Lockerbie father "optimistic" about trial

BBC news: 26.October 1997

The father of one of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing has said he is "more optimistic than for years" of progress towards a trial of two suspects.

Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the bombing and who is a spokesman for the British relatives of those who died, is due to meet Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.

The meeting follows comments made by the South African president Nelson Mandela at the Commonwealth summit in Edinburgh. He said that justice would not be seen to be done if Lockerbie bombing suspects were tried in Scotland.

Mr Swire, speaking on BBC 1's Breakfast with Frost, welcomed Mr Mandela's intervention. Looking forward to his meeting with Mr Cook, Mr Swire said: "The situation is very different under New Labour then under the Conservatives. I cannot imagine myself being asked to meet the Foreign Secretary at short notice as has happened here."

However, he warned: "The Government is in a very difficult position. "They've inherited a multi-year problem, which is a really difficult thing to resolve, and they're linked by several years to what America's position is. Any decision to change the British position would have to be considered in the context of our friendship with America."

Saying some American relatives were now accepting Libya's compromise offer, Mr Swire said he would be happy to see a Scottish court sitting in a neutral country, possibly in The Hague, to try the suspects. "It's my impression that Robin Cook has not been very well-advised when he says it would be impossible to do that.I think it's perfectly feasible to hold a Scottish court in a neutral country."

However, Mr Cook, interviewed later on Breakfast with Frost, played down the prospects that the Government would agree to a neutral third-country trial. But he invited nations with concerns to visit Scotland to study its justice systems, and to send monitors to observe an eventual trial.

He agreed trial in a neutral country would be better than none at all in Scotland, America or London: "But it would be better to have the trial in Scotland, before a Scottish court and a Scottish jury. This search for a neutral country misses the point. I am absolutely confident that a Scottish court would provide an impartial trial."

There were "big difficulties ... formidable problems" in the idea of moving to another country. UK law would need to be changed to let Scottish court meet outside Scotland, and, if held in The Hague, Dutch law would also have to be changed to allow the hearing under Scottish law.

There could be no jury trial, since Scottish men and women could not be "conscripted to spend the several months of the hearing in another country." He added the US would also have to agree to the move, since it had much of the relevant evidence.