Lockerbie culprit

Both the judiciary and the families of those lost in the atrocity hoped the Arab Spring might eventually reveal who was actually responsible for the bombing.

Now an Al Jazeera documentary produced by the much-respected investigative reporters Bill Cran and Christopher Jeans appears to have conclusive evidence it was indeed Iran.

Abolghassem Mesbahi, an intelligence chief reporting to the Iranian president before his defection, confirms the attack was in retaliation for the Vincennes incident. The original CIA investigation had believed the motivation was the loss of Iran Air 655 and that Ahmed Jibril, the Syrian head of the PFLP-GC was the mastermind.

It suddenly changed tack when the first Gulf War made it essential to keep Syria on board and the West’s default patsy – Gadaffi’s Libya – became the improbable suspect.

Dr Jim Swire of the British victims’ families has long argued the Iranian scenario and it clears the name of that most unlikely “terrorist”: the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

(Dr) John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews