Luggage positioning in AVE4041

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the suitcase containing the bomb whichdestroyed Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie was one seen by baggage handler John Bedford whilethe container was still in the interline shed at Heathrow, an hour before the feeder flight fromFrankfurt landed.

The blast which destroyed Maid of the Seas was relatively small, and only a limited number ofitems were recovered showing damage due to the explosion itself. These were

• Fragments of baggage container AVE4041, which was blown apart by the blast• A section of the airframe, the part which was underneath the loading position of

AVE4041• Approximately 25 items of luggage, many of which were only lightly damaged• Baggage container AVN7511, which had a small area of blast damage on one side

It is self-evident from the condition of AVE4041 that the explosion occurred inside thatcontainer, low down to the extreme left, as viewed from the open side. (The open side will bereferred to as the front of the container, although when loaded this side was in fact facing aft.)

Flight 103 was carrying eight containers of passenger baggage; seven holding luggagebelonging to passengers who checked in for the flight de novo at Heathrow itself, and oneholding the luggage of passengers who flew into Heathrow on other flights. AVE4041 was thecontainer which held the transfer luggage.

Inquiries at Heathrow revealed that there were two categories of transfer luggage in thecontainer. A fairly small number of suitcases belonging to passengers who flew into Heathrowon earlier connecting flights (‘interline luggage’) were loaded while it was in the interline shed,before about quarter to five, and the remainder of the space was filled with luggage from thePA103 feeder flight which arrived at Heathrow at twenty to six (‘online luggage’). While luggagein the first group was x-rayed before being placed in the container, the luggage from the feederflight was thrown straight into the container from the aircraft’s hold, out on the tarmac, andthereafter the container was sealed up and loaded directly on to Maid of the Seas without anysecurity examination. It was not considered necessary to carry out further screening at thatstage because the items from the feeder flight had all passed through Pan Am’s securityprocedures at Frankfurt.

The baggage containers used for 747 aircraft are cubical in form, approximately 5 feet in eachdimension, but with an additional ‘overhang’ section welded to one side to maximise capacityby following the curve of the plane’s hull.

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The left-hand image shows an empty container and the right-hand image, taken from a BBC2Newsnight Special about the Lockerbie evidence, shows one loaded with suitcases.

There was no hard-and-fast rule governing the loading of the containers, but in general thecubical section was filled with suitcases stacked in a more or less regular manner, while theoverhang section was reserved for holdalls and “soft zip-up bags”. While it was not entirelyimpossible that a full-size hardshell suitcase would be placed in the overhang, it was unlikely.

A particular feature of the loading of AVE4041 on 21st December 1988 was that the suitcasesat the back, in the bottom row, were not loaded flat but were placed upright, hinge-down-handle-up, like slices of toast in a toast rack. It was not uncommon for the baggage handlersto load the containers in this way.

John Bedford was the baggage handler responsible for the luggage coming in to the interlineshed that day. He described the arrangement of the container when he last saw it as a numberof cases in the upright row at the back, plus two cases lying flat at the front with their handlespointing towards the back. He said that the entire floor of the container was covered, but therewere no suitcases in the second layer. This arrangement was confirmed by two other baggagehandlers who saw the container before the feeder flight luggage was added.

The second of these was Amarjit Sidhu, who took the container out on to the tarmac to thenewly-arrived feeder flight and filled it with the Frankfurt luggage. He confirmed that thesuitcases were still in the configuration Bedford described when he collected the container, andstill in the same positions when he arrived beside the feeder flight, because “they didn’t haveroom to move around.” In a statement dated 10th January 1989 he said that, assisted by hissupervisor Darshan Sandhu, he put the Frankfurt luggage on top of the cases that were alreadythere. In a further statement dated 7th August 1989 he confirmed that he had not repositionedany of the interline suitcases, nor had he seen anyone else do so. He repeated the sameinformation in a third statement dated 2nd February 1990 – he didn’t move the interline luggage,neither did Sandhu, and they simply tossed the Frankfurt luggage on top of what was alreadythere.

Detailed examination of the blast damage to the container allowed the position of the explosionto be estimated as about 10 inches above the flat part of the floor, and up to 2 inches to the leftof the vertical strut, just within the V-shape of the overhang section. The distance from theopen front of the container (about 20 inches) confirms that the explosion occurred inside a pieceof luggage loaded at the front rather than the back.

The left-hand image is a diagram of the position of the explosion and the associated damageto the airframe, prepared by Peter Claiden of the AAIB and dated April 1989. The right-handimage is a bird’s-eye photograph of the recovered container floor.

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While Mr. Claiden had second thoughts about his 10-inch estimate in the witness box at CampZeist in 2000 and indicated that perhaps he should have said 13.5 inches, his diagram had bythen been reproduced in two forensic reports and the estimate of 10 to 11 inches (25 to 28 cm)confirmed by RARDE scientists Thomas Hayes and Allen Feraday based on more detailedassessment of the damage to the horizontal strut of the container. Mr. Feraday held to thefigure of 25 to 28 cm in the witness box.

Forensic examination identified the suitcase that had contained the bomb as a Samsonite‘Silhouette 4000’ model. This case was recovered in multiple fragments, many of the smallerones having been blasted into other items of luggage. It could not be linked to any of thepassengers or to any known item of legitimately unaccompanied ‘rush tag’ luggage on theplane, and it appeared to be an illegitimate, unaccompanied ‘rogue bag’. The suitcase wasconstructed of grey plastic with an embossed simulated leather finish on the outer surface, itselfcovered by a metallic lacquer in a colour described by the manufacturer as ‘antique copper’ andby the investigators as brown, bronze, maroon or burgundy.

Taking into account the known packing arrangement of the suitcases, it can be seen that thebomb suitcase must have occupied one of two positions within the container (bomb suitcaseindicated in brown in each case).

Position 1 Position 2

A third position was favoured by Mr. Feraday, in which the bomb suitcase was loaded handle-upin the overhang section, however this can be ruled out both by the distribution of the damageto the airframe (which was under the floor of the container, not level with the overhang section)and the locations where certain specific fragments of the suitcase were recovered. Recoveryof a part of the locking mechanism and a fragment from the hinge end confirmed that thesuitcase was loaded more or less flat with the handle facing the rear of the container. It canbe seen that in either case, the IED itself was packed very asymmetrically in the suitcase, tothe extreme left as viewed from the hinge end.

Determining which of these two positions was occupied by the bomb suitcase is vital to solvingthe Lockerbie case, because in position 1 the bomb suitcase is one of those transferred bySidhu from the feeder flight, while in position 2 it is the left-hand of the two front-loaded suit-cases seen by Bedford while the container was still in the interline shed, an hour before thefeeder flight landed. Three aspects of the evidence shed light on this question.

• Whether or not a suitcase can be identified which was between the bomb suitcaseand the floor of the container at the moment of the explosion

• The pattern of damage to the two suitcases loaded upright behind the bomb suitcase• The pattern of damage to structures below the stacked suitcases

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Which, if any, case was under the bomb?

It is self-evident, and it was agreed in court, that any suitcase loaded flat against the bombsuitcase – either above or below – would inevitably have been blown to bits. If position 1 repre-sents the actual arrangement of the luggage there should be two such ‘secondary suitcases’in the recovered debris, whereas if position 2 is correct then there will be only one.

It was also agreed in court that there was only one ‘secondary’ suitcase identifiable among the25 described in the Joint Forensic Report as showing explosion damage. This was a large navyblue canvas American Tourister case belonging to Miss Patricia Coyle, a student from BostonCollege, Massachusetts, who was returning to the USA having spent a term studying in Vienna. Miss Coyle flew from Vienna to Frankfurt by Lufthansa and joined the PA103 feeder flight atFrankfurt. Her suitcase was therefore one of those transferred to the container on the tarmac. Material from that case found adherent to the largest recovered fragment of the bomb suitcase(PI/911) confirmed that the two cases had indeed been loaded flat against each other.

In court Dr. Hayes of RARDE represented that this fragment had come from the lower aspectof the bomb suitcase, and had been blasted downwards. There is however nothing to supportthis assumption. Semtex blasts upwards as well as downwards, and the compression andfracturing of the plastic suitcase shell could just as easily have been caused by its being blastedagainst the case on top as against a case underneath.

In fact, examination of the other suitcases which were close to the explosion reveals clearly thatthe blue Tourister was indeed blasted upwards, on to and into the rest of the luggage in thecontainer. Material from the Tourister was recorded as having been deposited on about sixother items of luggage, which would be essentially impossible if the case had been blasteddownwards, away from the other suitcases. In addition, the largest recovered portion wasfound entangled with large pieces of two other Frankfurt transfer suitcases.

The most compelling support for the Tourister having been on top of the bomb suitcase comesfrom the condition of another canvas suitcase belonging to Herr Johannes Schäuble, who alsotravelled on the feeder flight. His case was recovered more or less intact, with the contents stillinside (although “very tightly packed”). Photographs show extensive deposits of blue materialacross the lid, and analysis of these deposits revealed the cross-hatched pattern which was acharacteristic of the blue plastic lining of the Coyle case. In addition a screw from the radio-cassette player in which the Semtex was concealed was blasted head-first into the trim,together with some small fragments of the bomb suitcase itself.

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Left is a composite photograph ofmost of the recovered fragments ofthe bomb suitcase. The inset photo(lower right) shows the fragments of‘grey hardshell 2’ to scale.

It is also noteworthy that theproduction numbers allocated to theseven orphan fragments are part ofthe same series as most of thesimilarly-sized fragments of thebomb suitcase, suggesting that theywere recovered in the same generallocation in similar circumstances.

Left is the complete Schäuble suitcase, upper right is a close-up of the screw (seen as a blackdot on the leatherette trim in the left-hand photo) and lower right is a close-up showing the bluematerial lying on top of the weave of the canvas.

These observations demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that the court erred when itconcluded that the Coyle case had been lying beneath the bomb suitcase at the moment of theexplosion (Opinion of the Court, paragraph 25). The Coyle case was on top of the bombsuitcase, with the Schäuble case on top of the Coyle case.

The only other possible candidate among the recovered blast-damaged luggage for a suitcaseunder the bomb suitcase is a collection of seven very small fragments designated ‘greyhardshell 2’ (or in some reports ‘grey hardshell A’). These were clearly part of a case whichwas very close to the bomb, but they were never reconciled to any known passenger luggage. The fragments are something of an anomaly, as despite their being the only possible candidatefor the missing second ‘secondary suitcase’ they were never represented as such either in theforensic reports or in court. There is a record of an attempt to match the fragments to a suit-case belonging to Mr. George Williams, another Frankfurt boarder, however they proved to beunrelated to that case.

In fact close examination of the grain of the imitation leather and comparison of the detaileddescriptions and measurements recorded in the Joint Forensic Report reveals these sevenfragments to be identical to the smaller fragments of the bomb suitcase itself, apart only fromthe colour. ‘Grey hardshell 2’ is merely more pieces of the bomb suitcase with the shiny bronzefinish cooked off.

There is nothing else among the recovered blast-damaged fragments that might have origin-ated from a suitcase positioned between the bomb suitcase and the floor of the container.

The court took the view that the suitcases placed in the container in the interline shed had beenrearranged when the feeder flight luggage was added out on the tarmac. However, this conc-lusion was based solely on the assumption that the Coyle case (from Frankfurt) had found itsway under the bomb suitcase, and therefore must have replaced the case Bedford reportedseeing in that same position. The bench came to this view without being aware that AmarjitSidhu had repeatedly denied moving the suitcases, as he was not called as a witness and hispolice statements were not referred to in court.

Given the fact that the Coyle case was actually on top of the bomb suitcase, there is no reasonto doubt Sidhu’s word, or to conclude that he must have been mistaken when he denied moving

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the interline suitcases. In that event, if there was indeed another case below the bomb suitcasewhich completely vanished after the explosion, it was the case Bedford saw, and we should belooking for it among the luggage belonging to the passengers who transferred to PA103 atHeathrow from other incoming flights.

Seventeen passengers in total flew into Heathrow on other airlines to connect with PA103, butthey only had fourteen items of checked-in luggage among them. Three of these suitcases didnot fly on PA103; one because it arrived very early in the morning and was sent ahead on theprevious flight, and two late-arriving items which were left behind and discovered in the interlineshed the following morning. Of the eleven which did fly on the aircraft, five later-arriving itemswere not loaded into AVE4041 but were loose-loaded in a pallet in the rear of the plane. Theseitems were recovered with no evidence of explosives involvement, in the north part of Lockerbietown itself along with other debris from the rear of the plane.

Only six items were identified as being loaded into the container in the interline shed; thosecarried on flights which touched down before four o’clock in the afternoon. These six itemswere all recovered in an area of countryside near Newcastleton, where the debris fromAVE4041 fell, and all were either visibly blast-damaged or tested positive for explosives con-tamination. The six items of luggage and their owners were as follows.

Flight From Arrived Passenger Luggage

1 BA391 Brussels 11.06 Bernt Carlsson Grey Presikhaaf hardshell

2 CY504 Larnaca 14.34 Charles McKee Grey Samsonite hardshell

3 CY504 Larnaca 14.34 Charles McKee Grey American Tourister hardshell

4 CY504 Larnaca 14.34 Matthew Gannon Navy blue soft-sided Samsonite

5 BA701 Vienna 15.35 Michael Bernstein Maroon soft-sided Samsonite

6 BA701 Vienna 15.35 Michael Bernstein Tan/brown checked case/holdall

All six can be excluded from the under-the-bomb position on the basis of the pattern of damagesustained. Just as there is no suitcase in the recovered debris which can be reconciled to thatposition, there is no suitcase known to have been routed to the container in the interline shedwhich might have been in that position. The Coyle case which was above the bomb is the only‘secondary suitcase’. This finding is compatible with position 2 on page 3, not with position 1.

The two suitcases behind the bomb suitcase

John Bedford explained in his police statements that he set up container AVE4041 to receivethe interline transfer luggage for PA103 just after two o’clock. At that time there were already“one or two” suitcases for the flight in the shed, sitting next to the x-ray machine with securitystickers in place to show that the x-ray screen had been carried out. From the arrival dataabove it can be seen that there was in fact only one such case, and it belonged to Mr. Carlsson. Bedford explained that he placed that case to the extreme left at the back of the container. Hethen filled the row with cases as they arrived, working from left to right.

That being so, Mr. Carlsson’s case would be expected to be the one more or less immediatelybehind the IED, the left-hand of the two shown in the illustration on page 3. The case next toit, the right-hand of the two shown, would be expected to be one of the three cases arriving onthe Larnaca flight. Both cases are shown in the photographs below. Mr. Carlsson’s greyPresikhaaf was so badly damaged by the explosion that it essentially disintegrated. The nextmost damaged case was Major McKee’s grey Samsonite, which had one corner blown apart. The other four cases sustained relatively light blast damage.

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Thomas Hayes’s sketch of theMcKee Samsonite, shown in theposition in which it was loaded,with the level at which the blastimpacted the suitcase indicated.

Page 22 of Hayes’s examinationnotes, dated 20th January 1989.

Charles McKee’s case (photograph rotated to highlight the pattern of blast damage to the bottom corner)

Bernt Carlsson’s case (photograph rotated 180o to put the handle at the top)

Mr. Carlsson’s case is the only one of the six items to be so damaged that it lost all its contents. The distortion to the metal frame (left-hand side of the photograph) confirms it was positionedexactly where Bedford said he put it, almost immediately behind the IED with the blast hittingit on the side. The pattern of damage to Major McKee’s Samsonite is also highly consistentwith its having been positioned in the back row with the right-hand side (as seen in the photo-graph) closest to the explosion.

The implications of the damage to the McKee suitcase are more or less self-evident. Thedamage is concentrated on the bottom corner of the case, at the hinge end, not half way up theside. When Dr. Hayes examined and drew that suitcase he sketched it sitting upright on itshinge end in the way Bedford described having placed it in the container. He then drew anarrow labelled “blast direction” which impinges on the lower front corner of the case at the levelof the floor of the container. This is quite obviously correct.

Close examination of the fragments of the Carlsson case leads to a similar conclusion. It is lesseasy to gauge the height of the impact on the side of that case, however even position 2 placesthe bomb suitcase several inches above the floor of the container at the left-hand side (againsee diagrams on page 3). The crucial piece of evidence is the rectangular panel of lining fabricdesignated PK/139, shown at the bottom of the photograph above. This is a separate panelwhich covered the inside of the hinge end of the case, and which was held in place by eight

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press-studs. The end facing the explosion (to the right of the photo – it has been placed thewrong way round in the montage) shows severe, destructive charring.

The diagram below illustrates where these two items fit in relation to the packing of the baggagecontainer.

It is absolutely clear that the bottom front corners of the Carlsson and McKee suitcases, the twocases on the left of the row at the back, the ones immediately behind the bomb suitcase, werenot protected from the blast by another case stacked underneath the bomb suitcase.

The structures beneath the stacked suitcases

None of the above inferences was drawn either by the original Lockerbie investigation or by thetrial court. The only reference to the relative positions of the various suitcases in the containerwas when the blue deposit on PI/911 was used to conclude that the Coyle case had been flatagainst the bomb suitcase at the time of the explosion. However, as noted above, that assoc-iation was misinterpreted by the court, with the Coyle case assumed to have been below thebomb suitcase when in fact it was on top of it.

There is no record of even that inference being made prior to Dr. Hayes’s appearance in thewitness box in 2000. When he was asked when he had arrived at the opinion that the bombsuitcase had been on top of the (not explicitly identified) blue one and whether he had recordedthis conclusion anywhere, he replied “No, I can’t help you with that” (day 16, page 2630), andindeed no such analysis appears in any of the forensic reports. The only reference to this pointis in a number of press reports from 1989/90 which state that the blue Tourister (sometimessaid to belong to Miss Coyle’s friend and travelling companion Karen Noonan) was on top ofthe bomb suitcase.

In 1989-90 the sole justification for the unanimous forensic opinion that the bomb suitcase hadnot been on the floor of the container was the pattern of damage seen on the floor itself whenits pieces were reassembled. One photograph of this is reproduced on page 2 above and thereare several more in the Joint Forensic Report. Various forensic and AAIB investigatorsindividually expressed their opinion that there had been another suitcase below the bombsuitcase, with Mr. Feraday being particularly dogmatic on this point. He indeed went so far asto initiate an approach to the bench at the Fatal Accident Inquiry in 1990, asking counsel torequest that the transcript of his evidence be altered. The original transcript had presented hisopinion that the suitcase containing the bomb had not been the one on the floor as a probabilityassessment, and counsel, at his request, petitioned the bench to ensure that he was recordedas expressing absolute certainty.

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It is difficult to understand the certainty of the various assertions that the bomb suitcase couldnot possibly have been in position 2 above. The inference is far from self-evident, and certainlyless self-evident than the opposite inference that can be drawn from the nature of the damageto the Carlsson suitcase lining panel and the corner of the McKee case, once the loadingpositions of these items have been established. A number of test explosions carried out in theUSA in April and July 1989 were held to support the conclusion that the bomb had been on thesecond layer, however the results were far from conclusive. Only a very few tests were carriedout, and not only were they all different, more than one variable was altered between each trial. In only one test was the bomb in the suitcase on the floor of the container, and in that one thematerials caught fire with very little useful data being obtained. These results were not referredto in court, with the witnesses relying purely on asserted opinion.

A number of different reasons were cited for excluding position 2 from consideration, but theprincipal reason appeared to be the absence of direct blast damage – pitting and sooting andshattering – on the surface of the aluminium container floor. Such damage was present on thehorizontal and vertical struts of the container, and this was explained by the theory that thebomb suitcase had been loaded offset to the left in relation to the case on the bottom layer, asshown in the diagram of position 1 (page 3). The case in the bottom layer was held to haveprotected the floor itself.

This aspect was the subject of much discussion in court, with various interpretations of thedamage and deformation being advanced by witnesses and advocates. Whatever the reasonfor the absence of direct blast damage on the container floor itself, what seemed to be over-looked was the damage to the airframe immediately under the floor. The extent of the directblast damage to that structure is indicated in Mr. Claiden’s April 1989 diagram, hatched in red,and the same area can be seen in photographs of the reassembled airframe.

AAIB (Claiden) diagram Photograph of airframe damage

However it was that the container floor itself came to be reflected out of the direct blast line, thedamage to the airframe under the floor is clear. This damage included “pitting and sooting”. It is extremely difficult to reconcile the pattern of damage to the airframe itself with there havingbeen another suitcase between the bomb suitcase and the airframe.

Further evidence from the Heathrow baggage handlers

John Bedford’s police statements contained further vital information about the two suitcaseswhich were lying flat at the front of the container. In his first statement on 3rd January 1989 heexplained that he himself had only loaded the cases in the row at the back, between 2 pm andabout 4.15 pm. At that time he had left the interline shed for a tea break, and didn’t return until

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about 4.45. On his return he noticed the two extra cases at the front of the container. He wasnot concerned about these, he said, because one of the x-ray operators, Sukash Kamboj, toldhim he had put them there after x-raying them. However in his police interviews Kamboj deniedhaving placed any luggage in the container that afternoon, saying that it wasn’t his job, anddenied having said anything to Bedford about it. The other x-ray operator, Harjot Parmar, saidmuch the same thing.

In his second police interview, on 9th January 1989, Bedford described the two mysteriously-appearing suitcases. One, he said, was “a brown hardshell, the type Samsonite make”, whilethe other was “if not the same, then similar”. In the witness box at the FAI he confirmed thatthe case he was describing as a brown Samsonite hardshell (later amended to maroon) wasthe one on the left.

As noted in the table on page 6, none of the legitimate items of passenger baggage loaded intothe container in the interline shed was a brown or maroon Samsonite hardshell. There is,however, a candidate for the right-hand suitcase. One of Mr. Bernstein’s items of luggage wasindeed a maroon Samsonite, though soft-sided rather than a hardshell. That item was notsitting handle-up at the back when the explosion occurred, as is demonstrated by explosiondamage all along the handle side and not elsewhere. This is consistent with its having beenthe right-hand of the two front suitcases, although loaded with the handle to the left rather thanto the back as Bedford remembered.

Further evidence indicating that there was an extra, illegitimate suitcase in the container beforeit was taken out on to the tarmac is provided by a trial loading exercise carried out (separately)by all three baggage handlers who saw it at that time. These were Bedford himself, TarlochanSahota who checked the container about half past five to see if there was enough room for theluggage from the feeder flight, and Amarjit Sidhu, who dealt with the transfer of that luggage. None was able to say with certainty how many cases were in the row at the back, however allagreed that the row was complete with the entire floor of the container covered. When askedto load a container in the way they remembered seeing that container loaded, all three menplaced five suitcases along the back (seven cases in all), and indeed it is impossible to makethe back row appear full using only four suitcases.

Conclusion

Multiple strands of evidence and reasoning all point to the inescapable conclusion that thebomb suitcase was the one seen by Bedford lying flat at the front of the container.

• There should have been only six cases in the container in the interline shed, but infact seven were present

• The positions of the six legitimate cases can be identified, and none of them was inthe front-left position at the time of the explosion

• The front-left suitcase was described as a brown or maroon Samsonite hardshell,which perfectly fits the description of the bomb suitcase

• That suitcase appeared mysteriously in circumstances suggesting it might havecircumvented the security screen

• Sidhu repeatedly confirmed that he did not reposition that suitcase while he wasloading the transfer luggage from the feeder flight

• None of the damaged cases recovered on the ground can be reconciled to the front-left, floor-level position, except the bomb suitcase itself

• The pattern of damage to the two suitcases sitting upright behind the explosionshows that there was no other suitcase under the bomb suitcase, protecting theirbottom front corners from the blast

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• Regardless of the condition of the floor of the container, the nature of the damage tothe airframe under the floor demonstrates that it too was not protected by anothersuitcase under the bomb suitcase.

As Bedford, Sahota and Sidhu all saw that case in position before the feeder flight landed, itfollows beyond reasonable doubt that the bomb suitcase was introduced into the baggagesystem at Heathrow and did not fly in on the feeder flight. Any contrary interpretation requiresthe available data to be tortured well beyond breaking point.

Additional questions

It is extremely difficult to understand the thinking of the Lockerbie investigation team in relationto the evidence of the Heathrow staff and the recovered luggage items. There are a numberof questions the Commission may wish to address.

1. Why were several members of both the AAIB and RARDE investigation teams preparedto declare so categorically that the condition of the floor conclusively ruled out the bombsuitcase having been the one on the base of the container, when that is exactly whereit was? In particular, Allen Feraday’s request to have the records of the FAI proceed-ings amended speaks to a huge preoccupation with this point.

2. Why was the above analysis of the relative positions of the various blast-damagedsuitcases in relation to the centre of the explosion not undertaken by the originalforensic team? In a memo dated 19th January 1989 Thomas Hayes indicated his inten-tion to carry out such an analysis, however there is no record of its being done.

3. Were the forensic scientists provided with the information from Heathrow that wouldallow them to identify the six legitimate Heathrow interline suitcases and determinewhere each one may have been placed in the container? In the witness box at the FAIAllen Feraday appeared to state that he had not been given this information. Neverthe-less the degree of importance attached to ruling out the suitcase on the bottom layer isdifficult to explain unless the forensic investigators were aware that that case had adifferent provenance from the one on top of it.

4. Why did the police inquiry make no effort to establish the identity of the case Bedforddescribed as a brown or maroon Samsonite hardshell? There is no evidence of anyattempt to match it to one of the legitimate items loaded into the container or to a blast-damaged item recovered on the ground. What did they think it was?

5. How is it possible to reconcile the diametrically opposed determinations of the FAI andthe trial court as regards the suitcase positioning? The FAI’s conclusion that the bombmust have come in on the feeder flight was predicated firmly on the assumption thatSidhu had not moved the Heathrow interline luggage, and since Mr. Feraday was“adamant” the bomb could not have been in the suitcase on the floor of the container,the case Bedford saw in the interline shed could be disregarded. In contrast the trialcourt’s conclusion relied on the assumption that Sidhu must have moved the interlineluggage, in order to explain away the fact that no suitcase that was or might have beenloaded at Heathrow could be identified as having been positioned under the bomb. Didthe investigators, and indeed the Crown, ever have a coherent theory about how theluggage had been arranged, or were they simply making it up as they went along?

This paper does not seek to imply deliberate misdirection of the investigation or the judicialprocess by anyone involved in the case. Nevertheless the comprehensive and wholesale failureto figure out what might well be described as the “bleedin’ obvious” in respect of the arrange-

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ment of the suitcases in the crucial corner of the container and the significance of Bedford’sevidence inevitably raises eyebrows, if not suspicions. To this might be added the disregardingof Raymond Manly’s evidence about the break-in into the Heathrow airside space the nightbefore the bombing. His statement was logged into the HOLMES system on 2nd February 1989and never referred to again, apparently having been judged to be of no importance whatsoeverto the inquiry. While the re-interviewing of the other Heathrow witnesses was desultory andlacking in urgency, as can be seen from the dates on their statements, Manly was not re-interviewed at all.

It is submitted however that the evidence as it stands, and as it was available to the originalinvestigation, the Fatal Accident Inquiry and the trial court, demonstrates beyond any reason-able doubt that the Lockerbie bombing was a crime carried out at Heathrow airport, London,at about half past four in the afternoon, and not at Luqa airport, Malta, at nine o’clock in themorning.

Considerable additional detail concerning the above and other matters can be found in my 2013book, Adequately Explained by Stupidity?, which I understand is also being submitted to theSCCRC as part of the application.

Morag G. Kerr, April 2014Paper produced for submission to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission

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