What I learned when I reopened the Lockerbie bombing files

Dick Marquise, who led the FBI’s Lockerbie task force, says that in the early days of the case he too believed the PFLP-GC were the “number one suspect”, but years of investigation found nothing to prove it.

“There was not one shred of evidence that could be taken to court and get a conviction,” he says. “You couldn’t do it. There was nothing.”

However, there are others, besides Swire, who still question the “official narrative” – including former CIA agent John Holt who also believes Iran was behind the bombing.

Holt worked with Libyan intelligence assets in the 1980s and was the handler of double agent Abdul Majid Giaka, whose information became central to the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing.

Holt now believes Giaka was a “BS artist” who was out for money and was feeding the CIA fake stories to get paid.

“I didn’t think much of him at all,” he says.

“He gave us some little tidbits about what was going on, but he never knew anything about the Pan Am bombing. And he knew a lot about Megrahi,” Holt says.

Holt believes the fact the CIA bankrolled Giaka devalues him as an informant.

“It makes it easier for somebody to say whatever the person who’s giving them money wants them to say,” Holt says.