Edinburgh Festival playwright says Pan Am 103 case shows Scotland to be "a banana republic"
The author of a play about the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie has said the events surrounding the case illustrate that Scotland has become “a banana republic”.
The Boeing 747 which was destroyed over Lockerbie in 1988
Plawywright Alan Clark, whose play “The Lockerbie Bomber” is being staged for the first time at the Edinburgh Fringe next month, says the truth has been covered up.
“We shake our heads in disbelief as we hear allegations of evidence withheld. Evidence fabricated. Witnesses paid for their testimony. Even serious allegations that members of the Scottish prosecution team at the Camp Zeist trial perverted the course of justice,” he said.
“If that were another country, it would rightly be ridiculed but this actually is Scotland today. In the eyes of the world, I believe Scottish justice, often held up as a shining example of fairness and decency, is being reduced to the level of a corrupt, banana republic.
“As one of the characters in the play says: ““Sooner or later, to protect itself, the Scottish Government will have to cast the Crown Office adrift and abandon the fiction that Megrahi’s conviction is safe.””
Campaigner Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter was on board Pan Am 103, was at the premiere and said: “This is a searing and soul-searching drama of international significance which dramatically shows how absolute power corrupts absolutely and how individuals and nations are diminished by the lies told in their names.”
Herman Grech of the Times of Malta said: “The script challenges the audience into thinking whether, beyond the odd newspaper headline, this could have been one of the grossest miscarriages of justice of our times.”