A former intelligence officer’s claim that the Lockerbie bombing was Iran’s doing will have to be corroborated by “tangible evidence”, according to Foreign Affairs Minister George Vella.

Speaking from Germany, where he is accompanying the president on a State visit, Dr Vella said the government had no intention of reopening the Lockerbie case.

“As stated on many occasions, the Maltese government does not intend to take any legal action to prove that the luggage with the explosive device never left from Malta,” Dr Vella said.

He was asked to react to fresh evidence presented in a documentary that was aired on Al Jazeera two days ago.

The documentary makers spoke to a former Iranian intelligence officer, now exiled in Germany, who said that the 1988 Lockerbie bombing was an act of revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a US navy ship some months earlier.

The documentary also tracked down the alleged bomb maker and quoted sources close to him blaming Iran for the terrorist attack that killed 270 people.

The production debunks the official story that the Lockerbie bomb was the work of Libyan agents who loaded the explosive luggage in Malta on a flight to Frankfurt where it was transferred on to a flight to Heathrow before making its way to Pan AM flight 103 bound for New York.

Malta has long insisted that the bomb did not start its journey from Luqa international airport.

Dr Vella said that at the Lockerbie trial – which found Libyan Abdelbaset al Megrahi guilty of the terrorist act – it was not proven “beyond any shadow of doubt” that the luggage containing the explosive device actually left from Malta.

He said it was up to movements like Justice For Megrahi and the Megrahi family to see that, eventually, justice was done and the real culprits behind the terrible crime be identified.

“It is only then that the relatives of the victims will experience real closure to their pain, suffering and anger,” Dr Vella concluded.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com