Lockerbie circuit board ‘made af ter fatal f light’

EVIDENCE used in the trial of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is unconnected to the case, it has been claimed.

A circuit board used in the case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi was probably made after the atrocity, investigators say.

The claims are backed by testimony from a British expert and by tests at a police forensics lab in Zurich.

Documentary-maker Bill Cran and his lead investigator George Thomson, a former Scottish police officer, are re-examining the 1988 bombing and later court case for a forthcoming film.

Thomson, 73, was part of Megrahi’s defence team who were preparing the appeal abandoned by the Libyan agent in 2009 to secure his release on compassionate grounds.

Mr Cran and Mr Thomson hope to release their film next year. Much of the focus is on the tiny circuit-board fragment, said to be part of the timer that triggered the bomb. It was key forensic evidence in the case because the timers had been sold to Libya.

The circuit board was linked to Swiss electronics firm Mebo, but it is claimed fresh forensic scrutiny has established the fragment did not match the Mebo boards.

It also appears the fragment was from a type of circuit-board not patented until 1991.

The British expert, who has asked not to be named but was interviewed for Cran’s film, said the fragment contained traces of copper foil, while the older Mebo timers sold to Libya did not.

He said the technique of adding foil coating to circuit boards only emerged at the end of the 1980s and was not patented until 1991.

The fragment of circuit board was said to match those made my Mebo and sold only to Libya and East Germany no later than 1986. Its co-founder Edwin Bollier also uncovered new evidence after winning the right to obtain Government files on the firm.

Through those documents, it is claimed a named member of the Swiss secret services visited Mebo in June 1989 and took away a circuit board he passed on to US investigators.

The fragment, known as PT35b, entered the chain of evidence in October 1990, and later that month the CIA returned to Mebo and obtained circuit boards.

Thomson said: ‘Somehow, the Americans knew 16 months or so before the fragment was found to send a local agent to Mebo to secure a circuit board. You have to wonder whether the investigation was following a prepared script.’

The Swiss documents also reveals that the Zurich lab found: ‘The fragment used as evidence in the Lockerbie trial does not match the timers made by Mebo.’

Dr Jim Swire, 82, spokesman for the UK relatives among the 270 who died on December 21, 1988, said: ‘This evidence underlines that PT35b did not come from boards made by Mebo and sold to Libya. We need a full public inquiry to explore this and to deliver truth and justice before it’s too late for those of us who have the right to know why our loved ones died.’

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is considering ordering a posthumous appeal on behalf of Megrahi’s family. In 2007, it found no reasonable court could have concluded he was guilty on the evidence led at trial.

Police Scotland and the Crown Office said it would be inappropriate to comment on a live case.