:00:03. > :00:12.compassionate grounds. He always denied responsibility for the
:00:12. > :00:18.bombing of the Pan Am flight. We investigate the effect that his
:00:18. > :00:23.death might have. It is alleged that al-Megrahi conspired with
:00:24. > :00:29.others to further at the purposes of the Libyan intelligence services
:00:29. > :00:35.by criminal means, and in particular the destruction of a
:00:35. > :00:40.passenger aircraft and the murder of its occupants. He was released
:00:40. > :00:48.so he could die in the comfort of his family. That is not something
:00:48. > :00:53.he offered us when he murdered our kids. Qualified people who have
:00:53. > :00:58.looked at the evidence have come to this same conclusion - namely that
:00:58. > :01:08.this verdict should never, ever have been reached. That there was a
:01:08. > :01:23.
:01:23. > :01:28.travesty of justice. The only man ever convicted of the Lockerbie
:01:28. > :01:34.bombing maintained his innocence until his death. But now he has
:01:34. > :01:38.died, what is the legacy he leaves behind? Was he responsible for the
:01:38. > :01:44.biggest terrorist attack in Britain or is he the victim of the biggest
:01:44. > :01:49.miscarriage of justice? It has been 23 years since I came to Lockerbie
:01:49. > :01:54.as a reporter for BBC Scotland to cover the worst act of terrorism in
:01:54. > :01:59.British history. Today are still find it incredible that a disaster
:01:59. > :02:05.of such enormity could have happened here, in the small market
:02:06. > :02:13.town. Probably the first man to realise what had happened was an
:02:13. > :02:18.air traffic control at Prestwick. He watched horrified as the jumbo
:02:18. > :02:23.jet to disintegrated five miles above the town. I watched it come
:02:23. > :02:33.up over southern Scotland and then suddenly the contacted this
:02:33. > :02:34.
:02:34. > :02:40.appeared and in its place was what looked like Christmas lights.
:02:40. > :02:46.American jumbo jet with more than 250 people on board has crashed
:02:46. > :02:53.tonight in the Scottish Borders. terrible explosion. You could not
:02:53. > :03:00.describe it. The whole sky lit up and it was raining liquid fire.
:03:00. > :03:06.Please God, protect us. We arrived in Lockerbie about two hours after
:03:06. > :03:10.the bombing. It was a scene of utter hell and devastation. The
:03:10. > :03:16.emergency services were be in large numbers but many of them were
:03:16. > :03:24.because there was no-one to be saved, there was no-one to be
:03:24. > :03:34.rescued. The jumbo jet contained 259
:03:34. > :03:40.passengers and crew. They also died. The principal pieces of debris fell
:03:40. > :03:45.to earth in almost a straight line. The nose cone landed at the top of
:03:45. > :03:52.this hill. The main piece of the fuselage landed in the gardens
:03:53. > :03:57.where you can see the washing hanging out. A further half mile
:03:57. > :04:04.distant add to show what President the wing section with fuel tanks,
:04:04. > :04:10.laden with tons of aviation fuel, hit the ground set and burst into
:04:10. > :04:17.flames, up causing a fireball which killed 11 people in the street.
:04:17. > :04:27.looks to me from here as if about half a dozen houses are on fire,
:04:27. > :04:33.almost totally gutted. Scotland's we Johnston arrived one
:04:33. > :04:38.hour after the plane had crashed. What did it look like on the night?
:04:38. > :04:43.My first sight of it was from the motorway. A scene of utter
:04:43. > :04:50.devastation, this enormous fire, a total Inferno. A dreadful, dreadful
:04:50. > :04:59.scene. Where we are standing here was more or less right in the
:04:59. > :05:04.middle of the crater? That is right. This scene is a memorial garden,
:05:05. > :05:10.where the houses were destroyed. The decisio The decisio that
:05:10. > :05:12.this would never be built upon again. I remember going to the
:05:12. > :05:19.press conference the following morning and there was a journalist
:05:19. > :05:24.from London from a rival news organisation. He said to no-one in
:05:24. > :05:29.particular, don't forget chaps, it is history you are writing tonight.
:05:29. > :05:33.On there is a lot of truth in that. On it is certainly the case that
:05:33. > :05:38.the aircraft clearly experienced some form of explosion which has
:05:38. > :05:43.resulted in many parts of it falling in different locations.
:05:43. > :05:48.What might have caused that to happen, I cannot begin to speculate.
:05:48. > :05:55.As dawn began to break, we were up the hill at the church and it was
:05:55. > :06:05.then we saw for the first time the in the field. And all around it
:06:05. > :06:12.
:06:12. > :06:19.bodies, some covered by sheets. It was quite an appalling scene.
:06:19. > :06:27.the ground there were two imperatives: To treat the survivors,
:06:27. > :06:32.and it was pretty clear that no-one in the aircraft had survived, and
:06:32. > :06:39.then to find out what happened. The job fell to Britain's smallest
:06:39. > :06:45.biggest and most complex investigation Scotland had ever
:06:45. > :06:50.seen was underway. This investigation is widening on an
:06:50. > :06:56.international scale. At this time over 3,000 witness statements have
:06:56. > :07:01.been collected. I have nothing but praise for the dedication shown by
:07:01. > :07:05.all concerned in what can only be recognised as a vast undertaking.
:07:05. > :07:10.In Lockerbie itself Christmas decorations were taken down while
:07:10. > :07:15.the police investigation continued. Evidence was being gathered far
:07:15. > :07:22.from the town, with wreckage retrieved almost as far east as the
:07:22. > :07:27.North Sea, 70 miles away. Detectives determined that the bomb
:07:27. > :07:33.had been planted in a radio cassette player. It took almost two
:07:33. > :07:40.years of painstaking evidence gathering before the men accused of
:07:40. > :07:44.this atrocity could be named. And longer before one man could be
:07:44. > :07:49.convicted of 270 counts of murder. That man was Abdel Basset al-
:07:49. > :07:55.Megrahi. But was al-Megrahi involved in the atrocity? And if so,
:07:55. > :08:05.why would he have done and? And who was the man behind Britain's worst
:08:05. > :08:05.
:08:05. > :08:11.terrorist outrage? To Live Here comes unity and nationhood. Tripoli
:08:11. > :08:18.1951, the coronation of King Idris of Libya, just four months before
:08:18. > :08:23.al-Megrahi was one. And military queue belated deposed him and a 27-
:08:23. > :08:30.year-old Colonel seized power. Muammar Gaddafi was to rule Libya
:08:30. > :08:37.as a pariah state for the next 40 years. In 2002 he accepted what he
:08:37. > :08:45.called civil responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing. But why it might
:08:45. > :08:51.be Libya have been behind the attack. The US bombed Libya in
:08:51. > :08:54.response for an attack in which US servicemen servicemen killed.
:08:54. > :08:58.Dedication under extremely difficult circumstances was
:08:58. > :09:04.extraordinary. I do not think we have had anything like it in the
:09:04. > :09:10.annals of the US military. Gaddafi, who claimed his four-year-old
:09:10. > :09:18.adopted dau adopted dau killed in the to export revolution around the
:09:18. > :09:23.world. And in 1988 a US Navy ship, the incense, shot down an Iranian
:09:23. > :09:29.Airbus carrying pilgrims. It claimed they were threatened by a
:09:29. > :09:32.guided miss guided missst 300 people died. Was Libya acting on behalf of
:09:32. > :09:38.the ran when it carried out the Lockerbie bombing five months
:09:38. > :09:43.later? One man who got to know al- Megrahi well is John Ashton, a
:09:43. > :09:50.journalist to join his defence team. He was asked to write his official
:09:50. > :09:55.biography. He was born in Tripoli in 1952 into a very poor family,
:09:55. > :10:00.they shared a house with three others. He had health problems as a
:10:00. > :10:07.young man that he did quite well for himself. He studied, worked
:10:08. > :10:13.hard, and got decent jobs. While a senior official at his airline job
:10:13. > :10:18.he was recruited into the Libyan secret service. Aber Gaddafi, the
:10:18. > :10:23.secret service was for decades a sponsor of terrorism. It supplied
:10:23. > :10:30.arms to the IRA and was responsible for the murder of WPC Yvonne
:10:30. > :10:37.Fletcher in London. Before Christmas 1988 claimed the Libyan's
:10:37. > :10:46.biggest outrage. Flight 103 disappear from radar in Prestwick.
:10:46. > :10:49.Pan-American Airways says it has lost contacts with its flight 103.
:10:49. > :10:56.After years of international trade sanctions the Libyans finally gave
:10:56. > :11:02.two men up to trial. This is the first time the world saw al-Megrahi,
:11:02. > :11:11.here along with his fellow Libyan. When they left Tripoli in 1899 to
:11:11. > :11:15.stand trial it was more than ten years after the bombing. Their
:11:15. > :11:20.trial took place at a disused airbase in the Netherlands. It
:11:20. > :11:28.marked the culmination of complex diplomacy establishing an
:11:28. > :11:34.are charged with conspiracy, murder and controversy end of the aviation
:11:34. > :11:39.and Security Act 1982. The trial was held and the Scottish legal
:11:39. > :11:45.procedure, but with one significant difference. Part of the negotiation
:11:45. > :11:50.which led to the trial at the camp involved at the jury of 15 being
:11:50. > :11:55.replaced by a panel of three judges who were to decide whether or not
:11:55. > :12:01.the charges against the accused were proven beyond reasonable doubt.
:12:01. > :12:06.It was a completely unique way of dealing with a trial, not only
:12:06. > :12:10.because it was outside Scotland. That little patch of the
:12:10. > :12:19.Netherlands had to be declared Scottish. Without that the hike hot
:12:19. > :12:24.judiciary would not have had jurisdiction. It was a dramatic
:12:24. > :12:28.moment on a dramatic day. Earlier the relatives of those killed in
:12:28. > :12:33.the Lockerbie bombing came face to face for the first time with those
:12:33. > :12:37.accused of killing their loved ones. I was in the nether lands to
:12:37. > :12:42.witness legal history as a Scottish court sat in a foreign country for
:12:42. > :12:48.the first time. The case lasted 88 days and I watched first hand as
:12:48. > :12:53.the evidence against al-Megrahi was put to the court. To their
:12:53. > :12:55.understanding of the destruction of the aircraft the judges were shown
:12:55. > :13:05.dramatic reconstructions of the explosion which tore the aircraft
:13:05. > :13:05.
:13:05. > :13:11.apart. It was a forest in rocks, 20 miles from Lockerbie, which
:13:11. > :13:16.provided the key evidence against al-Megrahi. Evidence was given that
:13:16. > :13:21.al-Megrahi had bought the Thai, the clothing and the suitcase in which
:13:21. > :13:28.the bomb was hidden. And that he used his Libyan Airlines
:13:28. > :13:34.connections to put the luggage onto a feeder flight in Malta. We cross
:13:34. > :13:42.live to the camp in the Netherlands. What is happening? Magrath he has
:13:42. > :13:50.been found guilty of the charge of murder. Al-Megrahi was convicted
:13:50. > :13:54.and he launched an appeal, which was rejected in March 2002. Within
:13:54. > :13:59.hours he had been flown to Scotland to serve his life sentence. He was
:13:59. > :14:06.transferred to a prison where he had a single cell on the top floor.
:14:06. > :14:12.What sort of prisoner was he? to know him quite well. He was a
:14:12. > :14:19.mainstream prisoner. He was not in isolation. He mixed in world and he
:14:19. > :14:23.spoke to me on a daily basis. I had many conversations with him. He was
:14:23. > :14:28.a highly skilled individual and he knew he had his survive in a
:14:28. > :14:31.Scottish prison. He used his excellent people skills to make
:14:31. > :14:41.sure he was well-liked and well received by everybody, staff and
:14:41. > :14:48.
:14:48. > :14:52.He is in no doubt that Megrahi's legacy is one of Scotland's
:14:52. > :14:55.greatest miscarriages of justice. believe he is innocent the three
:14:55. > :14:59.reasons - one is that I have studied all the evidence, including
:14:59. > :15:03.some that was never in the trial court. Secondly, a lot of evidence
:15:03. > :15:07.suggested that other people were responsible. But there is also my
:15:07. > :15:12.knowledge of the man himself and nothing in his demeanour and nobody
:15:12. > :15:17.I have ever met who knows him, has ever suggested that he was
:15:17. > :15:26.responsible for that crime. Flora Swire was one of the Lockerbie
:15:26. > :15:29.victims. Her father has campaigned since the guilty verdict to have it
:15:29. > :15:34.overturned. There is a blind faith in this verdict which is making it
:15:34. > :15:38.more difficult for us, inevitably. Because the politicians, and say,
:15:38. > :15:43.we got one of those who murdered your family. I'm sorry, but the
:15:43. > :15:48.answer is, know you did not. I think that you frame somebody,
:15:48. > :15:52.deliberately, who you knew was not in fact guilty. Despite accepting
:15:52. > :15:58.responsibility in 2003 for the attack, the Gaddafi regime later
:15:58. > :16:03.denied their involvement. Yes, we sent a letter to the
:16:03. > :16:09.Security Council saying that we are responsible for those facts. But it
:16:09. > :16:12.does not mean that we did it. Lockerbie case has been surrounded
:16:12. > :16:17.by speculation, with conspiracy theories fuelling doubts over the
:16:17. > :16:21.conviction of Megrahi. A senior investigator says that there was no
:16:21. > :16:24.conspiracy. I think that a lot of people expected more. There was a
:16:24. > :16:28.lot of circumstantial evidence all put together to build this wall.
:16:29. > :16:33.That's all that it was. And a lot of people expected it because
:16:33. > :16:39.people watch television. It is a neat package in an hour. They see
:16:39. > :16:44.the crime, all the evidence, and then it is all over. Everybody
:16:44. > :16:48.agrees with television after an hour. Real life is not quite as
:16:48. > :16:52.simple. I understand people's reluctance to accept that. Because
:16:52. > :16:56.there is a belief that there has to be more. If there is not more,
:16:56. > :17:05.maybe somebody is hiding something. And while I can say is that we are
:17:05. > :17:09.not. The man jailed for the biggest mass murder in Scott it criminal
:17:09. > :17:16.history will return to court to try and overturn his condition.
:17:16. > :17:20.Scottish. Megrahi applied to the Review Commission which took four
:17:20. > :17:24.might is to investigate his case. It is the most complicated and
:17:24. > :17:28.complex and lengthy application that we have ever had to deal with.
:17:28. > :17:33.Logistically, the first thing we had to decide was, how to deal with
:17:33. > :17:38.it. Normally, an investigator will have 10 or 12 cases on his books at
:17:38. > :17:43.any one time. This time, we had to put together a team who were
:17:43. > :17:48.dealing exclusively with this case. It was 50 times as large as a
:17:48. > :17:53.normal case. Megrahi's legal team argued there would any
:17:53. > :17:57.inconsistencies in the prosecution case and too many questions that
:17:57. > :18:01.remained unanswered. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission,
:18:01. > :18:06.after a former Kia investigation, agreed with them, and send the case
:18:06. > :18:10.back to the appeal Court. In particular, they queried the
:18:10. > :18:13.evidence of a shopkeeper, who said that Megrahi had bought the
:18:13. > :18:19.clothing which was discovered wrapped around the bomb fragments.
:18:19. > :18:23.Days before the trial began, Mr doubt he picked out Megrahi at an
:18:24. > :18:28.identification parade held. It was crucial to his conviction. But the
:18:28. > :18:33.court was not told that he had seen a photograph of him in a magazine,
:18:33. > :18:37.shortly before the ID parade. It was one of a number of examples of
:18:37. > :18:43.a prosecution apparently failing to disclose important evidence to the
:18:43. > :18:47.defence, which it must do to allow a fair trial. But these arguments
:18:47. > :18:51.were never tested in court. Because Megrahi dropped his appeal and six
:18:51. > :18:58.days later, the SNP government controversially released him on
:18:59. > :19:03.compassionate grounds. Compassion and mercy are about upholding the
:19:03. > :19:10.police and we -- that we seek to live by. Remaining true to our
:19:10. > :19:16.values as a people. No matter the severity of the provocation or the
:19:16. > :19:26.atrocity perpetrated. For these reasons, and these reasons alone,
:19:26. > :19:27.
:19:27. > :19:31.it is my decision that Mr Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi,
:19:31. > :19:38.convicted in 2001 of the Lockerbie bombing, now terminally ill with
:19:38. > :19:43.prostate cancer, be released on compassionate grounds and be
:19:43. > :19:49.allowed to return to Libya to die. I think it has been the single most
:19:49. > :19:54.unpopular thing that the SNP have ever done. And MacAskill and some
:19:54. > :19:59.of the managers -- ministers, at their heart of hearts, had the
:19:59. > :20:03.feeling that Megrahi was innocent. But that was not there area.
:20:03. > :20:07.political fall-out internationally was massive. We have been in
:20:07. > :20:11.contact with the Scottish government, indicating that we
:20:11. > :20:16.objected to this. And we thought it was a mistake. We are now in
:20:17. > :20:23.contact with the Libyan government and one to make sure that, if this
:20:23. > :20:29.transfers has taken place, that he is not welcomed back in some way,
:20:29. > :20:34.but instead should be under house arrest.
:20:34. > :20:38.It was not to be. Megrahi still convicted, returned home to a
:20:38. > :20:41.hero's welcome. He was released following a prognosis that he had
:20:41. > :20:45.less than three months to live. But the longer that he outlived that
:20:45. > :20:52.testament, the more ill-advised the Scottish government's decision
:20:52. > :20:54.seemed to the rest of the world. Scotland's reputation
:20:54. > :20:59.internationally suffered. So did its relationship with the United
:20:59. > :21:02.States, where senators carried out an investigation. It instead of
:21:02. > :21:07.living three months, he has lived 13 months and counting which means
:21:07. > :21:11.that somebody it was wrong, or worse. The Americans believed that
:21:11. > :21:16.Megrahi's release was part of the political deal allowing BP access
:21:16. > :21:19.to Libyan oil fields. It followed Tony Blair's deal in the desert
:21:19. > :21:24.with Colonel Gaddafi, offering a prisoner transfers for Megrahi,
:21:24. > :21:28.though the UK government could not free him from a Scottish jail. But
:21:28. > :21:32.why did Megrahi drop his second appeal, he did not need to? He is
:21:32. > :21:35.adamant that he would not have dropped his appeal, having not been
:21:35. > :21:41.indicated to him that dropping the appeal would enhance his chances of
:21:41. > :21:45.being granted compassionate release. The man who led the prosecution at
:21:45. > :21:50.Camp sized regrets Megrahi's decision to abandon his son --
:21:50. > :21:54.appeal. Personally, I was disappointed that
:21:54. > :22:02.he did not continue with the appeal. Because I think that it may very
:22:02. > :22:10.well have settled some of the issues that surround and the appeal.
:22:10. > :22:13.I am sanguine enough to know that the conspiracy theory will always
:22:13. > :22:18.surround the Lockerbie trial and I'm sure there are still those who
:22:18. > :22:23.say, even if the appeal had been upheld on the second time, that
:22:23. > :22:28.something had gone wrong. But in fact, even though Megrahi has now
:22:28. > :22:31.died, the second appeal could still be sought. If the commission
:22:31. > :22:34.receives an application, they will first Lee have to satisfy
:22:34. > :22:38.themselves that it comes from someone who has a legitimate
:22:38. > :22:42.interest -- firstly. They would have to be satisfied that the
:22:42. > :22:46.application is supported by the family of Mr Megrahi. They would
:22:46. > :22:51.then have to consider whether it was the interests of justice to
:22:51. > :22:55.accept the application for review. By King Tripoli, Megrahi moved into
:22:55. > :22:59.his family house in an upmarket district. He outlived his prognosis
:22:59. > :23:03.many times and then his boat to BBC Scotland in his last interview and
:23:03. > :23:09.continued to claim that he had never dealt with the key witness
:23:09. > :23:19.against him. This man, I have never seen him in
:23:19. > :23:22.
:23:22. > :23:32.my entire life. He is a very simple man. But I do forgive him. Andirons
:23:32. > :23:47.
:23:47. > :23:57.the giving him. It and I am facing my God and he's got as well. He has
:23:57. > :23:58.
:23:58. > :24:04.still believe this. He will come before God. I want him to know that
:24:04. > :24:08.I'd be give him before I die. This is the truth. Dr Jim Swire, whose
:24:08. > :24:12.daughter Flora died in the bombing, believes that. He received a
:24:12. > :24:17.surprise gift from Megrahi when he visited him in prison. A very
:24:17. > :24:23.touching thing happened when we had this meeting. He is a devout Muslim.
:24:23. > :24:28.So is his family. This was just before Christmas. He produced a
:24:28. > :24:33.card which he had written in before I have come to see him. It said,
:24:33. > :24:37.happy Christmas on the outside. Inside, it said, two doctors wire
:24:38. > :24:42.and family. Please pray for me and my family. He knows that I'm a
:24:42. > :24:46.Christian. That was quite an extraordinary event, for him to be
:24:46. > :24:50.able to actually want me as somebody from another phase, to
:24:50. > :24:55.pray for him and his family. I was very touched about that and I think
:24:55. > :24:59.it says a lot about him and his attitude. No bitterness or rage.
:24:59. > :25:03.many American relatives were less beginning. This man's son Alexander
:25:03. > :25:08.was a student returning from Europe for Christmas and he feels no
:25:08. > :25:13.sympathy for him. You never feel closure. You lose a 21 yards signed
:25:13. > :25:22.and it is with you for the rest of your life. Am I sad that Megrahi is
:25:22. > :25:27.dead? No. I feel - I was at the trial for almost every day of the
:25:27. > :25:32.trial. There was very little doubt in my mind that he is guilty. And
:25:32. > :25:36.the judge's felt the same way. He was relies so that he could die in
:25:36. > :25:41.the comfort of his family. It is not something that he often does
:25:41. > :25:45.when he murdered our kids. Megrahi's legacy is of an
:25:45. > :25:50.unimaginable crime. But there is a positive legacy as well, among the
:25:50. > :25:54.people of the town where the plane came to earth. The Lockerbie bomber
:25:54. > :25:58.showed a complete disregard for humanity in what they did. It in
:25:58. > :26:02.the way that the people of Lockerbie it responded, there was
:26:02. > :26:05.huge humanity shown. Especially to their American relatives and the
:26:05. > :26:13.way that they cared for their American relatives and
:26:13. > :26:17.relationships that still last to this day. This remembrance garden
:26:17. > :26:23.outside Lockerbie opened one year after the disaster. It's still
:26:23. > :26:29.receives lots of visitors. I think that many connections are still
:26:29. > :26:33.being held. There are still ready- made Segers and visits exchange.
:26:33. > :26:42.And the scholarship that was set up to help to sustain that as well. I
:26:42. > :26:45.think that Lockerbie set about having grasped the enormous see and
:26:45. > :26:50.realising that the culprits were not likely to be hunted down within
:26:50. > :26:58.a couple of weeks, they set about doing what they could do something
:26:58. > :27:03.about - and that was to look after relatives. And, just generally, it
:27:03. > :27:11.sounds trite, but make themselves useful. And that tended to be
:27:11. > :27:18.practical. One of the few undamaged houses in Lockerbie was that of the
:27:18. > :27:23.town's Roman Catholic priest. believed Megrahi in a present, and
:27:23. > :27:29.said that announcing his release, he was prepared to be judged by an
:27:29. > :27:33.authority higher than the Scottish courts. I think that obviously we
:27:33. > :27:37.need to stand before God and be accountable for our actions and I
:27:37. > :27:44.believe what Mr Megrahi told me, that he was prepared to die and
:27:44. > :27:49.stand before he's got as an innocent man. -- is god. The world,
:27:49. > :27:54.and in particular Libya, has changed dramatically since the
:27:54. > :28:00.tragedy of long -- Lockerbie. The regime there which toppled Gaddafi
:28:00. > :28:05.has meant renewed contact between Scotland and Tripoli. It is
:28:05. > :28:11.insisted that Megrahi did not act alone. The Scottish prosecution now
:28:11. > :28:15.hopes that further light may be shed on the conspiracy which caused
:28:15. > :28:19.Scotland's worst peacetime offs of life. Megrahi is has died a