Malta would continue to stick to its long-held stand that the Lockerbie bomb did not leave from Luqa airport, Justice Minister Chris Said has insisted.
“Since 1988, successive governments have insisted that, according to our records, the bomb did not leave Malta. We are still firm in that conviction,” Dr Said told The Times in view of fresh evidence released by the Scottish authorities.
However, the government does not seem to be interested in petitioning the Scottish authorities to re-open the Lockerbie investigation “at least to clear Malta’s name”, as requested by Labour foreign affairs spokesman George Vella.
Dr Said skirted the issue when asked but added: “We cannot ignore that there were two judgements on (Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi). The fact that the second appeal was initiated does show that doubts persist on the verdicts. Unfortunately, it was not concluded.”
A report by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission that was made public this week established that Mr Megrahi, the man convicted of the bombing, may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
It also shed doubt on the credibility of a key Maltese witness, Sliema shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who had identified Mr Megrahi as the man he sold clothes to. Fragments of the clothes were found in the remains of the suitcase that contained the bomb.
The Scottish commission had initiated its investigation that laid the groundwork for a review of Mr Megrahi’s appeal but the matter never went beyond the extensive report because the Libyan national was released from jail – where he was serving life – on compassionate grounds in 2009.
Investigators had argued that an unaccompanied suitcase carrying the bomb and containing clothing bought from Mr Gauci’s shop was placed on board an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt, where it eventually made it to Heathrow before being loaded onto the fatal Pan-Am flight 103.
The aircraft exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.