17/12/1998
Channel 4, UK

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21.30   DISPATCHES


Lockerbie
Who is responsible for the biggest mass murder in British history? Ten 
years ago this week Pan Am Flight 103 blew up in mid-air over Lockerbie. 
Dispatches sends reporter DAVID JESSEL on a world wide trail to uncover 
new clues to the mystery and re-examines the crucial forensic evidence 
in the case against the two Libyans accused of the bombing. 
In Scotland the painstaking investigation quickly unearthed critical 
clues in the search for the guilty men. First, as forensic scientists 
sifted through the wreckage, they found a suitcase which contained a 
radio cassette player. The police revealed that the explosive and timer 
that had downed Pan Am flight 103 had been hidden inside the radio 
cassette. TOM THURMAN, a senior explosives expert at the FBI crime lab 
in Washington, identified the fragment. His analysis contended that a 
fragment of circuit board found at Lockerbie came from the timer that 
detonated the bomb. He said the timer came from a Swiss company and that 
it was one of twenty that had been supplied to Libya. 

Dispatches has carried out a new analysis of that evidence with the help 
of independent explosives experts. The results are in startling contrast 
to the analysis made by Thurman. 

Tom Thurman left the FBI lab last December following severe criticism of 
his forensic performance in several other high profile cases, including 
the notorious World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings. Dispatches 
questions him for the first time about the accuracy of his findings in 
the Lockerbie case. 

Dispatches also goes on to examine a second key plank of evidence. The 
prosecution maintain that the bomb was placed on board a flight from 
Malta to Frankfurt by the Libyans and then transferred to Pan Am 103. 
Terrorism experts have always believed this too complicated an 
explanation and Air Malta has always insisted their documentation 
accounts for all the luggage on board the flight in question. 

David Jessel, who usually presents Channel 4's miscarriage of justice 
series Trial and Error, examines the evidence against the two Libyans 
accused of the bombing. 

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