The Lockerbie bombing: Jim Swire's pursuit of justice
Who is Jim Swire? Learn about the man whose personal tragedy led him to become a prominent figure of the Lockerbie bombing disaster of 1988.
Image: Dr Jim Swire | PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo
The Lockerbie bombing is one of the most infamous terrorist attacks in history, as well as the deadliest attack that has ever taken place in the United Kingdom.
In December 1988, a bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 was detonated over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. All 253 passengers and crew of the flight were killed, as were 11 residents of Lockerbie.
The tragedy took many innocent lives, but there were many unanswered questions surrounding the attack. However, one man refused to let the victims – including his daughter Flora – go without justice. Dr. Jim Swire has lobbied tirelessly for answers about the bombings, demanding transparency in the Lockerbie investigation.
Let’s take a closer look at Jim Swire and his dedication to exposing the various issues surrounding the disaster, including a drastic stunt he performed to uncover the lax regulations surrounding airport security.
Who is Dr. Jim Swire?
Jim Swire is an English doctor who resides in the town of Windsor in Berkshire. Swire had three children with his wife, Jane.
Jim's life was a relatively normal one that one might expect from a general practitioner working in the United Kingdom. However, that changed drastically when a tragedy altered the course of his life.
Flora and Pan Am Flight 103
On 21st December 1988, Jim's 23-year-old daughter Flora boarded Pan Am Flight 103 to spend Christmas with her American boyfriend. Shortly after 7pm, the flight exploded over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland. Flora, and everyone else on the plane, was killed.
Jim Swire’s activism
Following Flora’s death, Jim Swire became increasingly disillusioned by the lack of transparency surrounding the investigation of Pan Am Flight 103.
He became a prominent activist and a key figure of the Lockerbie disaster. He spoke for the families of all of those lost in the disaster, but he also asked the tough questions that had been overlooked.
Swire and Abdelbaset al-Megrahi
The bombing was pinned on Libyans Lamin Khalifah Fhimah and Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. However, Jim began to have severe doubts about this, despite initially agreeing with the verdict.
He was incredibly critical of the trial of the two Libyan men, which was held under Scottish law in the Netherlands at Camp Zeist. He drew attention to the lack of transparency within the case, as well as the lack of credible key witnesses and allegations of political interference.
The trial ended in January 2001. Fhimah was acquitted, but Megrahi was convicted. Jim was so affected by this verdict that he fainted in the courtroom and had to be carried out.
He continued to support Megrahi, arguing that his conviction was a severe miscarriage of justice. In 2007, Jim Swire even offered to pay £500,000 for lawyers to prove Megrahi’s innocence.
He went on to found the Justice for Megrahi Campaign. This was established when Megrahi became terminally ill with metastasized prostatic cancer. The goal was to allow him to return to his family before his death.
Megrahi was released through compassionate grounds in August 2009 by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary at the time. He died in 2012 at the age of 60 in Libya.
The fake bomb
Jim Swire is well known for a performative stunt he organised in May 1990, a year and a half after his daughter’s death on Pan Am Flight 103.
In order to demonstrate the weakness of airport security, and the lack of improvement following the disaster, Jim created a fake bomb and took it with him on a flight.
The bomb he made was created with confectionary marzipan – substituting Semtex – and a Toshiba radio cassette player. He took this fake bomb on a British Airways flight that travelled from Heathrow airport in London to JFK airport in New York. After this initial flight, he then brought his fake bomb with him on a flight from JFK to Boston, successfully showing just how lax airport security still was at the time.
While some family members of the other disaster victims agreed with Jim's plan, others did not approve. There were also some families that wanted the stunt kept out of the public eye.
The fake bomb was a symbol that not only demonstrated the various problems with airport security regulations, but also emphasised his personal approach to his activism. The stunt acted as a reflection of Jim's frustrations with the complacency that he believed contributed to the Lockerbie bombing tragedy and the death of his daughter.
