Has any government, including (especially) our own ever told the American the truth?

Take up a collection from the victims, Put a contract out on him. Done. Come on! This mass murderer is walking free in a third world country with security that cant get out of their own way. Just take him out. Simple. If Lybians have a problem with that, send in a few cruise missiles...

The world needs to know, if you mess with america, you pay the price.

this country scotland is represented here by their cowardly actions taken today, let us remember that this is the same population that upon arriving at the remains of the dead and scrap of the crash began to loot and desicrate the bodies and property they found. i am sure that i will be velified for making this comment but one only has to look at the archives to verify my info. i am further dis hearted by having a commander and chief who epresses a reluctance to using the word victory when discribing our military achievements, nevermind his idiotic allusion to the emperor of japan being forced to sign the armistice. he wasn't even there you morons who want to bestow upon this pres the mantle of un-touchability.

I feel sorry for the victims but for me more and more it seems to have been an inside job as well as 9/11.

It is a pity that USA (Driven by ultra rights in background) has become the most agressive country in the world, only now with a smarter face, Obama

This is a blatant statement of how America and its government honor and protect their own citizens! With friends like this, who needs an enemy? OIL & GAS is more important than American lives and WE are the ones that make this country great because WE are the worker bees? Without us the politicals would be looking at am empty plate! This is unforgivable, particularly for the ones left behind that still grieve the loss of their loved ones - this, too, is a heinous act, and by our own!!! For what? Money, that's what!!

Will the truth ever come out?

Many believe the man convicted for the bombing was a political scapegoat, but here's the real story behind Pan Am Flight 103

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds, although welcomed by many campaigners in Britain, means we are no further forward in terms of establishing the truth regarding the Lockerbie bombing.

For many, Megrahi was a convenient scapegoat, deflecting attention away from a wealth of evidence which would bring into question the official version of events.

This suspicion has deepened with the suggestion that Megrahi had been forced to withdraw his appeal against conviction or be refused leave to return to Libya to see out his dying days.

An estimated 600 pages of evidence, much of which may prove Megrahi's innocence, has been withheld from the public.

The families of British victims of the bombing are understandably dismayed that, with the withdrawal of the appeal, the best chance to have the evidence exposed has faded.

Although we cannot know the exact details of what the withheld documents contain, there is enough evidence already in the public domain to raise serious questions over the Libyan's conviction and why he was fitted up for a crime he almost certainly did not commit.

In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, investigations centred on Iran, Syria and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) - the secular resistance group founded by George Habash.

Three weeks before the Lockerbie bombing, German anti-terror officers arrested Marwan Khreesat, a known bomb-maker with links to the PFLP. He was released, apparently due to lack of evidence, but in April 1989 further raids discovered two more bombs designed by Khreesat, both of which were specifically made for targeting aircraft.

Among those arrested were a number of Palestinians with links to the PFLP-GC.

PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril was at that time under the protection of Syria.

It has been suggested that Jibril was assigned the Lockerbie bombing by the Iranian regime in revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian Airbus passenger plane by the USS Vincennes earlier in 1988 with the loss of 290 lives.

During the German arrests, a Toshiba tape-recorder packed with Semtex was discovered. Pieces of a similar model recorder were discovered among the Lockerbie debris. One of the Palestinian group, Abu Talb, is known to have been in Malta shortly before the bombing.

Despite the large amount of evidence pointing to Iranian or Syrian involvement, these lines of inquiry abruptly ended, apparently with a phone call from George Bush Senior to Margaret Thatcher warning her to stop Scottish police digging.

It is argued that the pending invasion of Iraq required the support of Iran and Syria, both of whom had pariah status a year earlier, and that therefore exposing their involvement in the atrocity was not helpful.

A politically expedient scapegoat was sought.

Libya fitted neatly into the frame. It was commonly regarded as a terrorist state with a history of funding and supporting armed groups including the IRA and its leader Muammar Gaddafi had been branded a "mad dog" by Ronald Reagan.

Two years earlier the US had bombed Gaddafi's residence in Tripoli, killing his adopted daughter. There also remained the unresolved issue of the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher at the Libyan embassy in London.

In addition, Libya was the only Middle Eastern state to openly support Iraq during the US-led invasion.

As this seismic shift in political alliances occurred, new evidence conveniently appeared, in the form of a fragment of circuitboard from a timing device, apparently discovered in the remote Scottish countryside after the bombing.

This fragment was reportedly traced by the FBI to a swiss manufacturer who sold timers to Libya.

In November 1991, indictments for murder were issued against Megrahi, who was head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), and Lamin Khafilah Fhimah, Maltese station manager for LAA.

Crippling United Nations-imposed sanctions eventually forced Libya to hand over the two men in 1999 in exchange for the lifting of the embargo.

Libya also agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims of the bombings, although it has been argued that this was not, as has been claimed, an admission of guilt but rather a way of having the punitive sanctions removed.

The two accused men were handed over to Scottish custody at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

The trial at Camp Zeist, before a panel of three Scottish judges, was a farce.

Megrahi was convicted solely on the spurious and lucrative evidence of a Maltese shop-owner who claimed the Libyan had bought items of clothing from his store weeks prior to the bombing.

These items, which had been found in the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103, had been traced back to the shop of Tony Gauci.

Megrahi's co-accused Lamin Khafilah Fhimah was acquitted on the same evidence after a so-called "Libyan defector," in the pay of the CIA, was wholly discredited.

Investigative reporter Paul Foot commented at the time: "His testimony was such a fantastic farrago of lies and fantasies that it was thrown out by the Scottish judges."

Gauci was also handsomely paid for his "evidence" to the court but even then gave a wildly inaccurate description of the man whom he claimed had bought the clothes from his shop.

In addition, little if any evidence was provided to explain how Megrahi had allegedly secreted a suitcase bomb on a feeder flight in Malta, which was then transferred twice through Frankfurt and Heathrow airports undetected.

The claim that an explosive device was physically handled through three airports without suspicions arising is ludicrous.

Police investigating the atrocity had even been told by a security guard at Heathrow that a Pan Am baggage storage area at the airport had been broken into on the night of the bombing.

This, one would have thought, should have set major alarm bells ringing and added massive weight to the long-argued hypothesis that the bomb was placed on the flight at Heathrow, not Malta.

This evidence, given in a sworn affidavit, was withheld from the trial.

At the time UN observer to the trial Dr Hans Kochler described it as "a spectacular miscarriage of justice."

In 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi's case to the High Court of Justiciary. SCCRC chairman Rev Dr Graham Forbes said: "The commission is of the view, based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."

The full SCCRC report into the Lockerbie bombing has never been disclosed, however.

With the dropping of his appeal by Megrahi this week, in a step strongly believed to have been forced upon him in exchange for his freedom, campaigners and the families of the victims fear that the report may now never be published.

The calls for a full public inquiry into the bombing have been dismissed by consecutive governments, both Tory and Labour.

The main argument against such an inquiry was that it would jeopardise the criminal investigation.

In truth, the "criminal investigation" ended with Megrahi's indictment in 1991. There has never been any attempt to arrest the real culprits.

The scenes of al-Megrahi being treated to a hero's return were despicable and an affront to the memories of the 270 innocent people murdered over Lockerbie but it was to be expected. The truth is that the American government knew then and knows now that he was not 'their man'.

Reports by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the time and released under FOI suggested that the blowing up of Pan Am 103 was in direct response to the shooting down of an Iranian Airbus with the loss of 290 lives over the Persian Gulf by the USS Vincennes five months earlier.

In a report dated 9/24/89 the DIA stated "The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran's former interior minister. The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad [Jibril], Popular Front for the Liberation of Palsetine General Command [PFLP-GC] leader, for a sum of $1,000,000. $100,000 of this money was given to Jibril up front in Damascus by the Iranian ambassador to Sy[ria], Muhammed Hussan [Akhari] for initial expenses. The remainder of the money was to be paid after successful completion of the mission." Another DIA report titled "Pan Am 103, Deadly Co-operation" from December 1989 named Iran as the country most likely behind the atrocity and discounted libya's involvement, stating there was "no credible intelligence" and adding "Following a brief increase in anti-US terrorist attacks after the US air-strike on Libya, Gaddafi has made an effort to distance Libya from terrorist attacks."

The US Government denied that these reports existed at the original trial.

A defence witness who would have totally discredited the only witness (a Maltese shop-keeper called Tony Gauci) to link al-Megrahi to some clothes found at the crash scene was not allowed to give evidence. The fact that Gauci made over 20 wildly conflicting statements to police and was paid $2,000,000 was also withheld.

Is it coincidence that shortly after Gaddafi handed over al-Megrahi, the US removed Libya from its list of rogue states and US and UK oil companies were granted access to huge Libyan oil fields?

Al-Megrahi was only released on the condition that he drop his appeal against his conviction , which stood a very good chance of succeeding, given that the Court would have heard that the US Government lied about and covered up its own intelligence reports and and the admission of the original defence witness to thoroughly destroy Gauci's testimony.

The result of a successful appeal would have robbed the victims' families of closure, as it stands they still have, in al-Megrahi, whose conviction for the murders still stands, a focal point for their grief.

President Obama (who may or may not be able to claim "plausible deniability") has publicly condemned the decision to release al-Megrahi and FBI Director Robert Mueller has written a letter to the Scottish Justice Secretary over the release, stating "Your action makes a mockery of the emotions, passions and pathos of all those affected by the Lockerbie tragedy. But most importantly, your action makes a mockery of the grief of the families." Mueller has good cause to show moral indignation, he was the US Assistant Attorney General, responsible for the Lockerbie investigation and therefore would have been aware of the aforementioned facts and that the prosecution case had more hole sthan a Swiss cheese. Ironically, the fact that al-Megrahi will now not appeal his conviction means that the lies and cover-up committed by the US Government ("in the name of justice"?) will now never become official record.

Obama and Mueller are shedding crocodile tears, beating their chests and shouting that the decision by an independent, sovereign state to release a man who was likely to win his appeal but die in the process was morally wrong, an affront to justice and a betrayal of the families of the victims.

The fact that they continue down this path is the real betrayal of the victims' families. The US Government was unable to bring the real culprits to justice and so embarked upon a Faustian path which would, on the face of it, offer closure for the victims, earn those involved political prestige and finally give US oil companies access to huge oil reserves in Libya. Obama and Mueller's brazen attempts to stir up emotions to further their political careers (and in Mueller's case deflect from his own involvement in what appears ever more to be a travesty of justice) is the real "mockery of the grief of the families."

The full truth of the Lockerbie tragedy will never be revealed until the US Government comes clean over the shooting down of the Iranian Airbus and its own intelligence reports in the aftermath of that particular tragedy, in particular why very specific DIA intelligence as to the true perpetrators of the Lockerbie attrocity was dismissed, what discussions did the US Government have with Libya, which led to the handing over of two suspects, payment of billions of dollars compensation, access of US oil companies to Libyan reserves, and its removal from the US' list of rogue states?

These are important questions in the search for the truth about Lockerbie...questions that the Government will do its utmost to avoid answering (truthfully), therefore I fear we will never know the truth about the Lockerbie bombing.

And finally, if this is about justice, as Obama and Mueller go to great lengths to claim, ask yourself how you would feel if your innocent loved ones were blown out of the sky by the navy of the most powerful nation in the world? And because of that country's status no-one was ever held to account in a Court of Law? And just to add insult to injury, the captain of the ship responsible for blowing your loved ones out of the sky is decorated upon his return to port....Would you accept that country's definition of 'justice'?

There will come a time when the Government will be forced to realise that Truth and Justice are double-edged swords. It cannot take the moral high-ground when it itself is committing and/or condoning blatant acts of injustice.

America has the potential to be a beacon of light but only when the Government cleans up its own act. As the saying goes, the truth will set you free.....!