and the lust for revenge.”
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