Lockerbie: Did someone else bomb Pan Am 103?
And there are others who
believe that Megrahi, who died on Sunday from cancer, was not
responsible for bringing down the jet over Scotland in 1988, including
some of the victims' families.
Why does the tragedy continue to raise questions? CNN examines the issues.
1. Why was al Megrahi convicted?
After a nine-month trial
that concluded in January 2001, a Scottish court based in a former U.S.
base at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, convicted al Megrahi of the
murders and he was sentenced to life in prison with the condition that
he serve at least 27 years before being eligible for parole. Scotland
does not have the death penalty.
The trial followed years
of negotiation with Libya, after British and American investigators
indicted two men for the crime in 1991.
The U.S. and UK blamed
both al Megrahi, who was once security chief for Libyan Arab Airlines,
and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah -- accusing them both of being Libyan
intelligence agents.
Libya eventually handed
over both men to the United Nations in 1999 and later paid $2.7 billion
to victims' families. Sanctions against Moammar Gadhafi's regime were
lifted on the same day the men were taken into custody.
At al Megrahi's trial,
prosecutors said he placed a bomb in a Toshiba cassette recorder and
hid it in suitcase on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, Germany. The
bag was believed to have been transferred to a Pan Am flight that went
first to London Heathrow and then to Flight 103 to New York.
The prosecution
maintained that al Megrahi, who worked at the Malta airport, had been
seen buying clothes, fragments of which were found in the suitcase that
contained the bomb.
Al Megrahi was found guilty but Fhimah was acquitted.
Many of the victim's
families believe the right man was convicted and expressed a mixture of
relief on hearing of al Megrahi's death and anger that he had been
released from his sentence.
Susan Cohen, whose daughter was among the 189 Americans killed, said: "He was a mass murderer. I feel no pity."
2. Why was he released early?
In August 2009, eight
years after al Megrahi's conviction, there was uproar when Scottish
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill announced that he would be released
from prison on compassionate grounds because he was suffering from
terminal prostate cancer.
His release -- and the
celebrations that greeted him on his return to Libya -- sparked
condemnation from the United States, and from some victims' families.
Despite being given
just a few months to live, he survived for more than two years,
sparking anger against the Scottish authorities and accusations in the
British press that a deal had been struck with Libya. A group of U.S.
senators then attempted to investigate rumors that the Lockerbie bomber
was released as part of a deal to allow BP to drill for oil off the
coast of Libya.
On Sunday, British
Prime Minister David Cameron reiterated his belief that al Megrahi
should never have been released from prison.
But Scotland's First
Minister Alex Salmond said al Megrahi's death put to rest "some of the
conspiracy theories which have attempted to suggest that his illness
was somehow manufactured."
3. Why is al Megrahi's guilt questioned?
In an interview with Reuters in 2011 al Megrahi vowed that "new facts" would come to light. He always maintained his innocence.
After al Megrahi lodged
an appeal whilst still in prison, the evidence was reviewed by the
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. New evidence uncovered
during the investigation and other evidence not submitted at al
Megrahi's original trial led the review commission to state that he
"may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."
The commission said
there was no reasonable basis to suspect that al Megrahi purchased the
clothes in Malta on the day alleged. It also said evidence that the
clothes shop owner had seen al Megrahi's picture in a magazine article
that linked him to the bombing before picking him out in a lineup was
not put to the court.
The U.N. observer at
the trial, Hans Kochler, has also called into question the verdict,
telling the UK's Independent newspaper in 2009 that he believed al
Megrahi to be innocent.
"I watched a case
unfold that was based on circumstantial evidence. The indictment
against him and Fhimah went to great lengths to explain how they
supposedly planted a bomb on Flight 103, and yet Fhimah was acquitted
of all the charges against him. It made no sense that al Megrahi was
guilty when Fhimah was acquitted," he said.
Jim Swire, whose
daughter Flora died on the Pan Am flight, has also expressed doubt
about al Megrahi's guilt and is a member of the Justice for Megrahi
Campaign.
CNN's Nic Robertson,
who tracked down al Megrahi in Libya during the uprising against
Gadhafi, spoke to his family in August 2011. They told him they
believed al-Megrahi was the victim of both international justice and
the regime of the ousted Libyan leader, who they say used him as a
scapegoat.
4. Are there other suspects?
Robertson says about
the case: "There are forensic inconsistencies. There are so many holes
in the evidence. There are serious questions that have not been
answered.
"According to my
Jordanian source, the Jordanians had an agent inside the cell that
operated inside Germany. The agent was the bomb maker. He made five
bombs to go in transistor radios but informed his handlers that one was
missing. The CIA said 'nonsense, all bombs are accounted for.' Scottish
investigators were never able to interview that cell."
TV producer and author
John Ashton has spent many years studying the case, and worked as a
researcher with al Megrahi's defense team between 2006 and 2009. He
believes al Megrahi was innocent and presents his reasons in his book
"Megrahi: You are my jury - the Lockerbie evidence.'"
He believes that Iran
is the likely suspect behind the bombing, using the Palestinian group
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command
(PFLP-GC) to carry out the attack.
He told CNN he believed
the group operated from Damascus but had a cell inside Germany, and
alleges the attack was in revenge for the accidental shooting down of
an Iranian passenger jet by the Americans in July 1988 with the loss of
290 lives. Missiles from USS Vincennes hit the plane as it flew over
the Persian Gulf.
In his book he presents
what he says is new evidence about the Lockerbie bomb's timing device
but says this has been ignored by investigating authorities.
5. Where is the investigation going next?
On Monday, Scotland's
First Minister told British media that the Lockerbie case was still a
live investigation. But new evidence may be hard to find.
Saif Gadhafi, Moammar
Gadhafi's son, who is in custody in Libya and wanted by the
International Criminal Court to face charges of alleged crimes against
humanity, will have the facts, according to Robertson.
"He was heading up the
campaign to free al Megrahi," he said. "He will know whether or not
this was a Libyan operation, accepting the blame for the bombing as the
price of admission for doing business -- a way to sell Libyan oil
again."
He also suggests that the former head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, currently held in Mauritania, may know more.
"Al-Senussi as the head
of Libyan intelligence would perhaps have had broader knowledge behind
some of the issues relating to this particular case," he said.
But Ashton remains pessimistic about finding the whole truth.
"I'm not confident that we will get evidence that will stand up in court ... leads have gone cold," he told CNN.
"One hope is Syria. If the Syrian government crumbles then evidence may emerge from there, but I would be surprised."
Before al Megrahi's
death, Kochler told the British press: "We will probably never really
know who caused the Lockerbie bombing. So much key information was
withheld from the trial. The British have yet satisfactorily to explain
why.
"I want to know when
the bomb was placed on the plane and by whom. I find it very difficult
to understand why there seems to be so little pressure from the British
and American public on their governments to investigate the bombing
properly."
