The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie

In November 1991, two alleged Libyan intelligence officers, Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, were indicted for the bombing. (Getty Images)
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Updated 05 May 2020
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The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie

The truth about the deadliest terror attack in UK history may never be known

Summary

On Dec. 21, 1988 Pan-Am Flight 103, en route from Frankfurt, via London, to New York, crashed on the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 passengers and crew. Eleven residents in a single street in Lockerbie also died when part of the wreckage fell on the town.

Crash investigators quickly found traces of high explosives, triggering a forensic investigation that the aircraft had been downed by a bomb concealed inside a cassette player in a suitcase in the aircraft’s hold.

In November 1991, two alleged Libyan intelligence officers, Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, were indicted for the bombing. For nine years Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi refused to allow their extradition, but under pressure from international sanctions finally agreed to allow them to face trial for murder under Scots law in a special court in The Netherlands.

Fhimah was found not guilty but Al-Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment. Diagnosed with prostate cancer, he was released on compassionate grounds after serving a little over eight years of his sentence. He returned to a hero’s welcome in Libya, where he died almost three years later.

JEDDAH: The king leads the Saudi delegation at a GCC summit in Manama, there is a new government in Israel, and there is a crisis in Sudan; that Arab News front page could have been published almost any day this year.

Except the Saudi king was King Fahd, the Israeli prime minister was Yitzhak Shamir, and another report on the page tells you this not 2020, but Dec. 23, 1988. Two nights before, Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York had been blown up by a terrorist bomb as it crossed the border between England and Scotland.

With a death toll of 270 — all 243 passengers and 16 crew, and 11 victims on the ground in Lockerbie, where the aircraft smashed into two residential streets at 800kph— it remains the deadliest terror attack in UK history.

Few events resonate all the way from a small Scottish border town to the White House. This was one such event. Lockerbie, with its 4,000 souls, joined that list of places in the UK and elsewhere — Aberfan, Munich, Srebrenica, My Lai — forever associated in the public consciousness with cruel and senseless loss of life. 

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Scotland, my country, and Glasgow, my city, are not soft places, nor are the journalists they produce noted for emotional incontinence. But I saw tough, cynical, diamond-hard reporters return from Lockerbie numbed into glazed-eyed silence by the enormity of what they saw there, and full of respect and admiration for the quiet dignity and fortitude with which its townspeople bore their losses. 

Most of the plane’s passengers were American, and their relatives flew from the US to identify bodies and possessions. The people of Lockerbie temporarily buried their own grief to provide accommodation, food, comfort and solace to the bereaved. Bonds were forged that remain to this day.




A page from the Arab News archive showing the news on Dec. 23, 1988.

When a terrorist attack was confirmed, the perpetrator identified by Washington was inevitable. The US and the regime of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya had been in a state of undeclared war for years, and US airstrikes in April 1986, far from cowing Qaddafi, appeared only to have incensed him.

US and UK investigators believe Libyan agents in Malta concealed a Semtex bomb inside a radio-cassette player and sent it in a suitcase to Frankfurt, where it was loaded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and the fate of 270 people was sealed.

Key Dates

  • 1

    The US Federal Aviation Authority issues a bulletin warning of an anonymous tip that a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt will be blown up in the next two weeks.

  • 2

    Pan Am Flight 103 is destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie.

  • 3

    Alleged Libyan intelligence officers Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah are indicted for murder by US and Scottish authorities, but Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi refuses to allow their extradition for trial.

    Timeline Image Nov. 1991

  • 4

    After a nine-year standoff, Qaddafi agrees to allow Al-Megrahi and Fhimah to be tried under Scottish law in the Netherlands.

  • 5

    Al-Megrahi is jailed for life. Fhimah is found not guilty.

  • 6

    Al-Megrahi loses an appeal against his conviction.

    Timeline Image March 14, 2002

  • 7

    Qaddafi accepts Libya’s responsibility for the bombing and agrees to pay compensation to each of the victims’ families.

  • 8

    Al-Megrahi, with terminal prostate cancer diagnosed, is released on compassionate grounds and returns to Libya.

  • 9

    Libyan civil war breaks out.

  • 10

    Libya’s former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil claims Qaddafi’s regime was implicated in the bombing.

  • 11

    Qaddafi is killed by rebel militia while trying to flee after the fall of Tripoli.

  • 12

    Al-Megrahi dies, aged 60.

With some narratives, paradoxically, it can make sense to work backwards — from when Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer and former head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, died at his home in Tripoli on May 20, 2012, at the age of 60.

More than 11 years earlier, in January 2001, three Scottish judges sitting at a special court in a former US air base in the Netherlands had sentenced Al-Megrahi to life imprisonment on 270 counts of murder for the Lockerbie bombing. He served more than eight years in two prisons in Scotland before the Scottish government released him on compassionate grounds when doctors said he had terminal cancer, and he returned to Libya in August 2009. Given three months to live, he lasted for nearly three years.

Al-Megrahi was, and remains, the only person to be convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103; with his death, therefore, case closed? Well, no.

The repercussions began soon after the disaster, and continue to this day. Pan Am, its security operations exposed as criminally useless, was bankrupt after a year and out of business after two. UN sanctions against Qaddafi and Libya reinforced their pariah status, and the country remains a failed state embroiled in civil conflict. For the rest of us, airline and airport security have intensified on an apparently endless upward trajectory, and we can at least be grateful that an unaccompanied suitcase with a bomb inside can never again travel from Malta through two airports to the skies over Scotland.

“The Town Hall, decorated with festival lights and now hastily converted into a mortuary, was besieged by distraught relatives.”

From a Reuters story in Arab News, Dec. 23, 1988

Perhaps most significantly, however, Lockerbie may have marked the beginning of a collapse in public trust in what our governments tell us. Authorities in the US and the UK insist that Al-Megrahi was guilty, and that he acted alone or with a single accomplice. Few believe that.

Major world events — the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the moon landings, the 9/11 attacks on America — attract conspiracy theorists like iron to a magnet, and Lockerbie is no exception. It was Iran; it was the Palestinians; it was Mossad; it was the Stasi; it was apartheid South Africa.

What makes Lockerbie different is that one of the “theories” is almost certainly fact — which one, is anyone’s guess. One man more entitled that most to guess is Jim Swire, the softly spoken but determined English country doctor whose daughter Flora, 23, perished on board the plane. Swire, now in his eighties, has devoted his life to finding the truth about Lockerbie. He met and questioned Al-Megrahi. He met and questioned Qaddafi. He has been a thorn in the side of UK and US authorities for more than 30 years, and he believes to this day that the case against Al-Megrahi was a travesty and a tissue of lies, to cover up some ghastly truth that may never be known.

US President George H. W. Bush set up an aviation security commission in September 1989 to report on the plane’s sabotage, and British relatives of the victims met members of the commission at the US Embassy in London in February the following year. A member of Bush’s staff told one of the relatives: “Your government and ours know exactly what happened, but they are never going to tell.”

And that, surely, for the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, for their still grieving families, and for the people of Lockerbie, was the final insult.

  • Ross Anderson, associate editor at Arab News, was on duty as a senior editor at Today newspaper in London on the night of the Lockerbie disaster


Putin envoy says diplomatic solution possible but differences remain after US talks

Updated 11 min 57 sec ago
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Putin envoy says diplomatic solution possible but differences remain after US talks

WASHINGTON: A senior Russian envoy on Thursday said differences remain between the US and Russia but a diplomatic solution to bring an end to the war in Ukraine is possible.
“I think (with) the Trump administration, we are now in realm of thinking about what is possible, what can really work, and how we can find a long term solution,” Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy, told CNN following talks with US President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington.


Macron, on Egypt visit, to go near Gaza to show support for ceasefire

Updated 33 min 18 sec ago
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Macron, on Egypt visit, to go near Gaza to show support for ceasefire

  • A draft accord on treating Palestinian wounded brought out of Gaza is to be signed during the visit

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron will go to an Egyptian port near the Gaza Strip next week to highlight concerns over the conflict in the Palestinian territory, his office said Thursday.
Macron will go to Arish, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Gaza, next Tuesday during a visit to Egypt, officials said.
Macron will meet humanitarian and security workers next Tuesday to stress his “constant mobilization in favor of a ceasefire,” his office said in a statement.
Arish is a transit point for international aid intended for Gaza.
But food and other supplies have not been able to use the nearby Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was suspended last month.
Macron is to go to Egypt on Sunday and on Monday will meet the country’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
Egypt has been a mediator in the Israel-Hamas conflict since the Ocxtober 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and Macron will stress “the urgency” of securing a new ceasefire so that Gaza’s population is no longer has to bear a “humanitarian catastrophe,” Israeli strikes are ended and Israeli hostages in Gaza are freed, the French leader’s office said.
A draft accord on treating Palestinian wounded brought out of Gaza is to be signed during the visit.
 

 


US Senate Republican pushes for congressional approval of president’s tariffs

Updated 38 min 44 sec ago
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US Senate Republican pushes for congressional approval of president’s tariffs

  • The Republican critics in Congress of Trump’s tariff moves remained a distinct minority

WASHINGTON: Republican US Senator Chuck Grassley introduced a bill on Thursday that would require congressional approval for new tariffs, the day after President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping new taxes on a vast array of imported goods.
Grassley, whose home state of Iowa relies heavily on the global agricultural trade, joined Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington for the “Trade Review Act of 2025” which would require Congress to sign off on new tariffs within 60 days of their imposition or automatically block their enforcement. The move, made the day after four other Senate Republicans voted for a measure that would lift Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods, was the latest sign of dissent among Republicans as Trump’s aggressive moves fanned recessionary fears and sparked Wall Street’s worst day since 2022.
Neither Grassley’s bill nor the measure that passed the Senate on Wednesday were seen as likely to become law while Trump’s Republicans hold majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, where many of their members are voicing support for Trump’s moves.
Trump, who has long advocated for tariffs, said that the highest US trade barriers in more than a century would both raise federal revenue and drive manufacturing back to the US Economists have voiced deep skepticism about both possibilities.
Grassley, the longest-serving member of the US Senate, did not directly criticize Trump in introducing his bill. He noted that he had proposed a similar trade approach during Trump’s first administration, citing the US Constitution establishing congressional authority over trade issues, but that over time the legislature has ceded this power to the executive branch.
But some Republicans have indicated unease with parts of Trump’s tariff plans.
“I would have expected more targeted tariffs to meet the needs of where countries are taking advantage of us, and perhaps a more modest approach in the amounts,” Republican Senator Jerry Moran told reporters. He also expressed concerns that tariffs placed on US allies in Southeast Asia were similar to those placed on China, which he called a “damaging” economy to the US
Republican Senator James Lankford said he was surprised by the 17 percent tariff on Israel and hoped the US Trade Representative could explain why the tariff level on Israel was different from other countries. Republican senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell — the chamber’s former Republican leader — provided the votes on Wednesday to pass Democratic Senator Tim Kaine’s disapproval resolution on the Trump trade approach toward Canada.
“Tariffs drive up the cost of goods and services. They are a tax on everyday working Americans,” McConnell said in a statement on Thursday.
About half of Americans, and one in five Republicans, believe that increasing tariffs on imports will do more harm than good, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found. The Republican critics in Congress of Trump’s tariff moves remained a distinct minority. Indeed, the House earlier this month passed a measure meant to strip Congress’ power to challenge new tariffs imposed by the president.
“The president has been talking about unfair trade against the United States for 40 years, so he’s been very consistent on this,” said Senator John Barrasso, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican. “Long-term, I think this is very important for the country, bringing jobs and manufacturing back to America, focusing on our economy.”
Grassley’s Democratic co-sponsor, Cantwell, said that Trump’s tariffs risked long-term damage to the US economy.
“We can’t afford a trade war that lasts for two or three years, leaving our product off the shelves,” Cantwell said. “We cannot have arbitrary policies that create chaos and uncertainty.”


Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris

Updated 48 min 33 sec ago
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Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris

  • Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land “depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground”

PARIS: A new exhibition opening in Paris on Friday showcases archaeological artifacts from Gaza, once a major commercial crossroads between Asia and Africa, whose heritage has been ravaged by Israel’s ongoing onslaught.
Around a hundred artifacts, including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite, are on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe.
The rich and mixed collection speaks to Gaza’s past as a cultural melting pot, but the show’s creators also wanted to highlight the contemporary destruction caused by the war, sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
“The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage,” said Elodie Bouffard, curator of the exhibition, which is titled “Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History.”
“But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand,” she told AFP.
One section of the exhibition documents the extent of recent destruction.
Using satellite image, the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites in Gaza, including the 13th-century Pasha’s Palace.
Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land “depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground.”
“For now, it’s impossible to assess.”
The attacks by Hamas militants on Israel in 2023 left 1,218 dead. In retaliation, Israeli operations have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the densely populated territory.

The story behind “Gaza’s Treasures” is inseparable from the ongoing wars in the Middle East.
At the end of 2024, the Institut du Monde Arabe was finalizing an exhibition on artifacts from the archaeological site of Byblos in Lebanon, but Israeli bombings on Beirut made the project impossible.
“It came to a sudden halt, but we couldn’t allow ourselves to be discouraged,” said Bouffard.
The idea of an exhibition on Gaza’s heritage emerged.
“We had just four and a half months to put it together. That had never been done before,” she explained.
Given the impossibility of transporting artifacts out of Gaza, the Institut turned to 529 pieces stored in crates in a specialized Geneva art warehouse since 2006. The works belong to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank.

The Oslo Accords of 1993, signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, helped secure some of Gaza’s treasures.
In 1995, Gaza’s Department of Antiquities was established, which oversaw the first archaeological digs in collaboration with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF).
Over the years, excavations uncovered the remains of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, and a Roman necropolis — traces of civilizations spanning from the Bronze Age to Ottoman influences in the late 19th century.
“Between Egypt, Mesopotamian powers, and the Hasmoneans, Gaza has been a constant target of conquest and destruction throughout history,” Bouffard noted.
In the 4th century BC, Greek leader Alexander the Great besieged the city for two months, leaving behind massacres and devastation.
Excavations in Gaza came to a standstill when Hamas took power in 2007 and Israel imposed a blockade.
Land pressure and rampant building in one of the world’s most densely populated areas has also complicated archaeological work.
And after a year and a half of war, resuming excavations seems like an ever-more distant prospect.
The exhibition runs until November 2, 2025.
 

 


UN human rights chief warns of ‘high and increasing risk’ of Israeli atrocities in Gaza

Updated 9 min 53 sec ago
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UN human rights chief warns of ‘high and increasing risk’ of Israeli atrocities in Gaza

  • It comes as Volker Turk calls for an ‘independent, prompt and thorough’ investigation into the killing of 15 humanitarian workers in Gaza on March 23
  • Slovenian envoy Samuel Zbogar laments ‘erosion of humanity, the erosion of protection of civilians, of respect for international law (and) of peace and security’

NEW YORK CITY: The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights on Thursday expressed deep outrage over the killing of 15 medical and aid workers in Gaza on March 23, as he warned that “there is a high and increasing risk that atrocity crimes are being committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Volker Turk called for an “independent, prompt and thorough” investigation into the deaths which, he said, raise “further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military.” The perpetrators “must be held to account,” he added.

He was speaking during an emergency meeting of the Security Council requested by council member Algeria, supported by China, Pakistan, Russia and Somalia, to discuss the escalating violence in the territory.

Renewed Israeli military attacks on Gaza have killed more than 1,200 Palestinians since March 1, including at least 320 children, Turk said, adding that the situation has deteriorated after the brief respite provided by the ceasefire earlier in the year

“The temporary relief of the ceasefire has been shattered,” he continued, noting that ongoing Israeli airstrikes have targeted residential buildings, hospitals and schools, many of them sheltering displaced civilians.

“There was no let-up, even as Palestinian families celebrated Eid,” Turk told council members. The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on “camps for people who have been displaced numerous times.” This has displacing thousands of additional Palestinians “who have nowhere safe to go,” he said, as half of Gaza has been designated a no-go zone or placed under evacuation orders.

These actions, he added, violate international humanitarian law, particularly with regard to the protection of civilians during conflicts.

Turk also highlighted the worsening humanitarian situation as a result of the blockade imposed on Gaza by Israeli authorities since March 1, which has cut off vital supplies of food, medicine and fuel. The World Food Program has been forced to close 25 bakeries, he said, exacerbating the food crisis.

“Community tensions over food shortages are palpable, alongside reports of excessive use of force by local police,” he continued. “We are witnessing a return to the breakdown of social order that preceded the ceasefire.”

The blockade amounts to collective punishment of Palestinians and might amount to the international crime of using starvation as a weapon of war, Turk said.

The situation is equally catastrophic in the West Bank, he warned, where Israeli military operations have resulted in hundreds of deaths and the destruction of refugee camps. Since Oct. 7, 2023, more 900 Palestinians have been killed there, including 191 children and five people with disabilities, and 40,000 have been displaced amid an alarming increase in state and settler violence. Some of these deaths, Turk said, might amount to extrajudicial “and other unlawful killings.”

In addition, he warned that “the announcement that residents must not return to their homes for a year raises serious concerns about long-term mass displacement.”

Turk expressed alarm at what he described as inflammatory rhetoric from senior Israeli officials, including calls for the annexation of Gaza and the forcible transfer of Palestinians from the territory. He said this raises grave concerns about the risk of international crimes and runs counter to the fundamental principle of international law that prevents the acquisition of territory by force.

“Dozens of Palestinian herding and farming communities have been forced to leave their homes and their ancestral lands, while restrictions on movement have paralyzed the economy and are shredding the social fabric,” Turk said.

Events during the past 18 months have made it “abundantly clear” that there is no military solution to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, he added. He called for a political resolution and reiterated that the only path forward is a negotiated two-state solution in line with UN resolutions and international law.

Turk urged the Security Council to prioritize the protection of civilians and ensure accountability for all violations of human rights law. He also demanded the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and detainees, as well as unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza.

The UK’s ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, said her country “strongly opposes Israel’s decision to resume and expand its military operations in Gaza. Further fighting and bloodshed is in nobody’s interest and takes us further away from a deal to get the hostages home.”

She urged Israeli authorities to immediately reinstate the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“Blocking supplies and electricity from entering Gaza risks violating international humanitarian law,” she said.

The UK also condemns remarks by Defense Minister Israel Katz about the annexation of land in Gaza, Woodward added, and recent Israeli decisions to accelerate the establishment of settlements and outposts in the West Bank.

“There must be no forced displacement of Palestinians or reduction in the territory of Gaza,” she said.

Dorothy Shea, the charge d’affaires at the US mission to the UN, said Hamas was “solely responsible for the resumption of hostilities since March 18, refusing time and again to accept proposals to extend the ceasefire.

“For too long, Hamas has abused civilian infrastructure and facilities, cynically using it to physically shield its personnel and weaponry. Hamas’ reckless and contemptuous behavior has put civilians and humanitarian personnel at risk, purposefully placing them in the crossfire.”

Addressing events in the West Bank, Shea said that Washington supports what she described as “the efforts of the Israel Defense Forces to root out violent extremists in Jenin and Tulkarm.”

She called on the Palestinian Authority to carry through on its pledge “to end the practice of offering cash payments to the families of those who have carried out terrorist attacks, which for far too long incentivized violence against Israeli civilians and set back the prospects of peace.”

Slovenian envoy Samuel Zbogar lamented “the erosion of humanity, the erosion of protection of civilians, of respect for international law (and) of peace and security.”

He added: “More war does not bring more peace; not to Israel, not to Palestine, not to the region nor the globe. With each passing day, the region is less secure and the future is more unstable.”

He called on Israeli authorities to halt their operations in Gaza and the West Bank, and for an end to attacks on Israel.

“We call on Israel and Hamas to return to the agreement made in line with Resolution 2735, with the support of Egypt, Qatar and the United States,” Zbogar said. “The ceasefire must be restored, hostages must be released, aid must flow and dialogue must prevail.

“The only path to lasting peace can be the one of diplomacy. The only solution for ensuring lasting peace is the two-state solution endorsed by this council.”