THE father of a Lockerbie bombing victim says a new TV drama based on his quest to find the truth is “beautifully considerate” of the relatives of those who died in the atrocity.
Dr Jim Swire, who with his wife Jane lives in Chipping Campden, has spent 35 years campaigning for justice after the death of his 23-year-old daughter Flora in the 1988 bombing of a Pan-Am jet flying from London to New York.
It was 21st December and talented medical student Flora had booked seats on Flight 103 at the last minute, after deciding to spend the holiday in the US with her boyfriend.
The bomb was in a suitcase in the hold and exploded 38 minutes after take-off, claiming the lives of all 259 people on board, as well as 11 people in the Scottish town of Lockerbie, where the jumbo jet crashed.
Former GP Dr Swire co-wrote a book, The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father’s Search for Justice, which has been adapted into the five-part series, currently streaming on Sky Atlantic, starring Colin Firth.
The 88-year-old says The King’s Speech actor’s portrayal of himself in Lockerbie: A Search for Truth is so accurate, it “elicited my memories of how it had really been at the time”.
He said: “The thing that struck me most about this drama is the beautifully considerate way in which the work was done, in terms of its effect upon us British relatives of victims.
“It follows incredibly closely what happened to us and our emotions during those 36 years since the disaster happened.”
But he added: “It is not about providing light entertainment, and I would ask people to please remember it’s about the brutal murder of 270 people, each one loved dearly.”
A poignant moment, faithfully replicated, is when Dr Swire and Jane meet with the then minister of transport Cecil Parkinson.
Catherine McCormack, as Jane, brings the conversation to a halt by calmly pointing out what would have happened to passengers, including Flora, on that flight after the bomb went off.
Dr Swire said: “That is one of the turning points in the drama, because it brutally drags the attention of those watching back to the fact that this is about nothing but a total tragedy, an avoidable one at that, where innocent people were hurled out of an aeroplane at 31,000 feet – and anyone watching can’t escape that realisation.”
After being elected spokesperson for the group of British relatives, UK Families Flight 103, his dogged determination to get to the bottom of what happened, led to decades of media appearances and an investigation that took him around the world. This attracted hate mail and put enormous strain on the rest of the family, prompting Jane at one point to plead with him to stop.
A low point was losing his job as a GP in Bromsgrove for not devoting enough time to the practice.
He explained: “The tragedy from day one was that there was no way we could bring our daughter, or any of the other victims, back to life.
Dr Jim Swire, the father of Flora Swire who died in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, arrives at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday March 27, 2015. A hearing will take place at a later date to decide whether relatives of Lockerbie bombing victims could pursue an appeal on behalf of the only man convicted of the atrocity. A group of British relatives maintain they have a “legitimate interest” in trying to get the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi back before a court for a full appeal. They believe the Libyan, who died protesting his innocence in his home country in 2012, was the victim of a miscarriage of justice and say his conviction should be overturned. See PA story COURTS Lockerbie. Photo credit should read: Danny Lawson/PA Wire
“Our lovely girl Flora was murdered so brutally for no reason connected to what she was doing with her young life. My way of coping was to try to find out as much as I could of the truth of why it had happened, why it hadn’t been prevented, and why, in my view, the powers-that-be still refuse to acknowledge they have made terrible mistakes.”
Dr Swire’s pursuit of the facts led to the discovery there was a warning about a bomb on a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt sent to security services two weeks before the atrocity, but officials failed to pass it on quickly or take it seriously enough.
In contrast, US embassy and diplomatic staff swapped flights as a precaution, which he believes was probably why Flora was able to book a last-minute seat – the flight was only two-thirds full.
He even carried a fake bomb onto an aircraft in 1990, to demonstrate security was still alarmingly lax.
When the trail led to the murky world of international politics and terrorism, Dr Swire flew out five times to meet Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi, dubbed the “mad dog of the Middle East” by the then US president Ronald Reagan.
His first face-to-face encounter with Gadaffi was at the tyrant’s home in Tripoli, watched by a ring of deadly female bodyguards armed with Kalashnikovs.
Knowing Gadaffi’s daughter Hannah had been killed when she was four in a bombing raid by US air forces, Dr Swire deliberately took photographs of Flora at the same age. Incredibly, he even pinned a badge with the message ‘Pam Am 103 – the truth must be known’ onto the dictator’s jacket.
He said: “Everybody says, ‘You must be very brave’ but it wasn’t like that at all. I was so full of determination to try and get to the bottom of this, that was the dominant thing, rather than fear.”
Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court in the Netherlands, of 270 counts of murder for the bombing. He was jailed for life but released on compassionate grounds in 2009.
But Dr Swire and other bereaved UK families believe Lockerbie was an act of retaliation by Iran after an Iranian plane was shot down by US missile cruiser in July 1988 – killing 290 people.
He said: “What we as the UK relatives have done is to try to follow the truth as best we could. However, the truth we have found leads to something very different from the truth peddled by politicians in the west for 36 years.”
Asked if the couple feel supported by their community in Chipping Campden, Dr Swire replied: “A thousand times yes – they’ve been very supportive.”
– A Libyan suspected of helping to make the Lockerbie bomb, Abu Agila Masud, is due to go on trial in the US in May.