Jim Swire is certain of one thing: the man convicted of killing his daughter in the Lockerbie bombing was innocent. As a new suspect prepares to stand trial in Washington DC later this year, Swire's decades-long pursuit of what he calls the "truth" has reopened one of the UK's most contentious cases.
Swire's daughter Flora died when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground. Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the bombing in 2001 and died in 2012. But Swire befriended Megrahi and believes the real perpetrators got away.
“Jim Swire insists Megrahi innocent as new trial looms for Lockerbie bomb suspect.”
"The burning issue was to get to the truth," Swire told the BBC. "Always has been, always will be and I will not shut up about what I know to be true."
For Swire, the simplest explanation is that Iran orchestrated the attack, not Libya. The bombing came five months after 290 people were killed when a US battleship shot down an Iranian commercial airliner. Iran swore revenge, and months later Pan Am flight 103 exploded on its way to New York.
Before the bombing, German police foiled a militant cell linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) in Frankfurt. They seized explosive devices concealed in radio cassette players, designed to trigger at altitude. The bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 was also hidden in a radio cassette player inside a Samsonite briefcase. Swire believes it was loaded at Frankfurt, not Malta as the court concluded.
Despite Swire's conviction, most Lockerbie victims' families reject claims that Megrahi's conviction was a miscarriage of justice. His own appeals against the verdict either failed or were abandoned.
Now, Abu Agila Masud, a man suspected of making the bomb, goes on trial in Washington DC. For Swire, this is only the beginning of a deeper investigation into what really happened that night over Lockerbie.