Lockerbie bombing: We need an objective Holyrood inquiry

WHAT we have heard in the last 24 hours is further, extremely significant scientific evidence. It appears to show that the evidence found in the third quarter of 1989 – the circuit board fragment – was not consistent with the digital timer that the prosecution alleged to have been used.

That timer was crucial to the prosecution case.

However, at the heart of this case is this extraordinary coincidence:

We know that Heathrow was broken into 16 hours before the explosion over Lockerbie. That break-in occurred in Terminal Three close to where Pan Am flight 103 would be boarded up with suitcases.

Whoever broke in may have left a bomb. It’s speculation, but it is entirely feasible.

Nothing is known about it, because it was not investigated.

We also know that people working for Ahmed Jibril, a Palestinian who broke away from most other Palestinian groups, had manufactured timers that could be triggered by flying above a certain altitude for three-quarters of an hour.

The Lockerbie bomb exploded 40 minutes after it left the terminal at Heathrow.

That bomb could not have been flown by Mr al-Megrahi from Frankfurt, let alone Malta, as it would have exploded en route.

All of this leads me to believe that Mr al-Megrahi was not the Lockerbie bomber.

I saw him in December and he is a very sick man. He finds it difficult to speak, but he is clear in his own mind.

What I would like to see now is an objective inquiry that I can trust, and that must be by the Scottish Government.

Have a look at the facts, have a look at the evidence, and come to a conclusion.

This can be done in this country, in Scotland.

Many pieces of evidence now point to the Crown Office having withheld things that should have been disclosed.

• Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, is a member of the campaign group Justice For Megrahi.