18-05-2025
Who was responsible for The Bombing of Pan Am 103 and the Lockerbie bombing?
The BBC's Lockerbie drama series is a compelling watch
WARNING: This article contains potential spoilers from The Bombing of Pan Am 103
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 starts on BBC One this evening (Sunday, April 18) at 9pm, with the six part series airing over the course of three weeks.
The episodes will be dropping airing on BBC One and streaming on the BBC iPlayer on Sundays and Mondays.
This is the second of two TV dramas about the Lockerbie bombing with Sky's Lockerbie: A Search for Truth fronted by Colin Firth, which came out earlier this year.
Lockerbie: A Search for Truth featured material from Dr Jim Swire's book of the same name. The series followed his attempts to find out the truth behind the terror attack, which claimed the lives of his daughter Flora Swire, along with the other 259 passengers and 11 Lockerbie residents from the bomb explosion and the subsequence aeroplane debris.
Now, Netflix and BBC series The Bombing of Pam Am 103, will show the concerted efforts by teams on both sides of the Atlantic working together in a bid to find out what happened and bring to justice those involved.
Here's a look at those found responsible for the 1988 terrorist attack and the reasons behind the bombing.
Who was responsible for The Bombing of Pan Am 103 in Lockerbie?
The Libyan government and multiple individuals were involved in the Lockerbie bombing, according to Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is the only person convicted over the bombing of Pan Am flight 103.
He was found guilty in 2001 during a trial under Scots Law in the Netherlands at Camp Zeist, considered to be neutral ground for the proceedings.
Al-Megrahi was jailed for life with a minimum of 27 years, initially serving time at Barlinnie Prison in Scotland, before being moved to HM Prison Greenock.
His first appeal in 2001 failed and he ended his second appeal in 2009 because it would affect a Prisoner Transfer Scheme that would allow him to return to Libya.
In 2009, Megrahi was released from prison on compassionate grounds after suffering from terminal prostate cancer. He died at his home in Tripoli, Libya aged 60 in 2012.
A third posthumous appeal came about in 2020 but was rejected by judges in 2021.
According to Libya's former justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the nation's former leader Colonel Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing.
The politician told Swedish newspaper Expressen in 2011: "To hide it, he [Gaddafi] did everything in his power to get al-Megrahi back from Scotland."
In 2003, leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi accepted Libya was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims' families.
However, he never personally admitted to giving the order for the attack.
There's now been a new development. Libyan national Abu Agila Mas'ud is alleged to have helped make the bomb that was detonated on the Pan Am 103 flight.
He was originally due to go on trial in Washington on May 12 this year, but the legal process has now been delayed due to submissions from both the prosecution and defence.
What was the reason for the Lockerbie bombing?
The terrorist attack was aimed at the USA. Of the passengers on the Pan Am flight, 190 were American and the rest were from 20 countries including 43 British people.
There's been speculation that the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 was a retaliatory attack against the USA for bombing Libya's capital Tripoli in 1986.
The bombardment resulted in the death of Gaddafi's infant daughter, who was around five or six months at the time, according to Britannica.
The 1986 US bombings themselves had been in retaliation for Libya's perceived terrorist activities after a bomb exploded in West Berlin at the nightclub frequented by American soldiers.
Relations between the USA and Libya were strained as far back as 1969 after Gaddafi's coup, when the military leader removed American oil companies and nationalised them.
Things deteriorated further in the 1970s when a mob attacked and set fire to the US Embassy in Tripoli in 1979, leading America to designate Libya a a "state sponsor of terrorism" the same year.
During the 1980s, this relationship got worse with the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing and the subsequent US airstrikes and then the Lockerbie bombing.
In 2003, hostile relations between the two nations began to settle and normalise with the lifting of a 23-year travel ban to Libya.
Sadly, things again became strained in 2011 with the Libyan Civil War when the Gaddafi regime was overthrown.
Since 2011, there has been instability in the country following the collapse of Gaddafi's regime with political divisions and violent clashes.
