| 12/19/03  Fifteen
years ago, on a cold and ultimately chilling evening just four days before Christmas,
Pan Am Flight 103 took off from London's Heathrow Airport bound for New York City.
Among the 259 passengers and crew were 189 Americans.
They
never made it home. Less than 40 minutes into the flight, the plane exploded over
the sky above Lockerbie, Scotland, killing everyone on board and 11 Scots on the
ground. Until
9/11/01, it was the world’s most lethal act of air terrorism and the largest
and most complex act of international terrorism ever investigated by the FBI.
Solving the
case required unprecedented international cooperation—and hours upon hours
of painstaking work. With the mid-air explosion 30,000 feet up, debris rained
down over 845 square miles across Scotland. FBI Agents and international investigators
combed the countryside on hands and knees looking for clues in virtually every
blade of grass, eventually turning up thousands of pieces of evidence. They also
traversed the globe, interviewing more than 10,000 individuals in dozens of countries.
Participating
in the investigation were an array of international police organizations from
such countries as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and, of course, Great Britain
(including Scotland). Ultimately,
forensic specialists from the FBI, the CIA, and elsewhere determined that one
of the fragments found on the ground, no bigger than a thumbnail, came from the
circuit board of a radio/cassette player. That tiny piece of evidence helped establish
that the bomb had been placed inside that radio and tape deck in a piece of luggage.
Another small fragment, found embedded in a piece of shirt, helped identify the
type of timer. This
evidence led to two Libyan intelligence operatives. In November 1991, the U.S.
and Scotland simultaneously indicted the pair for planting the bomb. On January
31, 2001, after years of working to extradite the men and bring the case to trial,
Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi was found guilty of the crime. The co-defendant was
found not guilty and released. Recently,
the Libyan government formally accepted responsibility for the bombing and has
agreed to pay nearly $3 billion to the victims' families. FBI
Director Robert Mueller, who headed up the investigation while Assistant Attorney
General of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, recently described
the impact the case had on him personally: "The
constables in charge of the Scottish end of the investigation had constructed
a small wooden warehouse in which were stored the various effects of those who
were on the plane when it broke apart in the skies: a white sneaker never again
to be worn by the teenager; a Syracuse sweatshirt never again to be worn by the
Syracuse student, and other such everyday pieces of clothing and personal belongings.
These ordinary items brought home to me, and came to symbolize for me, the pain
and the loss felt by those whose family, friends, or colleagues died that evening." It
is that loss that we remember and honor today. And it is horrific cases such as
these that strengthen the FBI's resolve to help prevent acts of terrorism in the
future. | 
