This five-part Sky TV dramatisation of the events surrounding the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, which killed a total of 270 people, has already attracted controversy by taking as its point of view, claims of the innocence of the one man convicted so far of the crime, Libyan Baset el-Megrahi. The point is made in a subtitle at the end of the final episode that of course another high-ranking Libyan of the time has now been extradited to the United States and will face trial in May of this year so that there may yet be another twist in this appalling tale. El-Megrahi, after years of appealing his conviction, on being diagnosed with terminal cancer, finally abandoned this course of action to qualify for his eventual release and repatriation where he duly died of prostate cancer some three years, not the expected three months, later.
Now, cards on the table, although I was and remain a supporter of the ruling Scottish National Party in my home country which made the decision to grant Megrahi his liberty on compassionate grounds, I remember at the time being outraged, strongly believing that such a mass-murderer deserved to die in jail. This programme on the other hand, tells the story from the viewpoint of Dr Jim Swire, an English doctor who lost his beloved young daughter in the crash. Swire tirelessly endeavoured to get to the truth, no matter how unpalatable and came to the firm conclusion that Megrahi was innocent, effectively being set up by the American FBI or CIA, possibly in collusion with the British government of the day. One of the reasons there was and continues to be such speculation over what happened on board Pan-Am Flight 103 is precisely because there has been no official government enquiry into the surrounding events as there tends to be for disasters of this magnitude. Swire, with the sometime.assistance of an equally unconvinced Scottish journalist, comes to believe that the real perpetrators were Iran and Syria, both strategically important nations to the west for different reasons by the time of the trial, but mainly, inevitably, for oil. Libya, as a rogue state under the dictatorship of the notorious President Gaddafi, was duly blamed for the attack with Megrahi put forward as the ultimate patsy.
The sad fact is that the truth may never be known, with so many of the official documents remaining classified, but the production here leaves little doubt as to what it believes to be Megrahi's innocence, going a long way to painting him as a sympathetic figure, the sacrificial victim of a deliberate miscarriage of justice.
My conclusion is that it's better to take a side in matters like these, rather than sitting on the fence and that is certainly the case here. Swire too then is presented in a mostly favourable light, indefatigable in his pursuit for truth even if it loses him some of the love and respect of his family and even his wife who herself is struggling with her mental health in the wake of their loss.
The first episode in particular was difficult to watch, as it recreated in detail I know what still couldn't have been even a fraction of the actual carnage which occurred on that fateful December night. Thereafter we follow Swire in his campaign and unsurprisingly the dramatic tension fades somewhat as we endure lengthy courtroom scenes. Nevertheless, this was a compelling series, skilfully and sensitively directed (apart from one jarring moment when a young Scottish woman claims ignorance of the tragedy, believe me, like the awful Dunblane massacre in the next decade, I think all Scots know exactly how emotive the very word Lockerbie is in our country).
Colin Firth carries the weight of the production on his broad shoulders and does so convincingly with a performance throughout of sensitivity and restraint, well matched by Catherine McCormack as his troubled wife.
While I may have felt somewhat guided and even manipulated by the programme-makers to accept their version of events, I was nevertheless emotionally engaged throughout by this strong, well made and ultimately provocative drama.
