Sunday, August 17, 2003

Lockerbie brother: 'I don't want £6m, I want the truth': "Like many other relatives of those who died, he maintains that the truth about Pan Am Flight 103 is still shrouded in mystery and called on the Government to hold a full public inquiry. There is a strong suspicion among British relatives that the deal was brokered to allow Libya back into the international community and open its markets to Western companies. Colonel Muammar Gadaffi's government has stipulated that the rest of the compensation will be paid when the US lifts its own sanctions and Libya is taken off its list of terror states."

Libya's guilt over the Lockerbie bombing is official US policy and accepted media truth but suspicion has existed for years that Iran, not Libya, was responsible. The alternative version of the Lockerbie bombing is this: Iran funded and ordered the attack in retaliation for the downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a US warship. Iran was quickly identified as the likely suspect. However, a few months later Saddam invaded Kuwait and suddenly the Iranian connection was dropped in favour of a coalition against Iraq. Libya was substituted as the culprit, a frame-up which has stuck and been driven home to a court verdict more than 10 years later, where Libya virtually admits guilt in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. It can't be known for certain that Iran was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing, but if it was, what does that say about the integrity of the international system, of law and courts, of the media, of government and intelligence agencies? People put their trust in "Western values" and "Western institutions".

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