Ending 2013: Lockerbie recalled, one-quarter of a Century on …
- December 22nd, 2013
- Posted by EU Australia
Observances were held on both sides of the Atlantic to mark the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing; the terrorist attack on a Pan American flight over Scotland (21.12.88), with the loss of 270 lives.
Investigators followed many lines of inquiry, and motives (including possible revenge for the destruction of an Iranian airliner, in error, by an American warship), settling on a Libyan connection, with the bomb likely to have been planted in baggage at Frankfurt airport.
The Boeing 747 was on a flight via London to New York and Detroit; it was a “Christmas” flight taking people home to family, and was blown up not long after taking off from London.
The victims were 259 passengers and crew and eleven others on the ground, where the debris came to earth.
The former Libyan head of state, Muamar Gaddafi, denied having authorised the attack but paid compensation and assisted with the eventual arrest of two Libyans, for trial in Scotland.
One was gaoled, and released with a terminal illness; he later died.