Today marks 35 years since the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 – and a series of events will take place in memory of those who died.
When the Boeing 747 exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, it killed all 259 passengers and crew on board and 11 people on the ground.
The bombing – which took place on 21 December 1988 as the plane made its way from London to New York – remains the UK’s worst terrorist attack.
Image: A policeman standing guard over houses damaged in the bombing
The Dumfries and Galloway town will mark the 35th anniversary of the tragedy on Thursday with a series of events.
Lockerbie Academy will host its annual remembrance assembly.
A small number of pupils will then take part in a rose-laying ceremony at Dryfesdale Cemetery at 11.30am. They will be accompanied by a remembrance scholar from Syracuse University who will be representing the 35 students from Syracuse who were killed in the disaster.
Image: Wreaths and floral tributes at Dryfesdale Cemetery on the tragedy’s 30th anniversary in 2018
A number of public events have also been organised and all those wishing to take part are warmly invited to attend.
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• 10am: Communal wreath-laying and remembrance service at Tundergarth Church. • 11.45am: Communal wreath-laying at Dryfesdale Cemetery. • 12.15pm: Communal wreath-laying at Sherwood Crescent. • 12.45pm: Communal wreath-laying at Rosebank Crescent. • 7pm: Mass at Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church. A service will also take place at Hendricks Chapel at Syracuse University and can be watched online.
Lockerbie Town Hall will be open between 10am and 8pm, where light refreshments will be available. Soup will also be served between 1pm and 2.30pm.
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The Remembrance Room at Tundergarth Church and Dryfesdale Lodge Visitor Centre will remain open throughout the day, and both offer a wealth of information surrounding the disaster.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has marked the anniversary by paying tribute to all those who lost their life in the disaster.
He added: “My thoughts are also with the emergency workers who responded in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity.
“Their rapid response along with the people of Lockerbie while facing extraordinary circumstances demonstrated extreme kindness and humanity in the face of such horrific events.
“While those lost on that night can never be replaced, and the events have had a lasting impact on the town, I know links were forged following the disaster between Lockerbie and other communities that continue to this day, including the Syracuse University scholarship programme with Lockerbie Academy.
“The strength and compassion that both the victims’ families and the community of Lockerbie have shown has created a legacy of friendship and ensured that the memory of those who died lives on.”
Image: The Stone of Remembrance within the Memorial Garden at Dryfesdale Cemetery
Key dates in the three decades since the Lockerbie bombing:
21 December 1988: Pan Am flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 270 people – 259 on board and 11 on the ground.
Image: Abdelbaset al Megrahi
January 2001: Following a trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al Megrahi is found guilty of mass murder and jailed for life. Co-accused Lamin Khalifah Fhimah is found not guilty.
Image: A newsagent displaying the outcome of the Lockerbie trial
August 2003: Libya accepts blame for the bombing and agrees to compensate victims’ families.
March 2004: Then prime minister Tony Blair offers Colonel Muammar Gaddafi “the hand of friendship” following talks with the Libyan leader in a tent outside Tripoli. The UK and Libya go on to sign a memorandum of understanding, with a commitment to negotiate a prisoner transfer agreement (PTA).
Image: Tony Blair and Muammar Gaddafi in 2004
May 2007: Oil giant BP and the Libyan government sign an exploration and production sharing agreement.
June 2007: The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) recommends Megrahi is granted a second appeal against his conviction after the first, in 2002, was refused.
December 2007: It is revealed the UK government has decided not to exclude Megrahi from the PTA.
September 2008: Megrahi is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Image: Megrahi’s wife and son during a candle-lit vigil outside Holyrood in 2008
May 2009: The Libyan government submits an application to the Scottish government for Megrahi’s transfer under the PTA, followed by an application for release on compassionate grounds.
August 2009: Then Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill announces Megrahi is to be freed from Greenock Prison and returned to his home country on compassionate grounds. The UK and the US condemn the “hero’s welcome” given to Megrahi as he arrives in Tripoli to cheering crowds.
Image: Megrahi arriving at Glasgow Airport in 2009 after being released from Greenock Prison on compassionate grounds
Image: Megrahi leaving Glasgow for Tripoli
September 2009: Then UK justice secretary Jack Straw acknowledges the prospect of trade and oil deals with Libya was “a very big part” of his decision to include Megrahi in the PTA.
July 2011: Megrahi appears in a televised pro-government rally in Libya and says his conviction was the result of a “conspiracy”.
October 2011: Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya following an uprising, is killed by rebels.
May 2012: Megrahi dies at home in Tripoli aged 60.
December 2013: The UK, US and Libyan governments vow to cooperate to reveal “the full facts” of the bombing.
Image: An aerial view of some of the plane wreckage recovered, which was kept in a Lincolnshire salvage yard
June 2014: Six members of Megrahi’s family join forces with 24 British relatives of those who died in the atrocity to seek another appeal against his conviction in the Scottish courts.
December 2014: Scotland’s then top prosecutor, lord advocate Frank Mulholland, reaffirms Megrahi’s guilt and pledges to track down his accomplices.
July 2015: Scottish judges rule relatives of the victims of the bombing should not be allowed to pursue an appeal on Megrahi’s behalf.
October 2015: Scottish prosecutors announce they want two Libyans they have identified as suspects to be interviewed by police.
July 2017: Megrahi’s family lodges a new bid to appeal against his conviction, five years after his death.
May 2018: The SCCRC says a full review of Megrahi’s case will be carried out to decide whether a fresh appeal against conviction can be made.
November 2018: A police investigation finds no evidence of criminality in relation to the handling of the Lockerbie investigation and prosecution.
March 2020: The SCCRC rules a fresh appeal is to be allowed, and refers the case to the High Court of Justiciary.
June 2020: The appeal against the conviction of Megrahi is formally lodged at the High Court.
November 2020: A crowdfunder is launched to help pay for the appeal. It then begins at the High Court in Edinburgh, sitting as the Court of Appeal, and lasts three days.
December 2020: The US charges a “third conspirator” in connection with the Lockerbie bombing, on the 32nd anniversary of the atrocity.
December 2022: Third suspect – Libyan Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir al Marimi – is taken into US custody and appears at Washington DC federal courthouse accused of being the bombmaker.
Image: Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir al Marimi. Pic: Alexandria Sheriff’s Office.
December 2023: Marimi remains in US custody awaiting trial.
A new Sky documentary tells the story of Britain’s deadliest terrorist atrocity.
Lockerbie is available to watch on Sky Documentaries and Now.
Heathrow Airport bosses had been warned of a potential substation failures less than a week before a major power outage closed the airport for a day, a committee of MPs has heard.
The chief executive of Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee Nigel Wicking told MPs of the Transport Committee he raised issues about resilience on 15 March after cable and wiring took out lights on a runway.
A fire at an electricity substation in west London meant the power supply was disrupted to Europe’s largest airport for a day – causing travel chaos for around 200,000 passengers.
“I’d actually warned Heathrow of concerns that we had with regard to the substations and my concern was resilience”, Mr Wicking said.
“So the first occasion was to team Heathrow director on the 15th of the month of March. And then I also spoke to the chief operating officer and chief customer officer two days before regarding this concern.
“And it was following a number of, a couple of incidents of, unfortunately, theft, of wire and cable around some of the power supply that on one of those occasions, took out the lights on the runway for a period of time. That obviously made me concerned.”
Mr Wicking also said he believed Heathrow’s Terminal 5 could have been ready to receive repatriation flights by “late morning” on the day of the closure, and that “there was opportunity also to get flights out”.
However, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said keeping the airport open during last month’s power outage would have been “disastrous”.
There was a risk of having “literally tens of thousands of people stranded in the airport, where we have nowhere to put them”, Mr Woldbye said.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.
The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.
Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.
“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”
Image: Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.
He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.
“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.
“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”
Image: Pic: Met Police
Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.
He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.
Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
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Moment police arrest rapist student
Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.
“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.
“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.
“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”
Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”
Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”
The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.
An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.
An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.
Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.
A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.
Image: Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames
Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.
He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.
He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”
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“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”
On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.
When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.
Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.