Libyan dictator 'personally ordered' Lockerbie bombing

Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has been accused of personally ordering the Lockerbie bombing by former justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil.

Abdel-Jalil claims he has proof that the Libyan leader was behind the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Scotland, which killed 270 people.

He told a journalist for Swedish newspaper Expressen that Gaddafi personally conversed with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and ordered him to carry out the attack.

Colonel Gaddafi accepted Libya's responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims' families in 2003. However, this is the first time that he has been seen as directly behind the attack.

Abdel-Jalil claimed that: "To hide it, he [Gaddafi] did everything in his power to get al-Megrahi back from Scotland."

Al-Megrahi had been in prison in Scotland since 2001 for his role in the attack but was controversially released at the end of 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

The motivations behind his release have been at the centre of controversy ever since 2009. Critics have claimed that it was related to an oil deal between BP and Libya.

In Wikileaks cables, released in December 2010, it was revealed that the British government had feared retaliation from Libya if al-Megrahi died in prison in the UK. It was alleged Gaddafi had made “thuggish” warnings to British diplomats.

A US prostate specialist told Congress that the report on al-Megrahi’s health, in which UK doctors claimed he had three months to live, was “ridiculous”.

The Wikileaks cable also revealed that American diplomats were concerned about the Scottish National Party’s motives.

Robin Naysmith, who served as the SNP's representative in Washington, said Alex Salmond was shocked by the US outcry. As previously reported by The Journal, there have been increasingly frosty relations between some US senators and the SNP.

A relative of one of the American victims last month said the claims confirmed her suspicions about Tripoli’s culpability.

Lisa Gibson, of Colorado Springs, lost her 20-year-old brother Ken in the bombing. She said: “I’m not surprised for him to say that Gaddafi is responsible because ultimately we know that.”

In the UK, anguish over the Lockerbie disaster is still rife. Following the bombing over twenty years ago, relatives described the experience of hearing the names of the dead as "gut-wrenching" but insisted it was important that every single one was read out.

When the new allegations became public, deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives Murdo Fraser said: “Given the events of recent days many people will find this a disturbing but believable claim. If true, it makes all the more questionable the role of the last Labour Government’s drive to do all it could to send al-Megrahi back to Tripoli.”

When questioned by The Journal, the Scottish Government were brief in their response to the new allegations against Gaddafi. A spokesperson said of the al-Megrahi sentencing: “Ministers have never doubted the safety of the conviction.”