TORY TEAM
MARGARET Thatcher’s coldhearted Cabinet discussed minimising the cost of compensating Lockerbie disaster victims just hours after the terror attack.
Top Tories meeting in No10 were wrongly told none of the dead passengers were British and that the houses of victims on the ground would be insured, a confidential memo reveals.
It would emerge 31 of the
243 passengers on the doomed flight were British, as was one of the 16 crew.
Another 11 perished in their homes when wreckage from Pan Am Flight 103 hit the Scottish village of Lockerbie 30 years ago this month.
Jim Swire, 82, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, described the document as “callous and calculating”.
It comes as another confidential memo revealed officials thought families of Lockerbie terror attack needed “careful watching”.
Relatives, including Dr Swire – a vocal critic of the Government’s response to the attack – claim they have been repeatedly bugged by security services.
The Mirror has unearthed a confidential minute of the Cabinet meeting at 9.30am on December 22, 1988, the morning after the tragedy.
Ministers were told “there would be a general expectation that a disaster fund would be established” that “the Government would contribute to it” and that “it would be a mistake to prevaricate over this”.
But a memo found in the National Archives continues: “On the other hand, neither the aircraft nor its passengers were British and it was not yet clear that many people on the ground would require assistance.
“The private houses affected would presumably be covered by insurance.”
There was no mention in the document that the Government should feel DR JIM SWIRE FATHER OF LOCKERBIE VICTIM victims
If I had known at the time I would have been furious