Lockerbie bombing: three conspiracy theories

Was it a CIA hit, an Iranian revenge mission, or the work of the Osama bin Laden of the 1980s?

Lockerbie bombing
Wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The growing furore over the Scottish government's decision to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan accused and convicted of carrying out the Lockerbie bombing, has refocused attention on the tragedy and who was culpable.

Pan Am flight 103 was on its way from Heathrow to New York JFK on the night of December 21, 1988 when it was brought down over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire by an explosion. All 259 people on board the Boeing 747-121 were killed, as were 11 people on the ground.

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is production editor of The First Post. He has written for the Daily Mirror, Dazed & Confused and Sleaze Nation, and has contributed to books on music.