Irish director Jim Sheridan, Oscar-nominated for ‘My Left Foot’ and “In the Name of the Father", will head up a star-strewn team led by Oscar winner Colin Firth in a recreation of the terrible events surrounding the alleged Libyan bombing of Pan American Flight 103 which came down over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988.
The news of an investigative docudrama, first reported by the Glasgow Herald, is bound to prove controversial with speculation still rife about the identity of the bombers and who caused the downing of the plane. Incredibly, a defendant in the 1988 bombing case appeared in a Federal Court this month.
Lockerbie stars Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) who portrays Dr Jim Swire’s search for the truth after losing his daughter Flora in the plane disaster in 1988.
Swire has long pursued new evidence in the case and has vowed to keep searching until he finds the truth. His book ’A Father’s Search for Justice’ is the source of the new series.
On December 21, 1988, Pan Am flight 103 was flying over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland on its way from London Heathrow to New York’s JFK airport, when a bomb exploded in the hold. All 259 passengers and crew on board the aircraft were killed, along with 11 people on the ground. Most of the passengers were returning to the US for Christmas
Three Irish died in the crash, Bridget (53) and Sean(51) Concannon and their 16-year-old son Sean who were seated in row 33.
Speculation about the bombing soon centered on Libya, which was in conflict with the US following clashes in 1986.
The United States Air Force carried out air strikes against Libya on 15 April 1986 in retaliation for a West Berlin discotheque bombing ten days earlier, which U.S. President Ronald Reagan blamed on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi
In one of the bombings by the US, Ghadaffi claimed his 15-year-old daughter was killed and vowed vengeance. Lockerbie was that vengeance most experts believe It took years until 2001 when a suspect was charged.
The Scottish Herald reports:” Former Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahiwas is the only man convicted in relation to the bombing after being found guilty of 270 counts of murder by a panel of three Scottish judges, sitting at a special court in the Hague in 2001.”
He was released in 2009 allegedly dying from cancer, though he lived three more years
Incredibly the case is still live. Now, another man, Libyan Abu Agila Masud, will face charges of assisting in the making of the bomb, something he denied when he appeared in Federal Court this month.
Sheridan has a fearless reputation and is known to seek out unsolved topics such as the murder of French woman Sophie Toscan Du Plantier in West Cork in 1996. He also directed ‘In the Name of the Father' about the Guildford Four in addition to a controversial biopic about US rapper 50 Cent.
Comments