Jim Swire
Dr Jim Swire was born in 1936 in Windsor in Berkshire. He was educated at Eton College and studied at Cambridge University. From Cambridge he was commissioned into the British army as an engineer specialising in munitions and explosives. Having completed his short-service commission, he then decided to change direction and returned to university, this time to Birmingham, to study medicine.
His daughter, Flora Swire, was killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Doctor of Medicine
Dr Jim Swire became a family doctor, and moved to Bromsgrove in Worcestershire where he practised medicine as a GP. He married his Cambridge sweet-heart, Jane, in 1961. They had two daughters, Flora and Cathy, and a son, William.
December 21, 1988
On December 20, 1988 Dr Swire's 24-year-old daughter Flora, who wanted to fly to the US to spend Christmas with her American boyfriend, had little difficulty in booking a seat on the next day's transatlantic Pan Am Flight 103. Flora's parents were horrified when they heard on the evening news that her Pan Am flight had crashed at Lockerbie, Scotland and that there were no survivors. Despite the usually busy Christmas period the Boeing 747 jumbo jet was only 2/3rds full, with 243 passengers and 16 flight crew. Eleven residents of Lockerbie, who were killed by the plummeting aircraft, brought the total number of fatalities to 270.
UK Families Flight 103
The 270 Pan Am 103 victims came from 21 countries.
In February 1989, the U.S. group Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 was formed to represent the interests of the families of the 189 American victims.[1]
The same year, the British relatives founded their own campaigning group, UK Families Flight 103 (UKF103), to press for a public inquiry into the crash, and to seek truth and justice for all of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103.
In the British media, in radio and TV interviews, and in letters to newspapers, the spokesman for UKF103 would, more often than not, be Dr Jim Swire.
Initial Inquiries
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) of Britain's Department of Transport immediately started an investigation. The AAIB quickly found evidence at the scene of the crash indicating that it was not an accident but that the aircraft had been brought down by an explosion. From parts of the aircraft fuselage retrieved from the Lockerbie vicinity, the AAIB began a painstaking reconstruction of the jumbo jet in an aircraft hangar at Longtown, Cumbria.
On September 29, 1989 U.S. President George H. W. Bush set up the President's Commission into Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST) to look into the security measures needed in the light of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing. The PCAST report was presented to the President on May 5, 1990 and its recommendations were widely reported.[2]
A Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) into the Lockerbie bombing was conducted in Scotland by Sheriff Principal John Mowatt QC in October 1990. Disappointingly for Dr Swire and for UKF103, the FAI was – like an inquest – concerned with simply establishing the facts of the Lockerbie bombing, rather than discovering why it happened and who did it.
UKF103 renewed its demand for a public inquiry into all of the unresolved aspects of the bombing.
Bombing investigation
Ultimate responsibility for the criminal investigation rested with the Scottish Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who combined the political role of Conservative cabinet minister with his judicial role as Scotland's chief prosecutor. Three years after the crash, the investigation into the bombing of PA 103 was abruptly and unexpectedly concluded, with Lord Fraser and his U.S. counterpart announcing in November 1991 the indictment of two Libyans for the crime. Libya was instructed to surrender Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah for trial in either Britain or the United States.
Dr Swire was not entirely convinced by this indictment, but considered the Lockerbie relatives' search for truth and justice could be advanced if there were to be a trial, and especially if the trial were to be held in Scotland.
Facilitating the trial
There was no extradition treaty between any of the countries involved: Britain, the U.S. and Libya, and Libyan law prevented the extradition of its citizens in any case.
However, under the 1971 Montreal Convention which deals with prosecutions relating to aircrashes, Libya offered to detain the two accused and prosecute them. The offer was turned down by the U.S. and Britain and there was an impasse for the next three years in bringing the accused to trial.
Early in 1994, Professor Robert Black of Edinburgh University proposed a solution whereby the two Libyans would be prosecuted under Scots law but in a neutral country. When, later in 1994, newly-elected president Nelson Mandela offered South Africa as the neutral venue, the proposal was rejected out of hand by the then British prime minister, John Major.
It took another three years until the election of a Labour government in Britain for any headway to be made. The new foreign secretary, Robin Cook, while initially taking the line that a neutral country was not possible under Scots law, met UKF103 and with much support from president Nelson Mandela went along with the proposed solution. Dr Swire was said to have been baffled as to how Cook and prime minister, Tony Blair, managed to persuade the Americans to agree.
In the latter part of 1997 Dr Swire and Professor Black decided to lobby internationally for support of Black's proposal and visited Egypt and Libya. Dr Swire went to America, the United Nations, Germany, back to Libya and then visited key cities throughout the United Kingdom. Eventually the Dutch government offered a choice of sites, and Camp Zeist, Netherlands was chosen to become Scottish territory for the duration of criminal proceedings.
The accused were handed over to Scottish police at Camp Zeist in May 1999, and the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial finally began on May 5, 2000. Dr Swire was present for whole trial and when the verdicts were announced on January 31, 2001, acquitting Fhimah and convicting Megrahi, Swire fainted and had to be carried from the courtroom.
Truth and justice
Neither the trial nor Megrahi's subsequent unsuccessful appeal (verdict announced on March 14, 2002) convinced any of the UKF103 relatives that justice had been done or that they were anywhere nearer the truth surrounding the Lockerbie bombing. They, and Professor Black of Edinburgh University, therefore pressed the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to refer Megrahi's case back to the High Court of Justiciary for a fresh appeal.
Meeting Megrahi
Megrahi is serving his 27-year sentence in Greenock prison, Scotland. Dr Swire met Megrahi for the first time on Wednesday November 16, 2005 and spent an hour with him in the governor's office. The purpose of the meeting, according to Dr Swire, was to ask Megrahi whether he would still press for the SCCRC to continue its review of his case if rumours of Megrahi's likely repatriation to Libya to serve the remainder of his sentence proved to be correct. Dr Swire said:
- "Megrahi was happy for me to make it known that he is determined to pursue a review of the case, no matter what might evolve concerning his future detention. It is very important to the members of UKF103 campaign group that there be a full review of the entire Lockerbie scenario through an appropriately powered and independent inquiry, but absence of a further review of the court case would also damage our search for truth and justice."
Dr Swire added that even if Megrahi did not continue with his appeal bid, UKF103 would press the SCCRC to review the case, as interested parties.[3]
Fathers seek answers
In March 2006, Dr Swire met Iain McKie – the father of policewoman Shirley McKie who was wrongly accused by SCRO fingerprint experts of leaving her thumb print at a murder scene in 1997. Mr McKie said he hoped to raise up to £100,000 from the public to lobby for a judicial inquiry into his daughter's case, which has been alleged to have links with the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial. Dr Swire and Mr McKie want the inquiry to investigate not only these links but also a number of other questions such as the role of Harry Bell, the former head of the SCRO and a key person in the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Dr Swire said he, the McKie family and observers all over the world needed the answers to these questions:
- "The reputation of our country and its criminal justice system will depend upon how these cases are sorted out."[4]
Second appeal
On June 28, 2007 the SCCRC announced the completion of its four-year review. It decided that Megrahi's conviction could have been a miscarriage of justice and granted him leave for a second appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal. Swire was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme a few hours before the SCCRC announced its decision.[5] Megrahi's second appeal is expected to be heard at the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2008.
United Nations Inquiry
On November 5, 2007, Dr Swire joined Professor Black and Iain McKie in signing an online petition to prime minister Gordon Brown calling for a United Nations Inquiry into the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.[6]
See also
- Alternative theories into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
- Hans Köchler's Lockerbie trial observer mission
- The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie