The wheels of justice running down the road
Lockerbie as a lesson
Sunday’s announcement of the capture of the bombIng timer device maker associated with the Lockerbie crash three and a half decades ago probably made a number of people stop to ask questions. What bombing? Where is Lockerbie? They caught the guy? We are talking about it in 2022 with everything else going on?
On 21 December 1988 a flight from London to New York reached cruising altitude over the Scottish hamlet of Lockerbie when a bomb ripped it to shreds, killing 11 on the ground and all 259 on board the Pan Am 747. Painstaking international investigation determined the bomb actually originated on the flight’s initial leg out of Frankfurt. Immediately following the crash, several theories surfaced regarding who was responsible for this dastardly attack.
In 2003, Libyan president Muhammad Qaddafi acknowledged responsibility and paid compensation to the families affected. His country had been under crushing economic sanctions, partially resulting from the evidence of his country’s part in this event, for years. At the same time, Qaddafi claimed he did not personally order the attack, a statement challenged by others in his regime. Qaddafi himself died at the hands of internal forces in October 2011 following his ouster from a long dictatorship which had begun in 1969.
Immediately following the crash, a series of alternate explanations challenged the assumption that Libya’s dictator acted in retribution for U.S.-led military actions aimed at either retaliating for or deterring against Libyan terrorism overseas. Terrorism often resurrects incredibly old instances of humiliation to justify its use as a method of interaction with others. Libya’s Qaddafi certainly had long animosity with the United States. This and other possible explanations such as other terrorist actors or even state sponsors of terrorism earned varying degrees of credibility around the world, even with the families of the victims themselves. No one was entirely satisfied about Lockerbie but governments made legal cases against those for whom evidence had accumulated.
The topic arises today because the wheels of justice kept the U.S. and associated authorities in Europe, especially Britain itself unsurprisingly, seeking the culprits over these many years. Law enforcement and justice personnel in Scotland and the United States indicted Abu Agila Mohammed Masud in late 2020 as the individual specifically responsible for adding the timing mechanism that detonated over Lockerbie. Scottish officials announced they had Masud in custody on 11 December 2022, obviously a necessary step to bring any closure to the case.
Pan Am 103 tumbled out of the sky in many fiery pieces 34 years ago next week. Qaddafi, several other convicted bombers, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, FBI Director William Sessions, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and even Queen Elizabeth are all gone now. The oldest of the Syracuse University students killed as they returned from the study abroad program would be in their mid-50s had they not perished on the flight, their families probably dreading another season without them and haunted with the memory of the approaching anniversary.
U.S. law enforcement rarely drops cases when they have leads, following them with truly painstaking care and precision. Cooperation over multiple generations with counterparts in Europe was obviously crucial to reach Scotland’s seizure of Masud. If extradited to the United States as per standing treaties and associated protocols, He will now go before a jury in a trial. The step-by-step process of the justice system can seem infuriating to many people and painful for victims’ families seeking closure in so many forms.
But it is this methodical process that separates a democracy from something else. There is a reason we must work through cases in an orderly manner to preserve ‘justice for all’. Our system is not perfect; mistakes sadly occur. I will support this approach, like democracy, over any other I can see. I believe in the fidelity and professionalism of those who take their jobs extremely seriously. Public servants overwhelmingly take their service as a commitment to the nation. I fear for our society if we see that professionalism always under assault. FIN